Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Five

I was back in my apartment. My hands were clutched together tightly in my lap as I sat motionless on the plush white couch of the apartment's main room.

Olivia had yet to arrive. I hadn't even seen her after getting my own Animus.

I remembered Zander trying to guard my view as he had guarded his own but it'd been no use. I'd still seen exactly what happened. But the question that wouldn't stop hammering into my thoughts was simple: why?

Why go to such extreme measures just to get a message across about the Animus?

Why kill yourself when it was likely no one would listen to your last words?

After she had fallen, the police had called for back-up on his walkie-talkie, and before Zander could mention anything else to me, I had run away. Ironically, doing exactly what the woman had said to do, except in a different way. I had made it back to the subway, and then back to my apartment. Bringing me to where I was now.

A light breeze silently blew branches around outside the balcony window only feet away.

There was a knock on the door.

I ignored it for a second, thinking it was Olivia and she would just take out her key to open the door herself, but the clicking of a lock never came. I stood up on shaky feet, and walked over towards the apartment door, thinking that maybe Olivia just forgot her key.

But when I opened the door, Zander stood on the other side.

His face was pale, and he looked concerned. It took me a moment to realize his concern was aimed at me.

"Hey...," I muttered half-heartedly, wishing he hadn't come.

"Hi...can I come in?" he asked, his light brown eyes digging deep into my soul and pleading a positive response. Maybe he wasn't just worried about me. Maybe he'd seen more than he'd wanted to and now he needed to be around someone before he drowned in dark thoughts and loneliness.

"Sure." My feet automatically moved to the side, allowing him entrance. He walked into the apartment, barely glancing around before sitting down on the same couch I'd just gotten up from. My heart caught in my throat as the bright sunlight from outside ignited his hair into an even more beautiful shade of gold. Then it hit me that Zander was actually in my apartment. Someone else besides me and Olivia was in our apartment.

That rarely happened.

"Are you...okay?" His voice was strained, like he was trying to hold back from freaking out. I almost wished that I could feel that way. At least it would be feeling something, rather than just dull numbness. Nothing felt as bright as it was before, nothing sounded right, like all my senses had been turned down to a minimum. My heart continued to beat, but it felt like a slower pace, matching the lethargy flowing throughout my body.

"I'm...fine," I replied, hesitantly. It felt like too much to give away to a person who wasn't exactly extremely close to me. Yes, he was my friend, but I wasn't very good at sharing my feelings with anyone.

He stared at down at the white carpet in silence for a moment before looking up and asking, "Are you sure?" I could see that he didn't believe me. He knew I was lying about my state of mind.

"Are you okay?" I asked in return, trying to force the focus of conversation away from me.

He narrowed his eyes, noticing what I was doing.

"I think...I think we both know that neither of us are...after......." He shuddered as his gaze focused elsewhere.

Suddenly, there was the obnoxiously loud click of the lock and the door swung open revealing Olivia, eyes filled with fear. Her I.D. card was still clutched tightly in her hand, paling the skin surrounding it. Her eyes latched on to me, and immediately the tension drained out of her face.

"Nova!" she gasped out and ran towards me. She swallowed me up in her bare arms, pressing her face into my shoulder. It took me a second to react, not at all expecting what had just come running at me. I sighed in relief and wrapped my arms around her in return, extremely glad that nothing bad had happened to her. I'd run before even considering finding Olivia.

Now that we were back together, I almost didn't want Zander in our apartment anymore. It was nice having the company when I thought I was going to be left alone, but really I didn't feel like Zander could ever really understand. Yea, I wanted to be around someone after what had just gone down, but not Zander. Because he was good at making friends. He could turn to almost anyone if he wasn't okay for whatever reason, and he didn't understand what it was like to go through life mostly alone. And most of all, it was likely that this was his first time hearing a gunshot, but me...

I stabbed my nails into the palm of my hand, still wrapped around Olivia, attempting to force the memories back.

When Olivia finally released me, I turned back around to face Zander, except his gaze wasn't focused on my face.

It was focused on my wrist.

He'd read it. He'd intruded upon my thoughts of him.

In seconds, he was standing up, eyes still glued to my right wrist where the device displayed what was going through my mind. "I'm going to leave you two...alone...," he said, with an unintentionally harsh tone to his voice. His eyes finally drifted up to mine, and I saw betrayal in them. Then he walked out of the room, little less than slamming the door on his way out.

Regret spread throughout my veins, originating at a deep black, hole of guilt in my heart.

"Who was that?" Olivia asked, her eyebrows scrunching together in curiosity. I looked back at her face, trying to stop myself from focusing on the guilt threading its way through my body.

"No one."