Man of the Year (Drake Story)

Chapter Ti

I walked around the mansion like a nineteen-year-old Aubrey, an Aubrey who'd just failed a Religion exam and thought his life was in a downward swirl and was very thirsty for some liquor. An Aubrey who made bad decisions (even though he'd always made bad decisions) and had just kissed Amanda and didn't know how to tell her that he wasn't interested, just drunk. Just drunk.

This time the only difference was that Amanda was Keziah, and I wasn't drunk. I was just confused, but I guess the two are essentially the same thing.

After Keziah kissed me, she laughed. She just giggled in that girly way of hers like I'd told one of my pickup jokes. There wasn't much to laugh at. At least not on my end. Either she was laughing in a bashful way, or she could see the devastation in my eyes and thought it was funny. The latter wasn't likely, but I would honestly prefer that to be the case.

I tried to act normal. I tried to make it seem like everything was okay, and I went along with the tone that she'd set (so much so that I kissed her again and promised her that I'd come to her room after the sun went down). But nothing could change how strange it felt in my mind, how uncomfortable it was to battle with something that you think you want, but think you don't. Or you think you're supposed to want it, but you don't. It felt...wrong. Suffocating, that's what it was.

Given that there didn't seem to be a shore in this mansion, I swam through the hallways and staircases until I found the perfect spot to come up for air - Belphoebe's bedroom. At least, right outside of her bedroom. I had to wait before trying to approach her (servants and maids were in and out of there), but after studying the patterns from the living room for at least thirty minutes, I figured out a way. There seemed to be a three-minute lapse every twenty minutes. So after an hour of sitting on the couch and watching my surroundings, I went. I took my three-minute opportunity and knocked on her door.

"Come in," She called.

I almost forgot that she wasn't...stable. I'd been expecting her to walk to the door and smile at me, a different smile from Keziah's. I wasn't too disappointed when I walked in. She lay on her bed, covered from neck to feet, with her head propped up on a pillow and a cup of hot tea on her bedside. She smiled. For me, for Aubrey.

I felt special.

"How've you been?" I asked. The answer showed in her face, in her eyes: bad. Embarrassed. Tired. Frustrated. She said none of these things to me. I didn't want her to; it would ruin everything, shy me away from her until I was able to face her again without the egotistical urge to kill Drake and Cyrus and whoever did this to her. I needed her to pacify me.

"Good," Belphoebe said. "I've been alright. Coping, I guess. I'm tired of soup and tea, though."

"What exactly did they do to you?"

She pat the side of her bed, giving me permission to do something I previously thought was crossing a boundary. I sat down beside her. "The hospital or the super-villains?"

"The super-villains."

"Well to be honest, I don't know. I don't know what they injected me with or what it'll do to me, but I hope that it's already done all the damage it can - keeping me bed-ridden and prone to unconsciousness. It just better not be what they give Jeffie." She laughed, but I didn't.

"You know, I have this lawyer that would love to find out for you. I mean, he's a scumbag but if you pay him well he gets the job done." I told her.

"Aubrey, it's cool." Bell giggled. "Actually, I want to find out myself."

"No, I wouldn't let you. I can pay the lawyer fees."

"I want to find out with you."

I paused. "How?"