She was the girl who was afraid of love. Terrified of it. It isn't permanent, she believed, it leaves you and it leaves you broken.
He was the boy who desperately needed it. Love--the only thing that could've rooted him to this world.
Ophelia and...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The ride back to our hotel was deadly silent.
Alastair was tense, way more than he had been when we were going to the cemetery. I was tense myself, but for reasons that Alastair did not know. Yet.
My conversation with Mr. Smith kept replaying in my head, throughout the ride back to the hotel. Each time, I'd trace my fingers over my coat pocket, feeling the familiar weight of the folded photograph which I had stuffed inside.
The same photograph that I was supposed to show Alastair.
Why wasn't I doing it then? Why wasn't I breaking this tense silence, making him stop the car, just so I could tell him whatever that old man had told me? Why wasn't I doing any of that?
Maybe he was lying, I concluded.
I mean, why couldn't he be lying? Alas himself didn't remember ever seeing that man before. And I remembered that morning pretty vividly when I'd asked him if he had any siblings. He'd said no. Alastair couldn't have been lying.
Then why did I still have this uneasy feeling nagging deep in my gut?
The photograph did not seem fake. It didn't even seem like someone had edited it. Why would someone edit it? Why would someone go that far to lie that Alastair had a twin?
And that genuine sadness in Mr. Smith's eyes. Either he was a really good liar, or I was starting to suck at picking out lies.
Or maybe he wasn't lying at all. That was a little concerning.
As we went up to our hotel room, the silence followed. It felt like I was keeping a huge secret from Alastair, which just made me feel stupid.
It isn't a secret. Hell, I should say something.
It was when we were both inside our room and I was about to close the door behind me, that Alastair turned towards me with a somewhat troubled look. His eyes held a wild look, as if thousands of emotions were fighting within him, overwhelming him, all at the same time.
"I think I'll go for a walk." He told me in a small, strained voice.
I looked up at him, furrowing my brows just a little before I closed the door behind me. His eyes darted towards it but I stepped in his way, way before he could have aimed for the door knob.
"Alas, stay here. Okay?"
He slowly shook his head, raking his hands through his hair, pushing them back. "I can't. You know I can't. Just...let me go for a little while."
Where? I wanted to ask. What guarantee did I have that he would not end up in some local bar again, intoxicated with tequila and banging some chick, just because he needed to escape the mess in his head?
