Chapter 13 - Telling Them
4 Days Later
Chell POV - Nothing seemed real anymore. It was like I was living in a dream. A dream where I was free. Finally, completely, utterly free! Of course the world had changed since I was last a part of it. New technology was being used, such as the 'mobile phone' and a 'Nintendo DS' (whatever one of those was). But that wasn't the real difference. The real difference was that I had a family now, and friends, and a future.
But before my life began, Wheatley and I had to do a very important, possibly dangerous task. We had to tell Grace's parents what had happened.
As I emerged from the hospital, into the beautiful sunlight of British summer, I caught sight of Wheatley, leaning casually against a silver hire car, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing. The truth was that I had had to explain to Wheatley the basics of being human, which was surprisingly difficult, considering I've always been human. I explained that you had to eat 3 meals a day: one at the start of that day called breakfast, one around noon, called lunch, and one in the evening, which was tea or dinner, depending on what you preferred to call it. He was surprised at this.
"You - We really have to eat 3 times a day?" He had asked, with a genuinely startled look on his face.
"Yes," I had replied, "and you also have to drink roughly two litres of water a day to keep your body hydrated. And you have to go to the toilet to get all of the waste out of your body that it doesn't use from the food and drink"
"Wow, being human sounds like hard work," Wheatley had said.
Now, it was starting to come a bit more naturally to him. Occasionally he would forget to eat, but otherwise he seemed to be ok.
The woman who drove us to the hospital, who I recently discovered was actually my aunt, was standing next to Wheatley, waiting for me. She had not been healthy mentally when she arrived at the hospital, but was discharged a day before I was, as the doctor said she would be fine as long as she took her medication. Personally, I'm not convinced.
Tammy was already in the car. She had no serious injuries, but was hardly talking to any of us. After what she had been through, I couldn't blame her. Losing her closest friend. I walked over to the little party waiting for me.
"How are you doing, luv?" Wheatley greeted me immediately. Over the time we had been at the hospital, we had bonded even more, especially since I was now talking to him. It seemed that I had missed out on a lot of good conversation with him through being a mute in... That Place. We were probably closer to boyfriend and girlfriend than just best friends now, which was a good thing for me. I couldn't imagine being with anyone else apart from Wheatley, even if he didn't feel the same way about me.
"I'm ok thanks," I replied to him, with finality. Wheatley had a habit of asking several times to make sure it was true.
"Are you sure -" he started, just as I had predicted.
"Wheatley," I interrupted him, "I'm fine. Honestly. So where are we going?" We had to go talk to Grace's parents, but I didn't know if we were stopping at a restaurant first or not.
"To see Grace's family," my aunt, who's name a recently learned to be Christie, replied. I scrambled to the back seat of the car quickly, pulling Wheatley in behind me. Tammy had taken the front seat of the car, but I wanted to be with Wheatley anyway so it was fine by me. We travelled mostly in silence, not wanting to discuss what we would say to Grace's parents when we got there in front of Tammy, but not being able to think about anything else. Occasionally someone would comment on the song that was playing, or a pretty house, all minor things. What could we possible discuss when we were about to tell some parents that their child was dead?
After about ten minutes we arrived at Grace's house. Tammy had given the directions in quiet whispers, reluctant to speak at all. She seemed to be in a state of shock, and grief. Nothing we had done could pull her out of this trance. As I stepped out of the car, my hands began to shake. Wheatley quickly came to my side and looked at me nervously. I returned the look with a nervous glance of my own. He met my eyes, and we both knew that we were equally scared of what we were about to do. I grabbed Wheatley's hand and we started toward the red front door of Tammy's house.
Wheatley POV - Chell's comforting hand clutched mine nervously as we walked towards the front door of the house. This holding hands must be a human custom, because I was not expecting Chell to grab mine the way she did. However it was a good custom. It gave me confidence, strength. The front garden was filled with constant bushes, making it more of a front bush than a front garden. The windows had white lining around them and there were two square red doors in the brick to the right of the front door.
"What are those doors?" I asked Chell, indicating to the red squares. For all I knew, they could lead to an underground hide out or a cryogenic storage chamber or a test from -
"It's a garage," Chell told me, cutting off my train of thought. "It's where human's store their cars or gardening equipment or food that they can't fit in the house. Basically anything they can't fit or don't want in the house or outside."
"So like a rubbish room?" This was a bit disappointing after what I had been imagining.
"Sort of." We had reached the front door now. Chell reached out and pressed a button attached to the brick. I guessed it alerted the residents of the house that we were here. Suddenly the door flew open, catching me by surprise, although I should have expected it. We did want to go in, after all, and we weren't going to climb in through the window, that's for sure.
"Hello," the person at the door addressed us hesitantly. She was a rather tall lady, maybe in her forties. Her dyed blonde hair was cut short and traced the outline of her face. It was obvious that this was Grace's mother. "Tammy?" She asked, looking past us to where Tammy was standing awkwardly, a little way away from us. Nobody was saying anything, so I thought I had better say something. We weren't here to stand staring at each other.
"Hi," I spoke in a confident voice, although I didn't feel at all confident. "I am Wheatley, and this is Chell, Christie and, well, you know Tammy. We have just come to alert you of your dau-" Chell cut me off quickly, giving me a disapproving look. What had I done wrong? I was only going to tell her that her daughter was dead. She was going to find out anyway.
"May we come in?" Chell asked gently, in her beautiful soothing voice.
"Erm... Of course," Grace's mother replied uncertainly, and moved aside to make room for us to pass. Once inside, we found ourselves in a hallway. "In there," Grace's mother indicated to a door on the left, which lead to a living area. We sat down on the sofas that lined two of the four walls.
"You may want to sit down," Chell said to her, and she did. "Let me do the talking," Chell whispered to me sternly, shooting a warning glance my way. Surely I couldn't mess it up that much, could I? Raising her voice from the whisper she had used to me, Chell addressed Grace's mother. "There is a hidden science laboratory, not far from here," she began, careful to use formal language. She went on to explain how I had fallen into Grace's garden (I had explained the story at the hospital) and what had happened up until the point where we found Grace. "When we found her, there was nothing we could do. I'm so so sorry, but your daughter is no longer with us." Grace's mother just stared at us for a moment, letting the news sink in. Then she let out a horrific, agonising scream of realisation, and crumbled to the floor. It was at that moment that her (who I assume to be) husband appeared at the door way. He must have just came in without my noticing. His startled expression showed just how shocked he was.
"What is going on here?!" he questioned in a loud, booming voice. Chell quickly filled him in with the same story she had just told his wife, and he, too, crumbled to the floor, engulfing his wife in an embrace of screams and tears and shock. Chell motioned to me to leave the room, and I did. She and Christie quickly joined me in the hallway. Tammy remained in the room. She belonged here, with the grieving family. Here she could grieve herself.
"We should leave some contact details," Chell suggested. I guess we shouldn't really just leave, after what we had told Graces family. I couldn't imagine having a family, but to lose a child must be the worst feeling in the world. Just the reactions of Grace's parents were painful to watch. I could still hear them, in their world of grief.
"I'll leave my phone number," Christie suggested. She had taken her, what were apparently called, pills today, so she seemed quite sane. "You two don't have any contact details so we don't have much choice." Leaving the piece of paper with the phone number and our names on (which we stole from a little pot on a desk in the hallway) clearly visible, we slipped out of the front door and back to the car. As we walked the short distance to the car, Chell took my hand again. Her touch sent a voltage up my arm like I've never felt before. What was this strange new feeling?