Define Spy

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17

Danni and I don't go back to the school yet. Plus, the last bell was going to ring in a few minutes, so why bother? I didn't really know where we were going, somewhere in the center of downtown, LA. I haven't been there since the coffee shop ambush. We walked around the streets mindlessly, watching pigeons hop around, eating scraps of bread and whatever they could find. The bell would have rung right now, and I could imagine hearing it echo throughout the school, inside and out. But I actually didn't hear it from all the way over here.

I never remembered what Danni and I talked about, just random topics that happened to come up. Things about school, things about life. Things that we questioned and just never understood. I even brought up my parents, about how they use to take me to the city streets of London to clear their minds in the late afternoon, but realized that I needed the clearing too. And how I never noticed how alike my parents were to me.

I didn't tell Danni this, but my mom never wanted to have kids, either. Said that she couldn't handle all the pressure with what pressure she was already in, balancing missions and crazy questions that was so hard to find out. But that was before she met my dad.

My father was a spy too, which was kind of ironic but cliché at the same time. I guess it kind of makes sense since they were recruited into the same agency. But their agency was destroyed now; every headquarters in the world was burned to the ground, except one in London England. And I can't help but think that it played a part of my parents leaving on that late night. But now I don't know what to believe.

I never remembered the big parts of when my parents were still here. I only remember things like waiting for them to come home from "work" which was late at night, but I refused to eat dinner without them. And when we would always go to Manorbier beach when they didn't work and looked above the clifftop to where the Manorbier castle stood.

My parents never told me that they were spies. Mr. Collins explained everything when Parker turned twelve; the age of a first spy's training, as I stood two years behind him. It was all confusing and overwhelming, hearing that from someone else than my parents, and it still is.

But it's easier to drop it and move on instead of mourning over their deaths. I'm still not sure if I'm mad at them for leaving. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe something happened that wasn't supposed to. I'm more of confused than mad. But being confused is as worse. At least when you're mad you have a reason and answers for it. I'm confused, and I wish I did have more to the story. But if I did, then it all would be too good to be true.

Danni and I walk along the more nature part of LA. (which is hard to believe, I know) There' s this small creek passed the alleyways and behind the shops, hidden and enclosed by some outgrown trees. We stop at a bench and sit down, as I pick up a stone and toss it into the creek, watching it skip off with the ripples. Danni copies me, and with a flick of his wrist we watch his stone skip off and disappear too.

"You must be thinking as much as I am." Danni shakes his head. I watch the white foam surface at the end of created tides that the water had made.

"You're right." I nod solemnly.

"You know Ariana, I wish I could tell you everything I'm thinking right now." he sighs, frustrated. I don't look at him though.

"I wish that too. But sometimes I don't even know what I'm thinking." I chuckle a little bit after a moment. "Sounds crazy, right?"

"No. I know what you mean. It's hard," Danni rests his elbows on his knees. "This."

I don't know what he means by "this" but I don't feel like asking. Instead, I toss more stones into the creek.