Chapter Ten – Aurora

“Mouse, wake up.” I felt someone nudging me persistently as I attempted to go back to sleep. I rolled over groaning as I tried to get comfortable only to find myself slamming face down onto something hard. I opened my eyes slightly and slowly looked around. I was laying on the floor staring directly at someone’s feet. I looked up to find Hyun staring at me seemingly amused. He was holding a tray in his hand and grinning from ear to ear. “I thought I’d make you some breakfast…when was the last time you ate by the way?” I ignored him as I got up and perched myself on the edge of the sofa, rubbing my head. I felt weak and hung over, and worst of all I felt an incredible emptiness. “I’m not hungry.” I mumbled to him.

He set the tray down at my feet, the plate was filled with bacon, eggs, toast and fried tomatoes. Next to it was a cup of coffee; I hurriedly grabbed it and drank it down as if I were drinking water, the bittersweet taste was strangely reminiscent of life. He sat next to me and watched silently till I’d finished the coffee. “When was the last time you’d eaten?” he repeated the question to me. I avoided his gaze as I shrugged my shoulders. In truth it’d been two days but I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “You have to eat, when I get back I expect the plate to be licked clean, understood?” I tried not to smile at his attempt to look after me.

“I’ll tell you what…I’ll eat it, on the condition that we sit out in the garden.”

He smiled and picked up my tray, then nodded at me to follow him as we made our way back out into the foyer, through the corridor into the kitchen and finally out of the back door into the garden. It was cloudy but warm outside; horribly gloomy. We sat on the grass in silence so I tucked in, eating it as quickly as possible, I hadn’t realised how hungry I’d been. Unfortunately I had a tendency to lose sight of what my body needs to stay alive. When I’d finished, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and turned to look at him to find him staring at me again. “Hyun…you have to stop doing that. It’s very disconcerting.”

“Doing what?” he sheepishly looked away.

“Staring at me…” I let the sentence trail suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. He looked down and began to play with the blades of grass by his hand to distract himself. I cleared my throat loudly to interrupt the silence and turned to him, “So are you going to tell me anything more about last night?”

“Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?” He asked glancing up. I nodded at him, “I have to know, I’ll be fine now.” Although I really didn’t believe it myself, I needed to know the truth regardless of the difficulty I was experiencing in coming to terms with what had just occurred the pervious night. “Ok,” he cleared his throat and sat up straight to look at me, “while you were asleep last night, I called a friend of mine and asked him to give me as much information as possible on your Father and your brother. What he told me was, quite frankly, very disturbing. Jake came here from Toulouse about six months ago…he escaped from a hospital…a nut house to be exact.”

He waited for my reaction but I gave him none, instead I urged him to continue.

“That’s not the only disturbing thing…your Father, Ezekiel went…well…a little bit crazy too, to put it to you mildly…and uh…well he was sectioned a year after you were born. Later on he escaped, stole a car, crashed it and purportedly died in the blaze that ensued…although his body was never found.”

We sat in silence as I allowed all that he had just told me to sink in. My emotions were all over the place, flying free with the chirping birds in the distance, whisking past with the breeze that ruffled the fallen leaves and hanging over me like the grey clouds above. I closed my eyes for a moment as I tried to clear my head, I needed to think, to plan my next move but I found it too difficult to do. Everything that has happened up to now has been tied to each other in a morbid way, linked by one tragedy to another. The most amusing part of it all was the notion that insanity ran in the family. I couldn’t help but smile at the prospect that perhaps I too were insane. What a perfect combination, a psychotic father and a suicidal mother. Yet I couldn’t help wondering; what was Jake’s excuse? What drove him to such barbarity?

I stood up suddenly, almost forgetting to open my eyes and stumbled slightly as I ambled back towards the house. “Aurora!” I could hear Hyun calling after me as I ignored him and continued making my way into the kitchen. I couldn’t deal with the loss of Lucian in the same manner as I dealt with my mother’s death. I have the opportunity to find some answers as to why Jake did it, I needed to know. I hurried into the foyer grabbing my jacket as I passed the sitting room and headed for the front door. The worst part of losing someone close to you in that manner is never really knowing why it happened. The loss becomes unbearable, consuming your every thought and action, you live to know the truth and therefore in a way it stops you from living. You’re life hangs still like the end of a pendulum waiting for something to start it moving again.

“Aurora, wait!” I stopped in my tracks and turned to face an out of breath Hyun. I smiled at him sadly, he was always good to me for some unknown reason, at least I could rest assured in the comfort of knowing that with friends like him I am never completely alone. “Hyun…” I paused trying to find the words I needed him hear to make him understand how I was feeling, but he interrupted me as if he already knew what I was thinking, “You can’t go alone, I won’t let you.” We stood still for a while contemplating what to do next before I decided, “Fine, then come with me, but first find out where he is.” He sighed heavily before giving me a slight nod in response.

I turned once more and set my hand on the latch of the front door opening it slowly. “Pick me up in half an hour with the address…don’t be late, please…” I left closing the door behind me with a slight thud and realised that I had to find a cab to take me home. I swore under my breath as I discovered that the battery on my phone was dead. I didn’t want to go back to use his phone, for some reason I was very aware of making a fool of myself in front of him. I considered walking home, it would take me an hour, I cursed again at my own stupidity as I remebered that I’d asked Hyun to turn up at mine in half an hour. Ten minutes had passed when his front door suddenly opened, he looked at me in surprise as he stepped out to see me still standing at the foot of the steps leading up to his house.

“I thought you’d gone home…” he asked looking puzzled. I shrugged my shoulders trying to seem casual, “Give me a lift then, you can’t expect me to walk.” He smiled and shook his head in amusement as he made his way towards his car, unlocking the doors then shouting at me to get in. “I forgot how prideful you are.” He drawled at me as we sat in his car adjusting our seatbelts. “Shut it.” Was the only response I could think of. He started the car and chuckled as we headed in the direction of my apartment, I couldn’t help but join in, laughing at myself.