Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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"What do you mean you're not real?"
He was staring at me like he wanted to take me seriously, but was expecting something of an assault. I was reaching into the catalog of memories, where everything is all fucked up & my thoughts are swirling visions of confusion. I saw the fat little cockroach, crawling on the floor of my parents brownstone walk up on Bleecker Street. I watched as it pushed the Warp Crystal across the floor & into a heater great at the base of the wall, in the living room.
"Where did you find the crystal?" I shouted, knowing already what he was going to say.
"What?"
"The one you found in my apartment, you must have gone back to get it, where was it?"
I wanted him to answer, for himself. It might be the only way Donatello would understand the impossible events that had taken place on that night. The night Renet Tilley divulged her insane plan to set things straight & make them right.
"April, calm down, what are you talking about?"
He was so sincere. He was truly worried about me & he ran his hand up my arm, trying to comfort me but it only brought me absolute rage.
"Where was it Donnie!? Was it behind the water heater where you said you left it? Or was it in a grate in the wall?"
I had jerked my arm from his reach & he looked so hurt. I didn't want him to be hurting, but I needed him to focus. I wanted him to try to comfort me again, but I couldn't let my emotions get in the way. Everything was so messed up & I couldn't be the only one that carried that void with me, any longer.
"How did you know that?" He stopped short & looked across in the darkness at me, hurt melting into suspicious distrust.
"How did you know where to look?" I was accusing him now, somewhere between wanting him to try to understand it & anger; already knowing what he had done. He was so confused; blinking & searching his mind for the answer.
"I... I don't know."
"When you told me the story of the man that was in my basement, Kirby, & he was drawing. The Warp Crystal, you said it was on the end of the pencil. Was it put there or was it like it was growing out of it?" I couldn't stop myself now, I was losing to all of the things I had pushed down inside of me, ever since that night. Renet had warned me; Donatello specifically, could never know the truth. There is always more than one truth, & there were some that even she didn't know. If she did, she would have taken the crystals from Donnie & I would probably be dead.
"It was like it was a part of the wood." He stammered & tried to collect his thoughts again. "Wait. No, it was attached to it with soldering wire. I...Why can't I remember?" He glanced up & met me eye to eye. He was beginning to get it. It was like someone was squeezing the memories from his brain, & painfully. "I swear it was held together with wire but...When I went back for it a year ago; the pencil... it was attached to, had changed. It was a part of the wood..."
