The Clean Ones

Chapter 5

"You mean to tell me that you just happened to have a Retrograde?" I questioned.

"I did." He reassured me.

"But not anymore?" I pressed, hoping to get some sort of clarification out of him.

"Nope." He replied and popped the 'p'. For as intelligent as this boy came across as being, he was rather dense.

"So... What happened to it?"

"Do you always ask this many questions?" He asked.

"Stop trying to change the subject. What happened to your Retrograde?"

"Pushy, aren't we? Fine then." He took a seat in the desk chair and drummed his fingers lightly over the wood. "Okay, well, long story short, it was destroyed. Shattered into nothing but little bits of glass." He shrugged.

"But... Destroyed?" The though that anyone could let such a precious commodity out of their sight for a long enough time to be destroyed was shocking to me

His smile faded into a small frown. "Yeah, just like the rest of 'em. Don't you remember?"

Crap.

Lie, the voice inside my head told me. I could feel the truth burning in the back of my throat. If I lied, maybe, just maybe I could stick to my story long enough to figure this mess out. But, part of me knew that my knowledge was scarce. I could only pull off reiterating facts I learned in history class for so long before the truth caught up to me.

"Of course, silly me. Can't believe I would forget such a thing." I muttered.

"You sure you're from this era, Berry?"

"Um, it's Perri." I corrected, purposely avoiding his question.

"I know that. Anyways, since I don't have mine any longer, I'm going to pass on some advice: Keep a good hold of yours. It would be a shame if anything happened to it." His words dripped with an unplaced nervousness that sent a wave of anxiety to wash through me. He wouldn't possibly try to steal it from me, would he? Or was he truly that nervous that someone would try to pry it from the very grasp of my hands?

I wasn't sure how to respond. "Thanks."

"Sure thing. So, tell me about yourself." He said. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested is head on them. A look of curiosity bubbled in his expression like a ripple in an ocean- there in an instant, gone in a second.

"Well, um, I'm Perri and-"

"Wait!" He interrupted. He reached into the small desk drawer and pulled out a pad of paper and a bright blue ballpoint pen. "Gotta take some notes on this"

"What the hell. Are you serious?" I snapped.

"Whoa, calm down. I was only kidding." He threw his arms up and set the pad of paper back down on the desk. "Can't you take joke?"

"No."

"Okay then... No more jokes." He reasoned. "Definitely noted. Not literally, of course. Don't want to upset you again... Now, tell me about yourself."

"Why do you even care?" I said with a bit of a yawn. Even with all the sleep I had received in the past few days, my body felt sluggish. Part of me wished I could lay down and fall asleep right then and there. But, the other part of me knew that I needed answers. Ones that I could get from this boy.
Despite having just met him, a sense of familiarity radiated from him. Everything from his smile to his messy, black hair brought about a refreshing sight in an unknown territory, kind of like how a piece of stale bread would in a starved nation. It wasn't exactly what you needed, but yet, it was everything you needed and much, much more. In the whirl of emotions that had been brought forth by my new territory, it was nice to have someone that reminded me a little of home- even if I had no idea what exactly it was.
He asked me about myself, but it seemed a pointless inquiry in the grand scheme of things. However, a need to learn about him burned inside me; his past, how old he was, where he was from. I had a plethora of questions, yet no answers to match any of them with.