Chapter Two
I pulled into my driveway, parking the car quietly and hurrying into the house before anyone could notice it was me and not my dad. I had a couple of minutes to relax before I had to hurry off to work at Clarissa's parents shop. They had hired me a couple of months ago when I'd started raising money to buy my own car, but now the money I earned went only to buy my dinners and pay the bills.
You can tough it out a few more months. When you're eighteen, everything will be easier. But I know I'm wrong. College will not be an option, as there is no money to pay for it, and absolutely no chance of getting any scholarships. I'll just have to find some kind of work for the next few years. Or, you could sell the house to get money for college, and hope you have enough when you're out of college. While this wasn't a bad idea, there wasn't a guarantee I could sell the house, or that I'd want to. This was the house I grew up in, the house filled with memories from my first word to my first time driving. From my mother's death to my father's.
Pouring myself a cup of water, I lounged on the couch with a book for about half an hour before changing into my uniform and driving towards Main Street, where Clarissa's family store was.
Mrs. White smiled wide at me when I walked in, and I returned it passionately. Just as I'd known Clarissa since second grade, her parents had been second parents to me. My mother had died around the time I'd met Clarissa, and her mom gratefully filled the missing link in my family. Whenever she took Clarissa out for a Girl's night, or explained to her what came with growing up, I was graciously accepted into the group. When most girls would have gone to their own mothers for advice, I went to Clarissa's. She'd helped me cope with life without a mother.
"What do you need today, Mrs. White?" I asked as I hung my bag on the hook behind the counter and set up the register.
"Well, inventory's done, and Rosetta cleaned this morning, so there isn't really anything besides running the register to be done." She answered, going into the back room that held the stairs leading to their real home on the second floor. Rosetta was the maid that usually worked up in their large home, but occasionally came down to clean the store, for which I was grateful. I was their only employee, and without her, the job would go to me instead.
Lounging back in the chair behind the counter, I made a quick glance around the beautiful shop, now empty of people. The products ranged from bouquets of flowers to wedding dresses, but genuinely was a woman's paradise. The shop was brilliantly named The Woman in White after the family's favorite musical. Knowing the customers wouldn't begin to file in until around four, I pulled out a book and read for the next hour or so.
When a usual customer, Ms. Brinkerhoff came into the shop, I put the book away and made small talk with her until multiple women began to file in. Helping each individually and running the register at the same time proved more challenging today than normal, with a larger number of customers in the shop at once. I was constantly busy during rush hours for the shop, which were usually from four to six, but lasted more until seven today. I normally don't get off until nine, but after six have plenty of time to do my homework behind the counter, and usually receive dinner from the Whites.
Since business had been more chaotic than usual, the Whites hadn't had time to prepare dinner tonight, and I'd had less time to work on my homework. The bell on the door rang, but I didn't bother look up as I was in the middle of a tough problem and figured Mrs. White could handle her. A few moments later, a large hand came down on top of my textbook and I was interrupted from my thoughts. Looking up, irritated, but smart enough not to let it show on my face.
I'm positive I looked more than irritated when I noticed who's hand it was. Jayden stood, smirking, leaning on the counter. It seemed to be his signature position.
"What are you doing here? This is a women's shop. For women. You hardly fit that category." I mutter impolitely at him. Mrs. White grunts from beside me, and I quickly picked up the act. "Sorry, do you need any help?" Mrs. White, pleased, walked away and left us alone.
"How many times am I going to have to tell you this before you understand that I never need any help?" He inquires, his smirk remaining on his face. "I was just exploring Main Street; I'm new in town, you know."
"And you decided to come into a tiny shop called The Women in White?" I demand.
"I noticed you were behind the counter." He replied earnestly, and I give him a scowl. "So, I was thinking, if I've changed your mind of course, that we could go to dinner?" He asked innocently.
I gave him a You're kidding me! look, and motioned around the shop. "I'm working." I told him, trying not to be as impolite as I normally am to him.
Mrs. White emerged from the back room just in time to add, "We're not busy right now. In fact, you've had a rough day today. You can have the rest of the night off, if you'd like." She winked.
I took a deep breath and then turned back to Jayden, who had his eyebrows raised. "Well, what do you think?"
"You're lucky I'm hungry." Is all I say as I pick up my homework and put it back in my bag. "Let me go change." He nods, and I hurry up into the house and into Clarissa's room to find something of hers to wear. Normally, I just leave in my uniform, made of black pants, and black shirt, and a white apron, but I wasn't about to go out to dinner wearing that. Quickly choosing a purple sweater and jeans that I knew she wouldn't miss, I threw it on and ran back downstairs.
I composed myself before walking back into the store, calling goodbye to Mrs. White and following Jayden out the door. "Where would you like to go?" He asks as he leads me to his car, a nice, oddly colored red van. He opened the passenger door for me, and I soon realized that the outside was much nicer than the inside.
The seats were torn, and the windows were covered in fingerprints. There was a thin divider between the front two seats and what I guess was an open area in the back, and I didn't ask what he had back there. It looked as if it had once been a nice car, but an animal had attacked the inside of it.
"Sorry, it's a little messy in here." He apologized as he slid into his seat and started the car.
"What… happened to it?" I ask hesitantly.
"It's old. It was my mother's when she lived here. I found it in the garage when I came back to her house." He lies, and I can tell he knows he's been caught when his voice trails off at the end.
"Your mother never lived here."
"Better to hide behind the lies than face the truth." He mutters back, clenching the wheel.
"Whatever, I don't want to know. Where are we going?" I ask, annoyed.
He turns and watches me for a few seconds. "Giulietta's." My jaw drops. How does he know my favorite restaurant? I search his face for clues, but he just leans over and closes my jaw with his hand, gently. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no. It's just… how did you know?"
"Know what?" He smirks. I fold my arms over my chest and look out the window.
"Never mind. Watch the road."
We rode in silence for the next few minutes, and I watched him drive out of the corner of my eye. Since Giulietta's is also on Main Street, it doesn't take us long to get there. When we pull into the parking lot, he chooses a parking spot far from the entrance and gets out to open my door for me. He doesn't have to do this for me, but I figure it'd be better to go along with it than get out myself before he can make it to my side.
"Thank you." I tell him when he takes my hand to help me down out of the truck. He drops it as soon as I'm on the ground, though.
It surprises me when we are immediately seated even though there are plenty of customers waiting outside. I ask Jayden about it after we order, but he just shrugs and says, "I know the owner."
Another lie. He came into this town without any friends or relatives. Unless he met the owner few days he's been here, he had to of made the reservations hours ago, also meaning he'd known I was working at The Women in White.
"So you do live alone now?" I ask, eying him while I take a sip of my water. He nods. "Where?"
"Redfern Groves. I own a small house near the club house." I knew which neighborhood he meant, it was on the same street as my neighborhood, Rosedale. Both were very unusual names for neighborhoods in the middle of Minnesota, where it snowed more than half the year and plants scarcely grew.
"Where did you live before Lithuania?" I feel bad for interrogating him, but am determined to get some answers.
"Ontario."
"You enjoy the cold." I say, as a statement and not a question.
"It doesn't match my style of living, but I've gotten used to it over the years. I don't have much of a choice." He answers, fidgeting with his napkin. I steal a glance up into his blue eyes, and he forces a smile that doesn't reach them.
I don't ask him what he means by not having a choice. "Why are you here?" I say instead. He cocks his head slightly, puzzled.
"To spend time with you." He replies slowly, hesitating.
"No, why are you in Floodwood? What really brought you here?" I elaborate.
"Dealing with some… troublemakers." He watches his feet.
I raise an eyebrow. "Troublemakers? Are you some kind of undercover cop?" He laughs, shaking his head and looking back at me.
"Not in your sense, but in truth, yes." I deliberate silently over my next question.
"How long have you been in Floodwood?"
"Nine days." He arrived before my dad died, I observe, thinking nothing of it. "Are you done with the interview?" He asks after I've been quiet a few minutes. I blush, nodding.
"Can it be my turn, then?" I nod again. "Do you live alone?
I'm reluctant to answer this truthfully, but I'm relatively sure everything he said was the truth, so I decide to give it to him. "Since my father died, yes. But I'm only seventeen, so no one can know." I add, and he nods in understanding.
"You don't have to answer this, if you don't want to. But, when did your father die?"
Amazingly, this question doesn't bother me. "Seven days ago." He raises his eyebrows but changes the subject.
"Where do you live?"
"Very original questions." I mutter sarcastically. "Rosedale. It's down the street from Redfern Groves." We sit in silence for a few moments, and his blue eyes twinkle in the dim lighting of the restaurant. He places his hand on top of mine on the table and strokes my thumb gently.
"Thanks for coming with me tonight. You're the first person I've actually gotten close to in the last nine places I've lived." He whispers slowly.
"Didn't you live in Lithuania for three months?"
"Yes."
"Didn't you at least know someone from your school?"
"I didn't go to school." I pull my hand away from his and rest my head on it, watching him suspiciously.
"Who was the last person you were close with?"
He blinks, "She died."
I take my elbow off the table and lean back in my chair, "I'm sorry. If you don't mind my asking, what happened to her?"
Jayden sighs and shifts uncomfortably. "I was living in Siberia at the time. She was the only teenage girl living in the town, so I decided to get to know her. It was my fault, really. I should have protected her."
Despite my curiosity, I decide not to ask him how she died.
The waitress comes back out with our food, but I notice that both of us have pretty much lost our appetites. I take empty bites of my salad while he picks at his steak. From the way he watches me, I can tell he normally eats a lot, but doesn't want to eat so much in front of me.
"Why do you move around so much?" I ask him, taking another sip of my coke.
"My work."
"You have a job?" His eyes roam around the room, refusing to meet mine right in front of him.
"In theory, no." I raise my eyebrows, and he finally looks at my face. "But I've been working as long as I can remember. My father dragged me into it; I never had much of a choice."
Again he mentions not having a choice. "What about your mom?"
"I never knew her." He puts down his fork and pushes his nearly untouched plate off to the side and leans toward me on the table. "You never told me what happened to your parents."
"I found my mother dead on my living room floor ten years ago. We never found whoever killed her." Jayden takes my hand apologetically from across the table, and I make no move to pull it away. "I'd lived with my dad, until…" I decide not to tell him that the exact same thing happened to my father. It was so recent, and I honestly don't want to know if Jayden knows more about it then I do.
"I'm so sorry. You've only been living by yourself for a week, though?" I nod, and he leans back, still holding my hand. "Isn't that somewhat dangerous, for a teenage girl?"
"How about you? I'm just as qualified to take care of myself as you are." I retaliate.
"There's a reason eighteen is the legal age for adults."
"Two months isn't going to change how safe I am living alone." I argue back. "Besides, Floodwood has the lowest crime rate in Minnesota." I take my hand out of his to cross my arms over my chest.
The only two people that have ever been killed here are my parents. Instead of mentioning this, I let him think what I've said over in silence.
After a few minutes, he begins to laugh quietly to himself. I wait for him to calm down and then cock my head slightly, waiting for him to elaborate. "What?"
"Nothing." His face goes serious. "You just, you're so beautiful."
Shocked at hearing this, I sit speechless. "Y-you think I'm beautiful?" I stammered back at him.
"You are beautiful." He responded softly. "Especially your eyes." He leaned over and cupped my cheek in his hand, looking deeply into my green eyes. At the moment, I knew nothing in the world could be more beautiful than him, though. His blue eyes sparkled as they reflected mine and the moonlight, his lips slightly parted and I felt his hot breath on my neck.
For a moment, I expected him to lean in and kiss me, but instead he touched my lips gently with his fingertips and leaned back into his seat. We sat watching each other in silence until the waitress came and picked up our nearly untouched plates and hand him the check.
I thought about arguing over who was going to pay, but knew it was a worthless cause, and that he probably had more money than I did anyway. He stood up to leave and took my hand as we walked out of the restaurant, and I no longer wanted to pull away from his touch.
When we got to his car, he opened the door for me, and when I had trouble buckling the seat belt, he reached over and did it for me. I gasped quietly when his arm brushed my stomach and my heart was beating so loud I knew he could hear it.
He put the car into gear and asked, "Is it ok if I take you somewhere before I drop you off at your house?"
"That depends on where you mean." I trusted him, but wasn't sure I wanted him taking me places against my own will yet.
He took a deep breath, "The cemetery."
I'd been to the cemetery before to visit my mom's grave, but never at night. And always alone. It had been over a year since I'd last taken a trip there though, and I did want to put something of my dad's with her so they could be together, if possible.
I fingered his lucky guitar pick, which I had been wearing on a string as a necklace for the past week. It belonged with my mom. "Sure, we can go."
"Good, I want to show you something." He added, turning into the parking lot at the cemetery, located very close to Main Street.
"What could you possibly have to show me at a cemetery in a city you've never been in before nine days ago?" I muttered under my breath, not anticipating for him to hear or respond.
"I never said I've never been here before." He said, getting out of the car. "I wasn't lying when I said my mom was born here. She lived her whole life here. I just lived with my Dad."
"How did your mom die?" I asked, shivering as a cold wind blew.
"She had a stroke." He answered, looking down. This lie wasn't as obvious as the others had been, but I was almost positive it wasn't the complete truth. "Are you cold?" He asked, changing the subject.
I shook my head, but my teeth began to chatter, and he took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. "Thanks," I said, hurrying after him as he changed the direction he was walking.
"It's so much bigger than it was a year ago." I thought out loud, taking in the hundreds of new tombstones in the cemetery.
"You were here a year ago?" He inquired.
"My mom is buried here. I used to visit her all of the time, until about a year ago. I've been meaning to come up here after my dad… passed away, but I hadn't gotten the chance, until now."
He took another sharp turn, and began heading in the direction I remembered my mom's grave to be. I figured it was just another coincidence that he wanted to show me something near where I wanted to go, but every step he took led me closer to her grave until we were standing right in front of the all-too familiar tombstone.
I bent down and ran my fingers over the engraved letters, reading them silently in my head. Marissa Claire Polk-Mckenzie, April 1st, 1969-October 3rd, 2000. It was a plain stone, and there wasn't any other writing to describe her. My mother and father had been in the middle of a very big fight when she was killed, and he hadn't even paid for her funeral. I pulled the necklace out from beneath my shirt and took it off so I could hold it in my hand.
Now that I think about it, the only reason my parents had stayed together for so long had been me. My dad was much happier after she died, although he never started dating again.
Jayden knelt down beside me and put his hand on the small of my back, and I didn't flinch away from him. "This is your mom's grave?" He asked, surprised. I looked back at him.
"Yeah." My hair blew back in his face when another strong wind came, and he smiled, brushing it back behind my ear.
He noticed the necklace in my hand, "What's this?" He asked, cradling my hand in his so he could look at it closely.
"My dad's lucky guitar pick. I've kept it with me since he died." I placed the pick on the tombstone, tying it around a chunk of rock jutting out from the tomb. "It belongs here." He held my hand encouragingly for a few minutes. "What did you want to show me?"
"I was going to show you my mother's grave."
"Oh." I stood up, thinking he was going to lead me somewhere else. "Where is it?"
He stood up beside me and pointed to the large statue that had always been right next to my mother's grave. I remember as a child hating it because it made her bland tombstone look poor compared to its beauty. It surprised me that I'd never read it before.
"Is that her?" I asked quietly, staring in awe up at the beautiful statue.
"I don't know. I don't remember what she looked like." He said, going over and tracing the pattern on the statue's dress.
"It's such a coincidence that our mother's were buried right next to each other." I thought about the layout of the cemetery, "When did she die?"
"October 4th, 2000." He said from memory, though the dates were on a plate right in front of him.
"That's the day after my mom died." I stated, crossing my arms. "That explains why they're buried next to each other… Do you know how your mom died?"
He hesitated and turned away from me. "No."
I sighed in frustration. "When are you going to stop lying to me?"
"I'm not lying to you." He whispered, holding my elbows so I had to look at him. "I never knew my mom, or how she died."
"I'm not talking about your mom, Jayden. Over half of everything that you've told me all day was a lie, and don't try to tell me otherwise."
I turned to walk towards the exit, noticing that the gates were closed and locked. "Crap. What time is it?" He shrugged, so I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. 9:03. "We're locked in."
"Hardly." He laughed, but there was a nervous ring to it. "C'mon, we need to hurry." Taking my arm, he pulled me quickly towards the nearest part of the fence.
I ripped my arm out of his grasp. "What's the sudden rush?" I was being stubborn now.
"Do you enjoy hanging out in cemeteries in the dark?" He asked rhetorically, taking my hand and practically running to the fence.
"Are you… scared of the dark?" I was laughing at him now.
He stopped to glare back at me. "Hardly." He repeated. "It's your safety I'm nervous for, at this point." He began walking quickly, and I followed him, confused.
"My safety? Jayden, we're the only people in this cemetery. The only person who could do anything to harm me is you."
"We're not as alone as you think." He told me as we reached the fence. He tried to boost me, but I stood my ground, waiting for him to elaborate.
"Elina, please. I'll explain later, just climb." I sighed and began to climb, using the iron bars as footrests, and his arm was guiding me. He helped me climb over the top and when I was back on the ground on the other side, he jumped back down in the cemetery.
"What are you doing?" I exclaimed.
"Here's the keys to my car. Drive it back to Main Street, leave it at the shop, and drive your own car home." He held them out but I refused to take them.
"What are you going to do in there?" I asked him. "I'm not just going to leave you here!"
"Nothing, I'll be fine. Just go!" He held out the keys again, glancing worriedly back into the dark cemetery.
"I'll walk back to Main Street." I said, turning, but he caught my wrist.
"You're not walking alone at night." He argued back.
"Then I guess I'll have to wait until you finish doing whatever you plan on doing in there."
"No. Elina, please take my car. Trust me, I'll be fine. Please, go." His eyes were begging me to agree, but anger flashed through them every time he whipped his head back around towards the cemetery.
"Fine." I gave in. Whatever he was going to do, I didn't want to have anything to do with it. So I took the keys and walked back over to his red van, climbing in and starting it before looking back towards the cemetery and watching Jayden sprint abnormally fast out into the dark.