I HOPE THAT ALL OF YOU ENJOY THIS CHAPTER, I'M NOT GUARANTEEING THAT IT IS GOING TO BE WONDERFUL BUT I HOPE THAT IT IS GOOD.
That night when Tara arrived home from school, the house was empty. Demitri had told her before school ended that he was going to spend the weekend with some friends who were having a party, and Tara's dad had left a note on the fridge. "Honey, there's twenty dollars on the counter, Mom and I will be home later. Order some food and rent a movie on us. Love, Dad" is what it said.
Tara sighed and grabbed the cash from the counter, grabbed the cordless from the receiver, and headed to the living room to see what was on cable. After flipping through basically all of the movie channels, she finally decided to leave the t.v. on Chiller. It was a channel that played horror movies and shows, old and new, all the time. Right now was an Alfred Hitchcock movie that she didn't really know the name of but decided to watch anyway until "Tales from the Crypt" came on next.
About halfway through the old movie, Tara got bored and went upstairs for her guitar. On her way back downstairs, she grabbed the phone book from the hall table to figure out what she wanted for dinner. She flipped through the phone book, looking through the list of restaurants. After getting half way through the list she finally decided on Chinese. The nearest restaurant was called "The Paper Lantern", so she dialed the number.
"Paper Lantern." a familiar male voice said on the other line.
"Um, yeah, do you do delivery orders?" Tara asked.
"Sorry." He said. "We do carry-out and dine-in that's it."
"Oh, ok." Tara responded. "Then can I make an order for carryout?"
"Yeah." the guy said, sounding bored. "What do you need?"
"Um, could I just get an order of fried rice, some sweet and sour chicken, Lo Mien noodles, and um some egg rolls?" Tara ordered.
"Fried rice, sweet and sour, Lo Mien, and egg roll?" the guy repeated. "That it for you?"
"Yes, I think so." Tara responded.
"Your total is $9.83" he said. "Give it about 15 minutes."
"Ok. Thank you." Tara said as she hung up the phone.
After hanging up the phone, Tara figured that if she walked to the restaurant, she'd probably get there just when her food finished. Not like she had anything else to do, the house was empty. So, laying her guitar on the couch, she put her shoes back on, grabbed her house key, and locked the front door as she closed it behind her.
It was a great night for a walk. The weather was perfect, and it wasn't too dark. Tara walked down her street and followed it about 3 blocks before turning by a park that was nearby. She followed the next sidewalk for about 10 minutes before arriving at "The Paper Lantern". Following a couple in, Tara closed the door behind her just as the bell above had dinged.
As waitress seated the couple in front of her, and Tara walked over to the cash register to pick up her order. Rather than facing the register, Tara randomly decided to watch the waitress take the couple's orders, people watching happened to be one of her many strange quirks.
"You the one with the carry-out order?" A deep, yet strangely familiar male voice said behind her. It was the same voice, she realized, from the phone.
Tara turned and was shocked to see none other than Warren Peace at the register.
"Um, yeah." She responded, trying to hide the surprise in her face.
Looking just as shocked as she was, Warren typed in the total on the register.
"Fried rice, sweet and sour, Lo Mien, and egg rolls?" He asked as she nodded. "Total's $9.83 Langley."
Tara handed him a ten and waited for her change as she continued to assess her confusion. Of course, it wasn't strange for a seventeen year old to have a job. It was just that she didn't think of Warren as the job type. Especially at a Chinese restaurant. Warren quickly gave her the seventeen cents he owed her and handed her the bag of food and started to walk off.
"Um, can I get some chopsticks?" Tara asked before he'd gotten off too far.
He turned around, grabbed a sleeve of chopsticks, handed them to her, and walked away not making eye contact. Tara looked at him one more time, and headed back out the door and in the direction back to her house. As she passed the park again, she thought that the weather was so nice that she would just sit in the park and eat her dinner. After all she already had the utensils in the bag.
Twenty minutes later, as she was just finishing up her last bit of fried rice, Tara saw someone walking in the direction of the park. As she went to throw her bag away in a trash can, she saw that the person was none other than Warren, again. As she dropped the last of her trash in, Warren seemed to notice her too.
"Waiting Langley?" he said sounding slightly confused as to why she was there.
"No Peace. I was eating." Tara said, as she turned to walk back in the direction of their houses. "Don't know why you're suddenly taking an interest."
Warren followed in step, starting out behind her, but quickly catching up.
"I'm not." He said as he walked. "Something has been on my mind though that I'd like to ask."
"No way in hell I'm going to homecoming with you." Tara responded with a tone of slight disgust.
"Don't flatter yourself. That's not the question." He said with the same tone. "I actually wanted to know what it was that your brother told you about our fathers."
"Why?" Tara asked confused as she stopped walking. "Shouldn't you know?"
"Well, yeah. I do know." he responded, also stopping his walk. "Just curious as to what you know."
"Ok then, whatever." Tara said sighing. "Years ago, my dad and your dad were in a fight, your dad almost killed my dad, and the Commander came and defeated your dad. Anything else Peace?"
"No. That's pretty much all I needed to know." He said, as he began walking again.
Tara caught up with Warren and, after a slight silence, asked. "Is that the same story you know?"
For a moment, Warren didn't answer. He debated with himself what he should tell her. She didn't know the real truth, and he knew that she probably wouldn't believe him. Demitri Langley, along with her father (known to Warren as Brain Storm) knew what had really gone on and hidden it from the youngest of the family. Now was the time to tell her what they'd hidden. Problem was, again, he knew she wouldn't believe him. Not at first at least, but she needed to know. This feud between them was completely under false pretenses, given to her by those she cared for most.
"I know you won't believe me if I told you the truth, so all I'm going to say is that you've been lied to." Warren said, deciding that's all he'd say on the matter. "All that shit you just told me? Its nothing close to the truth."
Tara looked at him confusingly as he walked ahead of her. Trying to decide whether or not he was telling the truth, she tried to read his thoughts. 'Everything I just said is the truth Tara.' his thoughts said, 'To prove it, I'm letting my barrier on my thoughts down so you can see.' After she heard all of that, Warren stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her.
For some reason, part of her wanted to believe him. What stopped that was that Tara knew he could lie just as well through his thoughts, as he could through his mouth. He'd said it when they'd first met, his dad had trained him against mind readers, probably her dad in particular. And unfortunately for him, it was that part of her mind that had won.
"Whatever Peace, don't talk to me." Tara said walking past the pyro-kenetic in front of her and through her front yard, slamming the front door after she opened it and went inside.
Tara grabbed her guitar and headed up to her room. Why had she wanted to believe him so much? They had been fighting since the first day of school and after a couple of weeks she wanted to trust him? What had gotten into her? Unfortunately she knew the exact answer, but denied it to herself because of the trouble she knew it would bring.
To get her mind off of the subject, Tara began to play her most favorite song that she'd written. It was sad, but fit for what it was for. Her dad didn't know, but when she was five, she remembered everything that had happened on the day before her sixth birthday. Day after day since, her father took the time and energy to keep up the illusion throughout the house. Making it seem like she was there, that she was happy and well, but Tara knew. That was what this song was for.
It was for the death of her mother. That day, her mother had gotten Tara her first guitar. On the way home, her mom had been hit by a car at an intersection while it was raining. Of all things, the element that she could've controlled. She hadn't survived, although no one else knew different. Except Tara. For some reason, her father's illusion hadn't worked on her. Besides read minds, her father could do other things to manipulate the mind. The one he'd used the most was to make everyone see and hear Sheri Langley, so that no one would know that she was dead. At least that was supposed to be how it worked.
Tara went with the act though. She didn't like to upset her father, and judging by the trouble he'd gone through to keep Sheri's memory so 'alive', Tara knew that facing her mother's death would crush him. Demitri didn't know either, she didn't think. Of course, whatever Demitri did know was always a mystery to her. He'd learned very early on how to block his thoughts from his own dad, she'd never figured out why and never asked.
Hours went by, and after hearing her father come back and go to bed from where ever he had been, Tara slowly got out of bed, slipped on a small half jacket, and snuck out her bedroom window, down the roof, and over until she could safely slide down onto the back deck to the pool. She slipped on some flip flops, that she'd used for when she went back and forth from the house and the pool, and headed over to the backyard fence.
Tara quietly unlocked the fence and slipped through into Warren's backyard. She was about to throw up a fireball to the room that she'd hoped was Warren's, when a hand barely tapped her shoulder. She jumped quickly and turned around, hand full of fire, quickly putting it out when she saw who it was.
"Trying to break into my house Langley?" Warren whispered, considering it was 1 am and the entire neighborhood was sleeping.
"Uh, no actually." She whispered back. "I was looking for you."
"Here I am, what do you need me for?" He responded. "More Chinese food? "
Tara glared at him and whispered. "I want to know what you know about our dads. But we can't talk here."
"Back to the park then?" Warren suggested. "The only place we'd really get to talk. Least about this."
Tara nodded and followed him out of his yard and in the direction of the park.
"So, what changed your mind Langley?" Warren asked as they walked down the silent streets, each with hands in their pockets.
"I have my reasons Peace." She responded shortly. She didn't even bothering to look at the guy, who was supposed to be her enemy, beside her. And then, more to herself than to him she added, "You know, for hating each other, we've actually had two slightly civil conversations."
"The whole school does seem to think that, don't they?" Warren replied.
"Think what?" Tara asked as they rounded the corner of the street to the park.
"That we hate each other." Warren said. "Guess people can surprise even themselves."