Chapter 14.
Jessica's Point of View.
I was driving home from the vet, feeling excited to tell some news to Michael. Last night we made the guest room his own and I think he likes it. He doesn't sleep in his bed but always sneaks into my room to sleep, but I don't mind that because he was probably out most the night. "We'll be back soon enough." I say to the was who was sleeping in the carrier. Her paw wasn't broken but she had a slight muscle strain on the leg.
When we arrive back I get her out of the car quickly. "Do you think that they have wrecked the house?" I ask her with a smile. She was such a good girl. She meowed happily and I laugh. "Let's go and see!" I say to her happily but stop when I see that Tammy was walking towards me with her kids following closely behind her. "Hello. Can I help you?" I asked her as she stops and puts her hand on her hips. "So you have another cat?" She snapped at me which made me put the cat's carrier behind me. "Yeah. Is there something you needed?" I ask her s I start to slowly back away towards the front door. "Good! Can we have the other one now? My children really love it." She says and I feel awkward already from her question. "Yeah! Its name is going to be PRINCESS!" One of the kids yelled at me which makes my gaze snap towards the house to see if I could make a run for it. "Um-mm… He's a boy. But I need to go! See you around!" I say to them and turn around to walk to the house. "How could you be so cruel to kids?!" She yells at me which made me jump from the loudness of it. "I-I'm sorry!" I yell back from inside and slam the door behind me. I rest my back on the door and let out a sigh. Why were they so crazy? "I'm sorry little one." I say to the cat as I let her out. She seems to be scared too and just runs off to the couch to hide under it. I start to walk to the kitchen but stop at the sight. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" I say loudly and wait for the masked man to turn around. Michael turns around slowly, his mask rolled halfway up his face and he was eating everything that had sugar in from the cupboards. His partner in crime Timmy was eating the cat treats that I had. "Michael!" I yell at him and walk over to them. First taking the cat treats from Timmy so he wouldn't eat them all. Then I turn to Michael and take the chocolate chip cookies away from him. "You can't eat everything while I am gone." I put the cookies away and close the cupboard. I turn to look at Michael, who had a frown on his face. "Don't give me that look. You can't eat sugar all the time!" He shakes his head and tries to open the cupboard door. "If you open that I won't tell you anything about the cat." I say to him which makes him stop. He thinks for a moment but then he huffs and pulls away from the cupboard. He rolls the mask back on his face and walks over to Timmy so he can take the cat in his arms. Timmy starts to purr when he gets attention from Michael. "So the cat will be fine." Michael nods slowly and pets Timmy's head like he was a movie villain. "But I accidentally met her owners." Michael tilts his head as he stops petting Timmy, which makes him meow in annoyance. "But the thing is they don't want her back so I brought her for you right at that spot! They said that her name was Tessa and that she was their daughter's cat but but it seems that the girl ran away with a friend and now they want nothing to do with the cat." I say to him, feeling a smile form on my lips. Michael nods quickly at my words and he seems to be a little excited. "And there is more." He stops and tilts his head to the side. "The reason why they didn't want her back is that she is pregnant. So we're going to have kittens soon." He tilts his head to the other side and points at Timmy. "I'm sure he'll be fine with the kittens." I walk over and take Timmy from him and give him some kisses on his head. "Right my lovely little boy? You got yourself a friend! Be grateful to Michael." I swing him from side to side and he closes his eyes and purrs happily. Suddenly two arms wrap around me and I was pulled to a firm chest. I turn to look at Michael who was giving me a tight hug. "Are you happy?" He nods and puts the masks lips on my cheek. "Oh I just remembered!" I say to him and break free from his hold. "I don't know what the voices do to you but I brought you some medicine if you get headaches from them." I say to him and show him a bottle which I got from my bag. Michael's eyes turn to look at the bottle, his breathing becoming deeper by every passing minute. Timmy jumps away from me and runs to the living room. I look at Michael and understand that he might not have the greatest relationship with any medicine. "Michael, listen!" I sat to him and put the bottle on the kitchen table. His eyes turn to look at the bottle like it was the most awful thing that he has ever seen. "I'm not going to for you to take them. You can use them if you are in pain." I say to him and put my hand on his arm to give it a little rub. He turns to loo at me and I leaned towards him and rest my head on his chest. "I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do." I whisper to him, trying to calm him down. He turns his head to look at me and gives me a little nod. He reaches over to the bottle and takes it in his hand. I look at him a little surprised when he takes one of the pills and rolls the mask up again. He swallows it like it was nothing and just rolls the mask back down. I thought that he wouldn't touch them even if they would save his life. "Do you need any water with that?" I say to him and he shakes his head slowly. I laugh a little and pat his chest. "Usually people drink water right after taking a pill because it's easier like that." I pull back from him to see that Tessa was coming to the kitchen. "Hi there Tessa! Are you hungry?" I ask her and she meows again. I was going to give her the food but Michael pushes me back and walks to the cupboard that has the food. "you can feed her if you want to." I say to him and laugh at the childish tantrum he was having. He puts the cat food into the bowl and shakes it a little. Tessa runs over to him and starts to push herself against his legs. Michael then puts the bowl down and Tessa starts to happily eat her food. "She is going to be a good mommy cat." I say to him while I walk to the living room. Timmy was looking out the window again and I could see that the kids from next door where outside. They were showing Timmy cat treats but he was just ignoring them. "God dammit." I whisper out loud which gets Michael's attention. He tilts his head to the side in confusion. "Those kids are at my window again." I say, feeling frustrated about the whole thing. "They want Timmy so desperately and I'm feeling paranoid they somehow they will get him and I will never get him back." I admit my feelings to Michael who looks sneakily to the living room from the kitchen doorway so the kids wouldn't see him. I walk over there and shut the blinds. I ca hear the kids screaming bloody murder outside and I huff from frustration. I sigh out and turn to look in the kitchen only to see Michael was gone. "And your gone. Nice." I feel a little sad that he wasn't interested in my feelings and didn't listen to them. At least I tried to listen to him even if he didn't talk. I needed to find a way for him to communicate with me. I suddenly feel that something was wrong and I turned to look at the window, only to see that Michael was standing there, looking outside from behind the curtain. "You cant just stand there!" I whisper to him and quickly walk to him. I take hold of his hand and pull him away from the window. "People around here know your mask! You cant be wearing it and look outside in the middle of the day. What if Dr. Loomis sees you? I can't loose you!" I say to him, trying to convince him to stop the stalking and do something else. He looks at me, his breathing was a little harder so I guess he was annoyed when I was ordering him around. "Michael, please. You don't want to go back to the hospital, do you?" His breathing goes back to normal and then he just sighs and shakes his head. "Thank you. You have been good so before you leave tonight, you can eat the rest of the cookies." He seems to perk up from the mention of the cookies and I just laugh at him. "But you need to be good for the rest of the day or I am going to hide the next thing I buy for you while you are out." I say to him with a smile and he gives me one single nod. "Good." I say to him and look at one of the cupboards that had some art supply's in. Then an idea comes to my mind. "Michael! I know how we can talk!" I say to him excitedly as he tilts his head to look at me. "But I need your help." I add as I walk over to the cupboard. "Can you write?" I ask him but he tilts his head. I think that he knows how to write but his handwriting may not be the best. I take a notebook and a pen and give them to him. "Try!" I say to him, feeling excited that I could finally speak with him. He looks at the pen and note book for a while but then he puts the pen on the paper and starts to write something. His hand was a little shaky and I wait patiently for him to finish. I wouldn't like to make him hurry up and get frustrated.
He stops for a while but then turns ti paper to me. His handwriting was sloppy and it looked like a six-year-old has written it but what did I expect when the last time he went to school was when he was six. I tilt my head to look at the writing only to see that there was only one word. Jessica. I take the note book and look at it for a while. I could remember that awful handwriting and I feel tears form. It has really been that long since I had seen him and now some of the memories from our youth were coming back to me. Has it really been fifteen years since I last saw him? "Hmm. It has been so long." I whisper quietly as I turn my head to look at him with a little smile. He nodded and the tilted his head to the side. "I'm sorry that you had to be all alone at the hospital. Did your parents ever come to visit you?" He straightens his head again and lifted his right hand. He lifted his index finger and kept it there for a while until he put his hand on his side. "Only once?" I ask him and he gives me a little nod. Why wouldn't his parents visit him? I know that he killed his sister but still. Judith kind a deserved it because the way she treated him. "I'm sorry to hear that Michael. If I really had known that you were there all this time, I would have run away from home and came to visit you every day." I say to him and give him a tight hug. He just stands still in the hug but then he just rubbed my back. "But now that you are here, I'll make up for the time we were separated." I say to him, excited that I have him back in my life. He nodded and I point at the couch. "Sit there! I'm going to get some photo albums and drinks for us." I say to him and quickly make my way to the storage room that he was hiding in yesterday.
After getting everything I wanted to show him and got some lemonade for both of us I walk back to the living room with a big smile on my face. He was sitting there, his mask was laying on the coffee table. "Here you go." I say to him and give him is drink. He give me a nod and takes a sip from the drink. I put my drink on the table and sit right next to him. I started to show him some photos that were taken when we moved away. At times he got annoyed when he saw me with some of my friends but I just said that they were just friends that were left behind when I moved back here. "And here is a photo of me that was taken at my high school prom." I say to him and point at the photo. His eyes were glued on it as he was tilting his head from side to side. "I wanted to have a more natural look so it's nothing fancy." I say, trying to snap his attention away from it. He lifts his hand and runs his fingers on top of it. "Is something wrong?" H e shakes his head and then turns the page were there was some photos taken with my friends just a week before I moved here. He looked at one of them where I had a wide smile on my face and Timmy was in my arms. "My parents wanted to take that so I would remember how much fun I had when I was at their hoe before leaving. They really didn't want me to move here." I say to him and he nods. He runs his fingers on the photo again but this time he took it from the album. "Michael?" He looks at the photo but then he just puts it in his pocket. I look at him for a while but then I just smile. "You can have that. My parents have so many copies of that." Michael leans back on the couch and he wraps his arm around my shoulders and give my other side a little rub. I give him a smile. It was weird, like he has always been there. "We can take some photos together too if you want. They could be our little secret." I say to him with a little smile. He gives me a small nod and a faint smile. "So what happened to your little sister?" I ask him which erased his faint smile. He points at his knife and I immediately know what he meant. "So you are the last of your family?" He thinks for a moment and then he nods slowly. "Are you sad about that. After all they were your family." I say to him but he shakes his head. I nod at him and then see a photo of Sarah and me. I look at it, her lively smile and eyes. She was so full of life and would forever be in the picture u was looking at right now. I take the photo while I had a sad smile on my face. "Do you think that she'll be upset with me after I didn't call the police or Dr. Loomis to come and get you after you killed her?" Michael looks at me but then he shook his head. He took the photo from me and he put it back into the photo album. He took the photo album from me and put it on the table. "Thank god that you are here. You can leave any time if you want to go." I say to him and shift my gaze to my lap. He put his hand around my wrist and he pulled me towards himself. He puts it on his cheek and just kept it there. I smile and start rubbing his cheek with my thumb. Fifteen years without any love must have been hell for him. "I miss my sister. Did you miss Judith after you killed her?" I ask him but he only shakes his head. "How does it feel to kill someone, to watch someone else die by your hands?" He looks at me for a while and then he just takes the notebook and pen. I look at him nervously, waiting to see his answer. I would never get another chat to talk so casually with a serial killer so why not do it now. Michael stops writing and turns to notebook towards me. Relaxing. The voices go silent for a while. "Did the voices tell you to kill Judith?" He nods and reaches towards the mask. He takes it from the table and puts it on, hiding his handsome face again. "You really do look different to what you did a long time ago." He turns to look at me. The expressionless mask looks deep into my soul, like it was trying to see some unknown secret deep in me. "But I don't look the same either, do I?" I say to him with a laugh. Michael shakes his head but then something comes to mind. "How did you recognize me?" Michael tilts his head and writes on the notebook. The voices told me that you were here. I could never forget you. They like you. "But why do they like me?" He points at himself and then at me. "Because you like me?" Michael nods and gets up from the couch and walks over to the kitchen. I look after him with a little blush on my cheeks. I was really attached to my long-lost friend, who came back into my life recently. Was there something wrong with my mental health too? But then again I didn't care if I was as long as I could keep him close to me. Michael was sitting on his bed with the cats and was staring at the wall again. I turn to look at the wall seeing nothing there. "I know you cant help your feelings." I say to him and sit next to him. I look at the wall with him. His breathing was steady, almost like he wasn't breathing at all. I put the chocolate on his lap and look at the cats that were sleeping on the bed. "I'll start to make food in an hour. I don't know if my parents will come to visit me today but if they do, you can stay here until they go away. Try to relax." I give his masked cheek a quick kill and leave him alone with his thoughts. I close the door behind me and walk back to the living room. When I sit down on the couch I sigh our silently. I look at the photo albums and open one of them. My eyes land on photo where Sarah was holding me when I was just a couple of days old. She didn't tell me everything but she was trying to protect me like good sisters do. "I'm so sorry Sarah." I whisper as I feel tears form in my eyes. "But I can't lose him again."