Dark Dreams

HELP ME

It had been more than a week since I'd met Kiki and, to my surprise, she and I had connected even more during that time. My mother wouldn't let me out, but Kiki and I were sending lots of messages – she hated talking on the phone – and she came to see me at school during her free afternoons. I didn't want to be too optimistic, but perhaps after two long years, I could once again say aloud the word "friend" without thinking that it only referred to "somebody I'd lost".

"I think it's a snail," said Kiki, lying on the ground in the garden of Union Hills, carefully watching the clouds that fluttered gently in the sky on a Monday afternoon. "A snail eating a lettuce leaf."

"What are you talking about?! Snails' shells are round whereas that cloud is mountain-shaped," I said, looking in the direction that Kiki's finger was pointing.

"Now I can see it better," she continued, "it resembles a young Elvis Presley."

"Kiki..." I sighed, sitting up on the grass, "You have too much imagination for this game."

She did the same and sat opposite me. "Do you want one?" she asked, taking a glass bottle from the small red Gucci backpack she had on.

"No, you know I don't drink," I replied. "And I'm still underage."

"Precisely!" she said, smiling. "You have to drink when you're young and strong, not when you're old and decrepit."

I rolled my eyes.

"We haven't found anything in these photos yet," I noted sadly, removing them from the bag.

"Real detectives know how to be patient," she said, adjusting an invisible mustache. "I'm sure fate will send us clues when we least expect it."

"I'm not so convinced about that strange theory," I observed, perplexed. "What if... I ask Urban Skull to help me? He hates the rich and even more than that he hates the Goldmist bourgeoisie committing crimes."

Kiki burst out laughing.

"You're talking about Urban Skull as if he were a supermarket!" she said, holding back tears. "The police have been looking for him for years and you think there's some kind of form to ask him for help?"

"Well..." I sighed, defeated. "I hadn't thought about the fact that there's no way of contacting him".

And she was off again.

"How's it going, girls?" asked Jay, springing from behind me without warning.

Seized by fear and embarrassment, I began cracking my knuckles one after the other at the speed of light. My eyes were unable to look at anything other than his soft, sweet lips and, like a broken film, my mind projected the image of our kiss accompanied by a sweet melody.

"Sarah?" he asked, bringing me back to reality.

"Never mind her, darling," said Kiki, throwing herself around his neck. "She was just thinking about how handsome you are." She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Kiki!" I hissed.

"You'd better make a move, otherwise someone else might steal her," she said, laughing. Then she turned to me and winked, "That someone might just be me."

It had taken me just a few days to get used to Kiki's exuberance. As far as Jay was concerned, they'd grown up together and she regarded him as her younger brother, like Dick.

Jay bit his lower lip. After a few seconds, he came up to me. Too close for my heart to resume beating regularly.

"We haven't managed to speak since..."