Secrets |

Chapter five | Concealed.

The dark morning sky looked as serene as ever as Julia idly stared out of the window, whilst patiently waiting for her sister to get her school stuff together.

Angel running around and gathering her stuff at the last moment had become a daily routine for the sisters now, and it would often end up with Angel being late but neither of them seemed to mind much. Julia heard mumbling and turned to see Angel fixing her hair and running to grab an umbrella.

"Hurry! We're going to get late..oh God I'm gonna be late again and miss Everett will surely make me re-do my test. I failed, I know for a fact I failed the-

"Failed what?" Angel turned at hearing Julia's voice behind her but ended up losing her balance and tripping over her undone laces; bringing Julia tumbling to the floor with her.

"I'm so sorry Lea are you okay! Please hurry and get up, the bus is going to be here any minute now - please Julia hurry!" Angel rushed out of the door leaving her dishevelled sister behind and struggling to catch up.

Angel had successfully boarded the bus that went towards her school and Julia had resumed her journey to Roma's. Pondering on her way what would happen if she did not go into work today - Julia had not been feeling very well lately and she knew she was developing a mild fever, but if she continued to be reckless and unconcerned towards her health she knew her fever would get worse until it got to the point where she wouldn't have the energy to even discharge herself from bed in the morning. However Julia was no fool and to be on the safe side she had slept last night with a cold compress on her forehead and taken two painkillers in the morning. The purpose of the cold compress though was sincerely defied as Julia found it moulded with her sheets this morning and nowhere near her forehead.

The small bell on top of the green wooden door let Rob know of Julia's presence as she stepped in and instantly began getting the place ready and cleaned for customers. Tying her hair into a lose bun and the plain black apron around her small frame she sped to change the sign on the door to 'open'.

"Why do you always trouble yourself and waltz in early?" Julia turned away from the door at the sound of Rob's tired voice and smiled at the ink that was all over his face.

"Dwayne's quite the artist isn't he? Said he'd turn my face into a 'work of art', he's just like you and he wouldn't give up until I gave in and let him have his way." Rob's hardy laugh spread throughout the café and soon Julia began laughing along too, finding Rob's laugh contagious.

He always made her day.

Rob had gotten ready and dragged Dwayne to school in half an hour
after Julia had promised him that she too, would let him turn her face into a 'work of art'. The café slowly began filling up with familiar and foreign faces and Julia busied herself with orders and tried to rid her mind of any thoughts that led back to the scream in the park. Could it be true? Could he, whoever he was really what everyone claimed him to be. Julia wasn't one to believe rumours but this was one rumour that had her almost convinced. Almost.

Julia spent the small amount of time she had to herself to take out her sketchbook and draw, she had a boatload of pictures she had taken on her canon camera - the very one that Julia had to save up for when she was eighteen. The cool metal of the camera felt relaxing against Julia's hands as she flicked through picture after picture trying to settle on something, anything to draw. However today was one of those days where to Julia, everything felt wrong. Nothing was right and Julia felt on edge, as if she knew something would happen. But Julia was not a believer of anything that involved supernatural thoughts, gut instincts or the nagging voice inside her head that was nearly always full of opposing, destructive thoughts.

Getting frustrated after a while of looking through old and new pictures Julia finally settled on drawing something from the top of her head and at this point she honestly did not care as to what it was. At this moment she was just craving to hear the charcoal slide against the paper and to see the many lines that formed to create the bigger picture.