Simple Needs

$15

Leah came back, a frustrated look on her face. She looked surprised to see me and Theo, but a cheap smile was on her face so quickly that I wondered if I'd really seen anything else. 

"Is everything alright?" I asked, the frustrated look, brief as it was, burned into my head.

She nodded. "Yeah. Of course. Sorry, it's just that Ben likes to call me about this time. It's quite sweet actually. What were we talking about?"

Theo cleared his throat. "I was just saying that taking someone's soul has drawbacks. A lot of them."

She picked at her food. "And what you do, Theo. Let people die?"

"No. Just..."

"Just what? What, Theo? When it was someone you cared about it wasn't an issue."

"It's not right."

"It's not like we're taking people out of their homes and condemning them to some kind of hell." She was trying to look him in the eye, failing as he never looked up.

I suddenly felt jittery. "Are there more of you?"

Neither of them seemed like they wanted to be the one to answer. Theo finally answered.

"Including us, there's seven. I don't know if that's just right here or if there are others around the world, but there's more. Yeah."

I was about to open my mouth, but Leah was already talking.

"It's very well organized. Actually, we have rules that we can't break." She stopped short.

Theo seemed to catch on to whatever the elephant in the room was.  "This is different. Besides, no one will know if no one tells."

"If they find out that we told her anything, then we're both done."

"How would anyone find out that you told me anything?" I said, not sure whether it was a question or a reassurance on my part. 

Theo looked at Leah. "The only way anyone would find out is if someone told them."

Leah stared back. "We weren't allowed to do this."

"I had to tell her. She needs to know this."

"Fine, but I won't hesitate to throw you under the bus. I won't bring it up, but I'm not going down for this either." 

I'd never seen my boyfriend look so tired and resigned. "Fine."

I looked at him. "What's going to happen?"

"Nothing. Because no one is going to say a word about this." 

His arms were crossed and I could feel that I wasn't getting any more out of either of them. At least not about them and their unique situation. At least I hadn't gotten to the end of topics I wanted to know more about yet.

"Okay. So, don't mention this conversation. Cool." I paused. "Am I still allowed to ask more questions?"

Theo nodded his head.

"Ok, so Soul Sickness is the soul rotting in the body? Um... how does that happen? Like, how does it start? Why?"

It was Leah that answered. "No one knows. My personal theory is that everyone has a time that they're not meant to die. Like, at this time, this person gets hit by a car. Then, they die. But, that person doesn't die. They decide that they want to walk a different way to work or something, but they don't die. Their soul was only built to last as long as they lived, but they're living longer than expected. So what happens? The soul starts to rot, and the person then has to start dying anyway because their soul simply doesn't exist anymore."

"That's just a theory. No one has any idea how anything involving souls works. Of course, only a few people actually know about Soul Sickness, so..."

"People have written books," I observed.

Leah's nostrils flared. "I know."

Theo chuckled. "Well, the thing about secrecy is that after it gets out, there's no way to take it back really. Discredit it. Suppress it. But not take it back."

I suddenly thought about Daisy. How did she know? Was she one of them?

Leah's face was growing steadily redder. "But no one should share this. I mean, they would regulate us. And then what would happen?"

"Why is regulation bad? Why is telling someone bad?" Theo's hand reached for mine. I didn't think he'd meant to, but he looked at me when I  didn't take it and withdrew it, jamming it in his pocket.

"Do you want to be walking around, everyone afraid of you for doing a good thing?"

"I can't keep a secret from everybody. And don't lie to me. You can't either. You've- Daisy knows too, doesn't she? How do you want to explain that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, keeping a straight face.

"She's the one who explained it to Rose." He said, just like when he used to want me to tell him what I got him for holidays. He was trying to get her to admit it.

"Oh, well I don't know how she would've done that because I never told her anything about his." 

They both kept their cool, but she was going to get caught in a lie soon. I could feel it.

"So then is it possible someone else told her?"

"I doubt it."

"Well then, how does she know?"

"How do you know that she even suspects anything?"

It was my turn to chip in. "She quite literally explained everything to me. I mean, Soul Sickness. You and Theo. Everything."

Leah mumbled under her breath but didn't say anything for a few minutes.

"What's your point, Theo?"

He looked down. "No one can completely keep a secret this big, is my point. The amount of lying, the morality, no one can handle it on their own." 

I fidgeted under the table. It just occurred to me that I hadn't sensed any money in the apartment. Theo and Leah kept bantering, neither of them noticing how withdrawn I'd become. 

She said Ben was rich. And there wasn't a trace of cash in the place. 

Everything was spotless too, as though she didn't really live there. Theo had felt so uncomfortable too, and now I did too.

"I need to go to the bathroom."

Without waiting for a reply, I stood up and left, standing in the hall. Everything felt wrong. It was as though nothing had been used for a long time. There weren't any pictures hanging up. The phone call. There was no way that was her boyfriend...

I had made a mistake. I didn't know exactly mistake I'd made, but I'd made a mistake.