The Little Dove #2 ✔️

34. The Known Cannot Be Unknown

CHAPTER 34: The Known Cannot Be Unknown
(MELANIE'S POV)

I slam the laptop closed, not delicately either as I stand in the New York hotel room, an apartment in the very middle of the city. Driving up from Philadelphia wasn't difficult, the drive was perhaps calming...perhaps. I was nervous, regarding what I might find here because I knew...Lord, I knew he was hiding something about his past.

For one-throughout the entire time at the hospital that I spent with Edmund, I never once saw his father. Not one sight or word, even though Lorraine said she saw the man, who honestly looked nothing like Edmund, or so she said. My phone vibrates on the desk in front of me, I read the scanner, it was Marvin's number, but not the correct thumbprint. Meaning it was Edmund. All in all, I received over five phone calls from Edmund and even more text messages, I hadn't answered them yet, knowing he would be argumentative.

Not two minutes later, Marvin calls again, with the thumbprint scanner in place, but I wasn't dumb, "Marvin, I take it my apparent boyfriend has your phone?" I say, rolling my eyes and intertwining my fingers over my abdomen as I lean back against the leather couch.

"That he does." He says, mirthfully, and knowingly.

"Edmund, give my brother back his phone. Now." I tell him, not happy with this development, but I truly wasn't surprised, Edmund knew how to use his resources.

"Lemon, you weren't answering my calls." Edmund says to me, through the speaker, seeming softer somehow, but confusion wafted in the mix. I sigh in irritation, but he may have seen it as defeat, probably thinking in a 'glass half full' manner.

"I had yet to return them, but attempting to outcast my brother and then proceeding to steal his phone will not get you in my good books." I snap at him, pissed off by what I was hearing, secluding him was childish and even Edmund must have known that.

"He's been lying about your whereabouts, you can't stop me from worrying, you should have returned my calls, Lemon." He whispered, as if hiding his true thoughts from the others, I wait a moment, taking a long breath.

"I'm working on a new report for a new landmark in my family's business, Edmund. Why are you making this difficult?" I mutter, closing my eyes and wishing my mind would teleport into an empty space, where no thoughts, feelings, judgements or reminders were. Like an empty room in my mind, as pitch black as space, but as beautifully peaceful as the constellation.

He grunts, "I wouldn't be much of a boyfriend if I hadn't wished it was you moving back in to the Academy. Not your nitwit of a brother." He mutters.

I sigh, "Edmund, this is work, that's all. Marvin is attending the Academy for his studies and other, slightly complicated cases." I murmur.

He scoffs, "Like Lorraine?"

I keep my eyes closed, "Yes, Edmund. Though, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't scream it to your group." I tell him, hesitantly.

"You didn't come back because of everything that has happened, right? You know it's over, lemon, you can easily do your work from here. I've been doing that for the past year and a half now." He says, in all hopefulness.

I close my eyes, "It's not fully over, Edmund and you know it." I murmur.

"This time I need you to let me in, if you're convinced someone is still after you, lemon. I need you to trust me." He whispers, softly.

As if trying to lure me back into his arms, a damsel in distress to be reunited and embraced with her knight in shiny armour. Except modern day knights...their demons show, more visibly than the olden times where the saviour was only ever good, only ever perfect.