Past and Present Danger, Chapter 12
by blueeaglex
 
 

"Simone..."

"No, stop." Simone was calm. A few hours ago, she would have been in tears over making this confession. A few hours ago, she HAD been in tears over saying she loved Chad. But that was then, and this was now. Saying it out loud seemed to empower her, giving her a strength she never knew she had.

Simone continued, speaking to Chad as if they were alone in the restaurant. "I know you think it's just a silly crush. But it's not, Chad. Can't you see that? I have loved you long before my sister thought of you as anything but street trash. I loved you before you saved Whitney's life, or my mom's life."

"Simone, please.." Chad took a deep breath. "I just can't feel that way about you, Simone. I'm sorry. I really am."

"You haven't even given me a chance," Simone pleaded. "What more can you want than to be with someone who adores you? What does Whitney have that I don't have? She put you down for months, Chad! For MONTHS! And my mom, she was like, 'Stay away from Chad, he's bad for you!' I was the only one on your side...the only one who was there for you."

"And I'll always appreciate that. You're the first friend I made in Harmony, and I hope we can always be friends."

"We can't be friends, Chad." Simone's heart was breaking, and the strength she'd felt moments before seemed to be fading. "The old "let's just be friends' speech can't work. Don't you see that? I can't go back to being your friend. How can I go back to that after everything I've felt?"

"Simone, I don't think this is something we can wrap up in one evening." Chad chose his words carefully, not wanting her to burst into tears or cause a scene. "But the fact of the matter is, I don't love you, Simone. It's not something you can just make happen. It's not about you, Simone...it's me."

"Now it's the 'It's not you, it's me' speech?"

"I'm not sayin' it 'cause it's a cliche. This time, it's true. This isn't about Whitney being better than you, 'cause she's not. Somewhere out there's a guy who'll sweep you off your feet. But I'm not that guy. I'm sorry, Simone, but that's the way it is."

"Don't be sorry for me." Simone stood up from her chair. "The last thing I want is your pity." And, turning, Simone left the restaurant. She waited until she was outside the Seascape before she started to cry. She wasn't about to let Chad see her cry...a part of her hoped she'd never see Chad again.
**********

"Eve? Hold on, I'll get you out of there." T.C. jiggled with the doorknob, unable to open the door. Frustrated, he started ramming himself up against the door.

On the other side, the Eve from the past listened, confused. What was going on? Who was this man, and how did he know her? The more she thought about it, the stranger the events of the past twenty four hours seemed. Who was Tabitha, and why was she interested in her? Tabitha still hadn't answered that question. Why was everyone else dressed so oddly? Why did Julian look so old?

"T.C., what's up?" Sam had approached T.C., curious as to why his best friend was hitting the door of a backroom.

"Eve's trapped inside the room," T.C. explained.

"Uh, T.C.?" Sam pointed back to the table, where T.C. saw Eve sitting next to Grace. "Eve just came back from the bathroom."

"She sounded so much like Eve..." TC looked back to the door. "There's still someone trapped inside the room."

On the other side of the door, Eve rammed herself up against the door, determined to get out and see the people talking on the other side. At the same time, something deep inside her suggested that what was on the other side could change her life forever.

Tabitha stood with Timmy in a corner, watching everything and fearing the worst. "She can't get out, can she, Princess? You used magic, so it's all good, right?"

"The trouble is, this Eve was born of magic, so she may just be able to--"

With one final push on the door, Eve managed the impossible: she pushed the door out, forcing it not only open but off the hinges, sending it crashing back down on top of her.

"open the door," Timmy finished for his Princess.

T.C. and Sam went to help the unseen woman, but with a strong push she moved the door out of the way. Eve held her hand over her face, her head smarting from where the door had hit her head. "Are you all right?" T.C. asked. The woman's face masked from view, T.C. didn't get a good look at her face as she brushed past him. "I'm fine, thanks."

"That's odd." Sam pulled the door back up. "How did it come off like that?"

Spying Tabitha in the corner, Eve approached the witch, ready to have her questions answered. "Why did you lock me inside that room? And who are those people? Why do they know who I am?"

"I didn't lock the door, it jammed. And I asked those nice people--who I've never seen before in my life--to help get you out. I told them your name."

"Something doesn't seem right." Eve turned back, seeing T.C. and Sam join their wives. Her attention focused in on the woman at T.C.'s side. In different clothes, with a different haircut, that woman could be... "Me! Who is that woman?"

"Woman? What woman?"

"Who is that woman with that man?" Eve pointed to her double, who, oblivious to everything else going on, exited the club with her husband. "Why does she look so much like me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tabitha said, tossing off the comment. "That woman looks nothing like you."

But Eve was not going to take this. "Tell me who she is, or I'm running after her!"

The jig was up. Tabitha opened her mouth to speak, unsure as to what she should say.

****************

Crickets chirped outside, the one noise filling the night air as T.C. stealthily moved towards his shed.

He had been in the shed hours before, to clean up Whitney's mess. But this time he was there to do more than clean up. This time, he had some thinking to do.

T.C. always did his best thinking in the shed. He loved his family, but he needed a place to get away from it all. His father had had a shed...and T.C. had found it strange when his father disappeared for hours at a time inside it. His mother hadn't understood it either--and T.C. suspected that Eve found it strange for him to go into the shed as well.

But the shed was more about going off to think. The shed held his deepest secrets, things only one other person in town knew.

T.C. pulled open the door, flipping on a light to illuminate the small shed. The boxes remained stacked neatly against the wall. The painting of Whitney stood in the middle of the shed. T.C. beamed as he looked at the painting...his pride and joy. Though it was said that a painting could never show a person exactly as they were, this painting came as close as you could possibly get to showing Whitney's true self.

T.C.'s heart thumped rapidly as he remembered that Whitney had seen the painting. He never wanted anyone to see the painting, least of all Whitney herself. "If Whitney knew the truth about this..." T.C. shook his head, almost laughing at the thought. Whitney would never know the truth about this painting; he could sit her down, tell her the truth, and she wouldn't believe him. Why would she? Sometimes when T.C. thought about it, he wasn't even sure he believed it.

"You don't have a coffin in your shed, do you?" T.C. shuddered, recalling his wife's question--and his answer. "Of course I don't have a coffin."

T.C. reflected on the irony of it all. "I DON'T have a coffin," T.C. told himself. No, he hadn't been lying about that. But what would his family know if they knew the truth about what he had? What had consumed so many of his thoughts for the past twenty years? Could they begin to understand what had led him to do what he did?

This was not the time to think about those things, T.C. decided. He'd come here to relax, not obsess over his secrets.

T.C. moved towards a trophy at the back of the shed, hidden by several boxes. He moved the boxes aside. Then, he moved the trophy to the right.

On the floor, a secret door slid open, revealing stairs leading downwards.

T.C. whistled as he walked down the stairs. "I'm coming, Dad," he said.