Love Me Crazy

14. We Warned You

Many thoughts ran through my mind as I drove to my house.

Not one of them concerned the road ahead of me.

They all were about Bastion and everything he encompassed.

His family.

My family.

My school.

My happiness.

His outcome.

My fears.

It was quite a lot to handle in a twenty-minute drive. And yet, it all consumed me.

But the pictures...the pictures he needed...they consumed me most of all.

Why did he need them?

Were they special? Of course. Were they confusing? Certainly.

But were they evidence? How could pictures of ones childhood be evidence?

And if they could in some way be evidence...to what then?

How could a small, helpless Bastion reveal some dark secret?

When Nadia had given them to me a year ago, I believed they would reveal the Welles past. I had been so excited that night. So ecstatic. So free.

And yet, I found no answers.

I found nothing.

So how could they mean anything more to Bastion then nostalgic memories?

"Isn't this your house?"

I slammed my foot on the brakes, sending both me and Bastion forward in our seats. I glanced out the window.

"Yes...this is my house," I breathed. I turned to Bastion, "You remember."

He didn't reply. He just unlocked the passenger door and stepped out of the car. I did the same.

Bastion waited for me to lead him up the pathway and onto the front porch. It was Monday evening. Oliver had already gone back to his internship. John would be at the repair shop. And my mother had errands to run for work.

I would be alone...at least for awhile.

Slowly, I opened the front the door. My house smelled different. Usually, it smelt of laundry detergent. But now...it was unfamiliar.

Perhaps...perhaps I wasn't at home enough to tell what was normal at all.

"Up here," I said, motioning towards the stairs.

Bastion's eyes wondered a bit. He brushed his left hand over the banister, as if it was soft to the touch.

I found the action so odd that I stopped walking up the stairs. He bumped into me, gasping.

I gasped also, before racing up the steps. Bastion followed at a slower place.

I didn't know the state of my room so I ran inside and shut the door behind me, screaming that I needed a minute.

I picked several of my bras, panties, and other embarrassing belongings.

Funny. I remember doing the same thing the first time Leon came into my room last year.

He hadn't been up here in awhile...

After the room was to my liking, I called for Bastion to come in.

A few seconds later, his head peeked inside and his green eyes engulfed in black eyeliner darted from left to right. He slid into the room, leaning against the door in an unsettling manner. He glimpsed at me.