Deborah stumbled home from
the coffee shop, as the rain started to fall mixing with the salty
tears falling down her face. She had made such a mess of things with
all this love business. In one hand, she cared deeply for Matthew
and had enjoyed their times together. But still, she felt this
strange force of nature pulling her towards James, more and more. If
there was such a thing as past lives, she and James had definitely
known each other from before. That was the only way she could
explain it to herself and to Mari, who was aghast with horror at the
fact that Deborah had cheated on Matthew with James, of all people:
the one they had nicknamed together “Scary Dark Boy”. Still,
Deborah felt torn between the two of them, even now, after
consummating some sort of an affair with James. At times, she saw
herself spending her life happily with Matthew, a life spent together
quiet and safe. At other times, the fiery presence of James stirred
her creative side with a lust for adventure and darkness. She could
never really decide though.
She moved into her bedroom,
giving a slight nod to her room-mate who was in the living room
watching TV and barely noticed her. Closing her bedroom door with a
solid click behind her, she sat hard on her bed and stared straight
ahead. The tears began to fall down her face in earnest. If only
Eve had not been killed, if only she hadn't slept with James, life
and love were getting so complicated. Maybe it was as easy as her
Christian friends believed it to be, “Just give your heart to Jesus
and you'll have peace.” She had given that her best try though,
but still she felt an emptiness resounding inside of her. Emptiness
that went on forever and that she couldn't quite find a way to
appease. Maybe that's why she found herself falling for the trap of
being nurse-maid to broken boys. James was certainly in that
category, even before Eve was killed. And Matthew...a shattered
heart from giving it to girl-friends of the past who could not share
his open affectionate nature, who took advantage in one way or
another. But, what about her? Who was there when she needed them?
She laid back on her unmade
bed, the quilt made by her grandmother in rumples around her. The
tears slid down her cheeks and onto her pillows and bedsheets.
Crying softly, she felt herself slipping further and further into
unconsciousness until suddenly before her standing was the beautiful
girl from last night's dream, only now she wasn't as translucent.
This girl was beautiful and bore a striking resemblance to herself.
She slowly sat up in bed and stared dumbfoundedly.
“Release all of it,”
said the girl. Deborah's jaw dropped open.
“You can speak?” was all
she could say amazedly.
“Yes, yes I can,” the
girl smiled softly, as if she shared a delicious secret with herself.
“Until recently, I was a lot like you, very much in fact.”
“How so?” Deborah
blurted out. The girl smiled mysteriously at her in response. “Who
are you anyway? What's your name?”
“You know my name,” the
girl responded. “You have heard a lot about me recently. A lot.”
Deborah's mind raced and she
blinked, then looked aghast at the girl before her.
“Are you...are you...Eve?”
she asked amazedly. “But, you're dead...or...”
“Yes, I am Eve,” the
girl confirmed. “And, yes, you are right about that.”
“But then, how...why?”
was all Deborah could say.
“I've come to you in a
dream, Deborah,” Eve explained. “I need your help. They all
need your help.”
“My help? But how? Why?
And whose they?”
“Because...you are the
only one that truly understands me, understands all of us,” Eve
went on. “And they...why, the boys, of course.”
“What do I have to do?”
Deborah asked without thinking.
Eve unclasped a necklace
from around her neck and held it out to Deborah.
“Do you see this
necklace?” Eve asked and Deborah nodded slowly, taking it all in.
“Yes, take a good look at it. You find this, you'll know my
killer.”
Eve returned the necklace to
her neck, then turned slowly towards the door, readying herself to
leave, not just this room but the planet itself.
“Wait, where are you...”,
Deborah tried to stop her. Eve disappeared through the door
silently. Deborah's eyes started to blink open and she found herself
laying flat on her back, the afternoon had slipped into evening as
she slept. “Going,” was all she said as she awoke. Her voice
sounded hollow and lonely in the approaching dusk.
Deborah sat up in bed and
looked out her small window, remembering the previous night with
James. Her mind thought over the dream she had just had, wondering
if it meant anything or was it just some crazy imagination of hers
gone wild? She wondered if she should tell James about the dream,
about seeing Eve. Was the girl even Eve or just what she imagined
Eve to look like? She had never met Eve while was alive and had only
really heard about her after her death. If it was truly Eve then,
why was Deborah being chosen in this way, visited by Eve in her
dreams?
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