No Rest For The Wicked
"Persistent residue of the departed. Always a problem this time of year." - Frank Bannister, The Frighteners
I have no idea why the six hours between when I changed and the dinner 'date' Jesse and I were going on passed so slowly. It wasn't a date, it wasn't anything special and Jesse did not like me, whatever my feelings for him might be. Yet I still found myself whiling away the hours by practicing my kickboxing technique in Marta's old bedroom.
Marta had not appeared since the night I had that awful nightmare so I assumed that she was making herself scarce, like I told all the ghosts to do. Paul, of course, didn't listen and materialised a few times over the course of the afternoon to criticise my technique. I was too happy to use him as a punch bag after those comments. Somehow all I could think about was the fact that Jesse and I were going to a restaurant...together. I had been so long since I had been in a restaurant, never mind alone with a hot guy.
Jesse appeared around quarter to six to take me down to the car and I am sad to say that I ran down the stairs, almost stumbling on the last few. I heard a childish giggle behind me and when I looked up the stairs I saw Marta waving at me.
"Have fun," she laughed before dematerialising.
I waved my hand dramatically and continued towards the front door. I felt kind of glamorous, despite not being dressed up. The cami I wore pulled in at all the right places and made me seem slimmer than I actually am. The jeans hung low on my hips and they ended just before they reached the floor. I hate it when I am walking on the bottom of my jeans. When I feel the hem through the soles of my Converse it always makes me think that I have stepped on something and it makes me really self conscious.
I had switched my cream hoodie for a black one which was slightly warmer. The weather lately has been no joke. I got goose bumps just from sprinting to the car. Fortunately Jesse's Chevy had the ability to heat the inside of the car, unlike mine which only ever got heated beneath the bonnet.
Jesse wasn't dressed up but he couldn't exactly choose what to wear when he was working tonight. He wore black trousers which hung very nicely on him and a plain white loose T-shirt beneath his black police jacket. Even though he had not intended to dress up he still looked rather dashing. But I'm pretty biased because I'm kind of in love with him. It was the only way to explain that tight feeling in my chest every time I looked at him. It felt like the reaper was crushing my heart, only he wasn't squeezing hard enough to kill me. It made me wish that the real reaper (either one) would appear and get it over and done with because this sucks. It hurts like hell and sure isn't a joke.
Jesse was silent for most of the journey, smiling occasionally to himself. I didn't question his actions. I gave up trying to understand him shortly after I met him. I simply hummed along to the radio on my own, trying to see where exactly we were going.
The restaurant that we pulled up to was one I did not recognise. I could see the museum in the distance as Jesse drove the car up a winding path. I was sort of unnerved by the atmosphere that the restaurant seemed to have. Oh, it wasn't bad, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was good...too good. It looked like one of those old English pubs that you see in the movies. At least from the outside; I could see through the large windows that the interior seemed like a cross between posh and medieval. And it was much bigger than any English pub.
I was so in awe of the establishment that I didn't realise that Jesse had exited the car until he was opening the passenger door for me. He did this a lot, I noticed. The only difference was that this time he held out his hand to help me up. I was flattered by this small gesture and felt my eyelids flutter rapidly as I took his hand. I hope he didn't notice.
"Are you okay, querida?" he asked, making his voice all soft and swoon-worthy. "You seem uneasy."
I laughed nervously.
"I'm fine...I'm not nervous at all," I lied, stumbling a little which only served to negate my assurance. Fortunately Jesse just found this funny and laughed lightly.
Now that I had an unobstructed view of the restaurant's exterior I could see that it even had ivy growing up one corner. It added to the general cosy feel of the place.
As we made our way to the glass doors Jesse slipped an arm around me. Oh, it wasn't in a romantic way or anything, much to my disappointment. It was simply a friendly gesture and probably a way to steady me. His hand rested in the small of my back and I instantly thought of a scene from the movie 'Hitch'. Hitch was trying to teach that guy from King of Queens how to woo the girl of his dreams and he was telling him about the 'hand rule'. Put simply, if you put your hand too low on someone's back you are making it appear like you only want a night in the sack. But if you place your hand too high it basically says that you only like that person as a friend. Of course, this is a subconscious action but subconscious actions always reveal our true feelings. They can't lie.
It is strange how at that moment I began to attempt to figure out where about Jesse's hand was on my back. I could feel his fingers pressed against the base of my spine, roughly where you see those curly tattoos on many women. I didn't know if this was the 'love not lust' position but I did know that it sparked some pretty intense feelings within me. And strangely enough, they weren't sexual feelings. I really didn't get it. I'm a sexually active woman (well, ok, I haven't exactly been active for two years, but you get my meaning) so I know what it feels like to want someone. So it really unnerved me when I just wanted Jesse to hold me. Sure, if he wanted to get freaky then I wasn't exactly going to argue, but this felt...deeper. I had never felt this way before, not even around Paul. Hell, I had felt nowhere near this good when I was with Paul.
I really need to get a grip on myself. It's a hand for God's sake, a freaking hand! What would happen if he ever kissed me? I'd probably evaporate.
He smiled at me as we strolled through the restaurant doors and I felt this weird fluttery feeling in my chest. I rolled my eyes at my stupid feelings.
My first thought as I looked around was 'oh, shit'. Seriously. Ok, so I wasn't the only person who was wearing jeans but I was probably the only person wearing an outfit that cost under two hundred dollars. Jesse aside, but he was dressed for work...I was dressed up.
"Jesse, maybe this was a bad idea," I muttered, turning to leave. He gripped my upper arm with one of his large hands and pulled me back towards a little wooden podium thing.
"Querida, you look amazing," he assured me, obviously having realised why I felt so uncomfortable.
My mouth fell open at this compliment. I wasn't sure if he had said it to make me feel better or because he actually meant it but I appreciated the thought.
Jesse spoke to the Maitre D' and we were led to a table in the centre of the dining room, just next to a column which was heavily decorated with real plants (though they were all in baskets way above our heads). It seemed rather...romantic and I noticed the Maitre D' surreptitiously wink at Jesse as he left, signalling that this wasn't the table he had in mind when it was a brother-sister lunch. It appears that cupid is a man in a tux with a serious moustache problem.
The menu that stood on the table in front of me was confusing to say the least. I ordered pasta because it was all that I recognised. It had some strange-named stuff on it but I figured that I could pick off what I didn't like.
I wasn't used to places like this. Usually my lunch consisted of leftovers from the previous day (more than likely a pizza) or a sandwich I had prepared in haste. I hadn't set foot in a place this 'posh' since way before Paul died. It made me feel uncomfortable. I was aware of how out of place I was and how much I did not deserve to be here.
Jesse began to talk to me - just chatting - but my mind was elsewhere. I took in his smile and how happy he seemed and all of a sudden the restaurant wasn't the only thing that was bugging me.
"So, tell me about your friends," he said as the waiter placed our drinks on the table (soda all around...Jesse was working later and I'm not much of a big drinker). "The, um..." He looked awkward as he tried to think of a 'polite' way to describe my housemates.
"The dead ones?" I asked, apparently shocking him with my straight-to-the-point attitude.
He nodded slowly, averting his eyes from mine. I couldn't help but giggle a little. The first time he met he was calling me a fraud and now he was asking me about my ability? Well, alright, he was probably only asking to make conversation.
"What is there to know?" I asked. I took a swig of soda from my glass before I continued. " Morgan Lane was twenty-five years old when she died. She had a heart condition but ran track for a local athletics club. She was working out at the local gym one day two years ago when she suffered a serious heart attack. I was in the hospital as an outpatient when she died. I found her wandering around the hallways, trying to speak to the doctors. She doesn't know why she hasn't moved on and I honestly don't think that she cares anymore. She can run for as long as she likes now and she doesn't get tired. Ralph Hutchinson died way before I was born. He was in a pretty bad car accident. He didn't stand a chance. Paul and I had been trying to mediate him for a few weeks before he died, too. They became my best - and only - friends after everything that went down with the lawyers and such."
I rotated the half-full glass in my hands, watching in fascination as the ice cubes swirled around in the dark liquid.
"What about Paul?" Jesse asked. It was the one question I really didn't want to answer. Even after two years it was still a rather sore subject. I felt so much guilt for just sitting here with Jesse despite knowing how much Paul didn't want me to be here. Of course, my life had nothing to do with Paul but I felt like I owed it to him to mourn his passing. If only I had been thinking more rationally when I drove round that bend...
"Paul," I spoke. "He still hangs around but all he does is cook, clean and complain. It's a lot more than he did when he was alive, but whatever. He confuses the hell out of me. Some days I wonder why I ever went out with him and others I wonder why I didn't cut him some slack. He was a good guy. He didn't deserve to die the way he did...not for me. I wasn't..."
I broke off and closed my eyes, feeling that horrible prickly sensation in the corners of my eyes. I was about to say that I wasn't worth dying for. Because that was why Paul had died; he was trying to save our relationship when he jumped into the car. But why? Sure, I guess that I was something back then but you just don't get into a car with a pissed-off woman.
"So..." I said before he had the chance to say anything. "What about you? You know all these things about me and I hardly know anything about you." Yet I obviously knew enough about him to fall in love with him. "I know about your sisters and how devoted you are to them...I know that you are a cop, though you obviously don't want to be. I know that you are twenty-four years old. I also know that you drive an 05 Impala...What about the things that really matter? Like where you grew up, what kind of music you like, favourite movies, friends?"
I realised that the movies and music part wasn't important at all but I wasn't going to ask him only personal questions. I didn't want to seem too intrusive.
But he obviously didn't think that I was being intrusive at all.
"I grew up in Pacific Grove," he said with a little laugh. "I moved to Chicago when I studied medicine at college before moving back here when I was twenty-two. I love all music, my favourite movie is The Godfather, and I suppose that most of my friends are my colleagues in the PD and interns at the local hospital. Most of my childhood friends moved away to go to college."
"Medicine," I echoed, somewhat impressed. Intelligent and hot. You don't see that often. Though he had already told me that he once studied medicine. "But aren't you only twenty-four? Why were you interning? Don't you usually intern at the end of your degree?"
"It was complicated," he said. "I studied a lot when I was at high school. My parents are very successful and really wealthy because of it and I guess I thought I owed it to them to be as smart as they are. Though I was always interested in medicine, so it wasn't really that difficult. Anyway, when the time for college came it turned out that thanks to my studies I didn't need to do a pre-med year. In the third year of my degree I had the option to intern alongside my studies as long as I chose shifts around my lessons. I wasn't allowed as much freedom as the final-year med students but I was allowed to look after the less...serious patients. But...that's all in the past."
I involuntarily thought back to his revelation about the copycat killer. Martin and Gregory Newman destroyed so many lives. There were their victims, the friends and family of their victims, those who died at the hands of the copycat killer and their friends and family...friends like Jesse. You just needed to look in his eyes to see the abundance of intelligence that he possessed. He could have been a doctor, he could have saved lives. But thanks to that one night (and the chain reaction of events that followed it) he was stuck in a job that he obviously didn't like doing (though he had yet to admit it). He could have been so much more...just like me.
But the person to suffer most from the aftermath of the massacre? Georgina Holloway. She was Martin's girlfriend at the time of the shootings so it made sense that she was implicated. Though I guess the fact that she was found in the hospital, clutching a shotgun didn't help. She was so young...young and in love.
"So..." I said, wanting to keep the conversation flowing. "Why a cop? Out of all the jobs you could have had, why become a cop?"
I thought I saw a flicker of something foreign in Jesse's eyes but I can't be certain. They seemed to darken for a split second before he composed himself. When he spoke, he couldn't look me in the eyes.
"My girlfriend at the time was a cop," he explained. "She worked in Chicago and when I left college she moved back to Carmel with me and joined the police force here. She helped me get the job and..."
He shook his head lightly and sighed.
I was curious, I'll admit it. I wanted to know more about this girl. Was she competition? Was he still seeing her secretly? But he seemed so bothered by talk of her. Was it a bitter break-up? Did she leave him for someone else? It was obvious that he cared about her.
"So does she still work in Carmel?" I asked, all logic flying out of the window. Why did I pry?
"No," he replied instantly, finally looking into my eyes. "We were partners for a while, then she...left. We had an argument and I was never given the chance to apologise."
I laughed a little (though it was devoid of humour) and placed a hand over his.
"So I guess we're both losers in love, huh?" I laughed. "I had a huge argument with Paul the day he died. He was as stubborn as anything and got into the car with me and...well, you know the rest. I keep wondering if I would have been the one to die...you know, if he had stayed at the house."
I sighed deeply (this conversation was turning into somewhat of a sighing competion) when he didn't reply and looked up to see what his problem was. That was when I realised that his eyes were fixed on my hand...the one that casually lay on top of his. Not that he seemed to mind. In fact, I am pretty sure that his thumb stroked mine. Maybe it was wishful thinking, I don't know. What I do know was that we both looked up at the same time. Needless to say, our eyes met.
It was rather haunting, that moment. Though in a perfectly good way. There was something in Jesse's eyes that had not been present before. It brought me down because I could see that whatever it was was getting to him. But there was also something else in there...something that had been in his eyes for the past day or so but had not been there when we first met.
He leaned forward slightly and his head moved an inch closer to mine. It was like that moment on his parents' staircase all over again. All I needed to do was move forward myself and we would be close enough to kiss.
Close enough to kiss.
Something hit me like a bag of cement. I don't know what it was (maybe it was the fact that Jesse could move forward a few more inches himself but didn't or that I could hear 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' playing in the background) but it made me pull my hand away from his and jerk backwards, almost falling over the back of my chair in the process.
Fortunately the waiter chose that moment to appear with my pasta and whatever Jesse had ordered so I didn't have to hear whatever Jesse was going to say (which would probably have been something like "haha, you seriously thought I was going to let you kiss me?"...or not. Jesse isn't like that, not really).
The rest of the meal was awkward to say the least. Fortunately though, it was over soon and we were heading back to the car.
"I wasn't lying earlier," Jesse announced when we both slid into his car. "You do look amazing." Then he muttered something in Spanish, which I didn't understand.
"What?" I snorted in disbelief. "In my cami and jeans? The sad thing is that these are my best clothes."
To my surprise he didn't laugh, nor did he show any sign of finding what I said even slightly amusing.
"Querida, you look beautiful," he insisted. "I hate women who dress up just to impress people. You never know who they really are. You seem so confident despite your situation. Any other woman would have fallen apart."
I laughed at his assumption. If only he knew the price I pay not to 'fall apart'. I cheat, lie, manipulate and deceive. In a way, I was just like Paul...except magnified. Paul's behaviour used to shock me but at least he seemed willing to change for me. Now he was a good, honest guy. Sure, he was as annoying as hell and just would not stop sticking his nose in my affairs, but he wasn't bad or anything. Paul didn't like who I became after his death so why the hell should Jesse? If he ever found out what I did to his sisters...
I suppose I push people away as a defence mechanism. My hard exterior hides the pain that I still feel inside. I can't afford to lose my composure because if I did...well, I would probably cry myself to death. Which isn't actually possible, but you get my meaning.
Usually it takes a few days or weeks for an individual to come to terms with the death of a loved one. For me it had taken two years and I still haven't fully come to terms with Paul's death. Ok, so I doubt that I really loved him but I still cared about him a lot. When you depend on someone, they become your whole life. They become your support, so to speak. And everyone knows what happens when you remove the support from a building. It comes crashing down, breaking into countless pieces. It can never be put back together. Even if you find all the fragments of stone there are still the parts that have turned to dust. Those parts can only be replaced. You have to build it up again, something I have been trying to do for two whole years (both physically and metaphorically).
"Thank you," I whispered, my hand shooting out (totally of its own accord) and placing itself over the hand that Jesse was resting on the gear stick. "For everything that you have done for me. You didn't have to help me at all but you did. You gave me a place to stay, you are looking after me. Thank you."
He blushed slightly and muttered that it was nothing.
The strangest thing was that he didn't even attempt to move his hand, or to push mine away.
In fact, he curled his fingers around my own.
AN - I decided to cut this chapter in half. Things are going to start picking up from here.
Querida101 - Thank you :). My family is doing good but the tests could have went better, lol. Thanks for the review :).
Craziness-n-love - Thanks :). I kind of blurted the 'lost in his eyes' bit out, lol. Thanks for the review!
Emmohdee - Haha, I lost faith in alerts ages ago. Things will become apparant soon...hopefully. The date may have been a tad disappointing but I have a clear idea of where their friendship is going to go :). Thanks for the review!
Sharkina - I usually feel weird when I'm writing descriptions...I hope that people picture it the same way that I do, lol. Thanks for the review!
Isolde Eris - Due to the 'date' lasting longer than I had intended it to, you will have to wait until next chapter to find out what happens at the museum, lol. Thanks for the review!
The rating for this story may go back up soon...I don't know what the boundries are as far as violence and horror goes.
