The Bodyguard ✔

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Frank isn't even a real bodyguard?

The sentence keeps repeating itself over and over again in my head.

"What do you mean, he isn't even a real bodyguard?"

Before Lucas can answer me, his attention gets drawn to a sound emerging from the distance. A siren. He curses silently and quickly focusses on me. "Listen, you have to believe me. I'm innocent." He talks quickly and without a pause. "You have to help me."

I don't know what to say. I just freeze.

"Please tell me you believe me."

In his eyes, I notice a glimpse of the Lucas I have known before, a faint shadow contrasting against who he actually has become the day of today. "I..." I don't know what to tell him. "I..." Eventually, I just press my lips together and decide to stay silent.

After a quick shift from hope to disappointment, Lucas turns around and walks further into the alley, away from the street and the siren's sound.

I just stand there, head down, looking at my shattered phone, thinking how it embodies a metaphor for my life. How it was finally normal, but it has been crushed and turned into chaos. Broken up into pieces.

Without a clear direction in mind, I navigate myself out of the alley and find myself standing in front of the busy street. A police car rushes by with it's siren on and while it did, I saw a pregnant woman sitting in the back, sweating and holding her belly. The policemen must've been present while her water broke. A police car is going to be faster at the hospital than an ambulance who yet has to leave there to pick her up. What means that Lucas ran away for nothing and I knew it: he destroyed my phone before I could call for help.

I cross the road to the parking area and my feet, who feel to be walking on their own and without my permission, bring me to the car. I hesitate, like my hand froze while holding the handle to open the door of the back seat. I close my eyes and sigh deeply. What on earth am I going to do now?

Frank steps out of his seat in the front, finding himself standing opposite of me, with the car seperating us. The orange of the winter's sun, lowering herself towards the horizon, lays a subtle light on one part of his face, illuminating and softening his strong facial features, while also covering the other part in a shadow, where the light cannot reach. A January's cold breeze hastens through his hair and mine, and I push a lock of hair behind my ear, where it has escaped from its place. My fingertips are even colder than the skin of my face, stroked by the icy wind and so it comes to light: the warm colors are merely coldness in disguise.

I open the door to the back seat and silently take my place. Emptiness is the word that describes best what I feel. After a waterfall of emotions submerged me, I've come to feel nothing. I seem to have reached the point that I just don't care anymore, because every time I think I know what's going on, things just turn into chaos in a matter of seconds. I ask myself: Who is he really?

Frank takes place behind the wheel. He shuts the door and with it, he shuts out the noise from outside. "Giselle?" He turns his head sideways, like he's looking to the car that's parked next to ours.

"Hm?" Is the only sound I make.

He turns further around, now facing me. "I've asked you where you were. You're late."

Normally, and to anyone else, he would sound commanding. But having spent the time I spent with him, I've learned to notice the subtle changes in his voice and what it means. I don't know why he thinks he has to talk like a 'tough' guy so often or when he decided to take on this useless habit, but I know him now and it has no effect on me.

I quietly laugh at myself. At least, I thought I knew him.

"I was in the library..." A slightly tensed silence crawls into the car, but neither of us seem to mind it. "...and I lost my phone."

Frank doesn't seem convinced with my answer or maybe with my attitude, but that's all he asks about it. I look down at my hands and I notice a scrape on the palm of my right hand. I probably got it from fighting off Lucas when he pinched my phone and took his anger out on it. This bruise is proof that I didn't just imagine the past fifteen minutes or so. Lucas showing up out of nowhere and telling me all these things, actually did happen.

Frank has started the car and now drives onto the busy street. "How was school?" His voice sounds calm and soothing.

I've almost forgotten everything that has happened before my 'get together' with Lucas, but then I remember nothing mentionable has happened. "It was fine." I simply say.

Frank takes a right turn and drives until he has to stop before a red light at an intersection. He always asks how my day at school was, but I've always wondered about his high school experience.

The truth is, Frank has barely told me anything about himself, and I figured he kept to himself like that because he's hiding a past he doesn't want to get into. But after what Lucas told me, I'm wondering how much is true of what Frank would tell me.

On the other hand: I remember the time, not so long ago, when I distrusted Frank after assuming he was lying to me and keeping some serious secrets that actually concerned me. That distrust kept me from telling him who I thought had drugged me at that party and, eventually, led me straight to Lucas and a very dangerous situation.

I sigh internally.

What are the actual odds that Lucas is telling the truth? Would he really have made all of this stuff up? What would he gain by that?

I look at the driving mirror, in which I have a clear view at Frank's eyes. I don't know if Lucas is entirely right, but I have this weighing feeling there is some truth in what he said.

Frank notices my gaze and looks back at me in the rearview mirror. I don't look away.

Regardless of what is or isn't true, I think it's about time that Frank tells me a thing or two.