Listen Before You Speak

Chapter 24

The sun began coming up behind the trees in the backyard, shining their light over the books that surrounded me with far-off places and adventures that I would never go on. Not that I needed any further adventures. I have had enough to last me an entire lifetime at this point in my life, and the biggest plot twist was just here on my doorstep.

I could not sleep for a single minute, and still I did not feel tired. It was not that I was in a new place, or that I could hear the light snoring coming from Mr. van Leer's room. It wasn't even the fact that the duvet I was sleeping under felt scratchy and just a little bit too new to my liking.

It was Blake...

I could see his beat up face in front of me. I could see the broken nose and the blood and the hair sticking to his forehead. Asking for help without saying a word or moving a muscle. Ready to enter eternity to make sure that I would be safe. To make sure that I knew that he loved me more than life itself. I could not sleep because those images crept up and curled up in bed next to me.

At the same time it was like he was alive with me in the room I was laying in. I could feel his arms creeping up my sides to comfort me in the warmth of his embrace. I could feel his breath on my neck. I could hear the sweet songs that he sang not that long ago, serenading me in a private concert. I could feel his presence so strongly that I thought he would appear right beside my bed and tell me that it was all just a long and bad dream.

"Elijah?"

The knock on the door came just before I heard my name in a husky and sleepy voice.

"Yes?" I answered. There wasn't any point in pretending that I was sleeping in any case.

"There's someone on the line for you. A woman called Llaluna," Mr. van Leer said through the door, not daring to come in.

"Llaluna?" I had to ask. I was sitting upright within seconds.

"Yes. Do you know her?" he asked.

"It's Blake's mother," I answered and with that I pulled the t-shirt over my head that I discarded on the floor before the bed before I went to bed. It still smelled like Mr. van Leer but this time it didn't bother me at all. I needed to speak to Llaluna, and I needed to do it as soon as possible.

A hundred different scenarios sped through my head as I yanked open the door and sped past a shirtless Mr. van Leer, gaping after me with big eyes.

Could it be that she had called because Blake has woken up and wants to see me? Or maybe she wanted to come and get me from Mr. van Leer so I could sit and worry with her while we waited for news on Blake? Could it be that she was blaming me and wanted to give me a good telling off, which I think I probably do deserve after what Blake went through for me?

"Hallo?" I asked nervously into the speaker of the phone that sat waiting for me on the coffee table in the lounge. I didn't even know that there was still people who preferred landlines to cellphones, but here I was holding a telephone that was still connected to a cord. Even in my nervousness I made a mental note to tell Mr. van Leer that Noah wants his telephone back.

"Elijah?" She said it with a stutter, which seemed very unlike her nature.

"Yes Llaluna? Is Blake okay?" I just needed to know.

"I know it wasn't your fault," Llaluna said on the other side of the line. Then there was silence.

I had no idea what to reply to that. Was there anything left to say? Did it mean that she didn't blame him for what happened to Blake or did that just mean that she knows it was my father and that I was probably still guilty of murder?