The Criminal Diaries

      It’s a new day. After a long and senseless walk in the city that does not let him feel a little better, Peter makes a spontaneous decision to go to the neighborhood where he spent a bigger part of his life. Even if it’s going to take a lot of time to take the way. The man decides to go there because he does not want to come back home, where he feels terrible. And even if he really wants to go there, his anxiety grows as long as he gets closer to the final destination. He calls the memories that may not be the best, his heart starts squeezing painfully, and the feeling of the fear he cannot explain gets stronger and stronger.       “So, why did we come here?” Theodore wonders, sitting next to Peter in the passenger’s seat in his consciousness. “Why didn’t you stay at home? It’s so boring, creepy, and cold here…”       Nevertheless, it does not stop Peter, who takes the way to the very end. And a long time later, he arrives in the neighborhood that he left many years ago with the hope for a better life. When he reaches the half-ruined narrow path with tons of holes and cracks, the man goes to the free place and leaves his car right on it so others can go and drive by quietly. Rose does not rush to leave the salon and spends some time in it, taking off his glasses that he sometimes uses for driving to read everything written on the signs and looking at everything he sees far from himself with sad eyes.       It seems that nothing has changed for several years of his departure. There is trash on the edges of the road that nobody is going to get rid of. One-floor buildings are half-ruined and covered with a thick layer of dust, dirt, and webs. Bricks and stoned ones are still standing and more or less good for exploitation, but the wooden ones are so rotten that they are about to break at any time. The trees that the man remembers were too small back then have grown two or three times bigger, even if he sees many enough dry ones that are dead already. Just like then, this place keeps making Rose feel sadness and anxiety, and making him feel by far not the best feelings.       When he spends some time in the salon, Peter exhales sharply, leaves his glasses in the glove box, gets the key out of the turned-off motor, leaves the car, and locks it. He puts the keys in the pocket of his coat after hearing the signal that lets him know that his iron horse has been locked, and looks closely around several times before he starts walking down the narrow path covered with dirt in a very slow, hesitant step. The anxiety and tension in his body get stronger since there is nobody around, and the only thing that can break the silence is the cawing of crows flying far from here. On one side of him, he can see many kilometers of fields covered with dry grass where anyone could run a lot and drive a bike. And there are small houses every several meters, but someone hardly lives in them, judging by their poor condition.       Every time Peter takes a step, he can hear a quiet crunch under his feet and feels small tough rocks that make him feel a little discomfort as he steps on them. He has to make some effort when the path sometimes goes uphill, but it’s getting super easy when it goes down. Keeping his hands in the pockets of his coat and walking slowly straight, he notices silently that the air here is much cleaner and better than in the noisy city. But he cannot relax because he thinks of more and more moments from his childhood that do not make him feel any nice feeling of nostalgia and a wish to get it all through again.       At some moment, Peter starts coming to the place where there is a winding river with reeds and little muddy water. It stretches for many kilometers and flows into the lake placed far, far from here. The invisible power makes him come closer to it and feel dizziness, a slight tingling in his heart, and a wave of heat and stiffness in his whole body. An unexplainable attack of panic gets stronger rapidly every second, making him start to choke from a lack of air with the thought that something is pressing on his chest and squeezing his throat, and he understands that his hands get sweaty. It seems like his consciousness tries to tell him something and show it, but there are no memories about something it may be connected with. And Rose himself does not rush to recall it. Vice versa, he unconsciously subdues any attempts to remember something. He thinks he is going to go crazy if he lets himself do this. If he comes back to that day when he probably felt something terrible that left a bright print on his whole life, and does not let him live quietly.       “M-m-m, hey, buddy, do ya feel bad?” Theodore smiles evilly, walking around Peter. “Do ya feel that something is not right as you look at this river? The water that always makes you feel a panic attack. Especially if you have to get underwater.”       Theodore puts his hands on his hips/       “But as they say, you have to face your fears. Sometimes it may lead you to the right place. Make you think of the right things. So… I suggest you get underwater and find out what you’d feel at this moment.”       Being afraid of losing control of his condition, Peter sharply steps away from the river backward and glances aside with a heavy breath. He rubs his sweaty forehead with a hand and grabs his throat, hearing the echo of his heart beating like crazy hits his temples with stubbornness. A little later, he calms down a little and keeps going straight on his weak legs down the path, aiming to find a way to his house that he is about to see very soon. The man does not think he may meet Cornelia, the woman who educated him for the time being. But at the bottom of his heart, he believes that it’s possible. She could come back many years later and continue to live in their ruined place that required total repair back then. Or actually should have been destroyed.       On the way, Peter notices the empty building far from himself, where, as he can still remember, he often hid from those who mocked him or just stayed when he wanted to be alone. And several slim men and women with red faces, puffy eyes, and greasy, brittle hair are sitting right on the ground near the one, wearing dirty clothes that are ripped in some areas. They hold bottles of strong alcohol in their hands as they sing quietly, songs, lyrics of which may sometimes be unclear to understand, hug each other at times, and laugh at something loudly, showing their rotten teeth that some members of the gang may not have at all.       “Oh, oh, the dangerous zone!” Theodore whoops funnily, skipping next to Peter. “Dangerous zone… These alcoholics wanna rob and kill you. I advise you to get out of here if you don’t want them to sell your organs and buy a lot of drinks.”       Seeing Peter tending his muscles from fear, they call him to themselves rudely and tell him insolently to give them all his money and expensive things. But the man ignores it and quickens his step with widely open eyes and a heavy breath, hoping they will not want to run after him. It does not really happen, but one of the women shouts out an insult toward him and keeps having fun with her friends, drinking from the bottle again with eloquent speeches. Although Rose thinks they are familiar to him, and someone turns out to be the one he had to study with or meet somewhere outside, he decides not to waste time on them and keeps getting closer to his goal, despite the pain that he gets from the memories connected with this place.       So, after a long way, Peter finally comes to the place he needs. The white one-floor small house with a couple of windows, the glass of one of which is totally broken. Swapping sticks of the trees placed near the small number of the source of light. The rotten roof is about to fall over the head at any moment, and cockroaches, spiders, and other living things creeping on the walls can be seen from afar, since there are too many of them. However, Rose is not surprised because all these things were his company back then. As well as well-fed dirty rags that got used to this house and feel very imposing.       After looking at the house from top to bottom, Peter comes closer to it hesitantly and looks at it much better at a close distance. He feels that everything inside tenses to the pain, literally stops breathing, and understands that he feels dizziness and a catastrophic lack of air because of the memories of his life with Cornelia, who preferred alcohol over him and saw nothing bad with raising a hand on him and taking the money he earned. Nevertheless, he struggles with his fears and decides to come to the door at some moment and knock on it to see if someone is there. But a few seconds later, nobody opens. Then he tries to knock again, but no result again. So, Peter puts his hand hesitantly on the door handle, presses on it slightly, and understands that it’s stuck. He makes some effort before the door finally opens with a squeak that hurts his ear, so that he can see how everything inside is covered with dirt, webs, and trash that nobody cares about.       “Yeah, how did we live in this shit all that time?” Theodore wonders, starting to walk through the whole house in a quick step and looking around. “I came here and didn’t feel any good feelings. Just like I thought. I feel nothing but disgust from this return home.”       Listening to everything closely, Peter understands that there is surely nobody at this house and goes further, much more determinedly. While the rotten wooden floor squeaks disgustingly under his weight. The ripped furniture, broken windows, kitchen counters painted with something and covered with dirty spots, the broken refrigerator, the door of which is open slightly… Rags lying on the floor that must be thrown in the trash, a wooden bed, from which someone stole pillows, a mattress, and a blanket… The bulb light hanging on the cable that does not probably work anymore…. The rotten bookshelves covered with a thick layer of dust and a small old-fashioned TV with a broken screen… That’s what the man sees as he walks slowly in circles in his own home, which still makes him feel frost on his skin, a sense of stiffness, anxiety, and tension.       “Everything’s kinda in the same places…” Peter says under his nose thoughtfully and swallows nervously. “Nothing has changed since I left this place.”       Peter looks around again and moves his eyes to the ceiling.       “As if my mother had never come back here… Otherwise, she would’ve stolen everything from here and sold it to get drinks.”       “Yeah, we would've rather stayed at your hole,” Theodore throws gloomily. “At least that’s not as dirty and disgusting as this place.”       “You’d rather leave me alone and stop reading me lectures and telling me to do what I don’t want to do.”       “Getting out of here was one of the best decisions in your life. Because I would’ve gone crazy from what surrounded me.”       At some moment, Peter comes to the sofa and sorts out a small bunch of trash before he finds his old rotten cajon made of wood. Thanks to which he started to discover his musical talent and made it his salvation in the darkest times.       “My gosh, it’s here…” Peter pronounces thoughtfully. “My cajon… It’s all rotten, but it’s not broken…”       Peter moves his eyes to the bed, comes to it, gets down to his knees, and finds a small carton box under the one. There are tons of little toys, most of which are broken, ripped, and cannot be recovered. After recognizing all of those he played with, the man starts sorting them out, taking them, and looking at every single one, remembering how he found them somewhere outside, asked them from his nearest neighbors, or bought them for his own money. And how people of his age took these toys away and brought them back in a broken condition. It was especially hurtful for him to lose the Tamagotchi, his favorite toy that he received as a gift from an old lady who lived not far from him. Peter remembers he could spend hours playing with this toy wherever he was. But the bad boys stole it from Rose and threw that thing away. And when the guy managed to find his Tamagotchi several days later, the virtual pet had already died. That’s why he was upset for a very long time. And he feels sad now when he thinks about how much this event broke his heart.       There are many interesting things in the box, and Peter would be happy to spend hours looking at them, sitting on the dirty, dusty floor. But at some moment, he is distracted by the voice of the woman who enters the house after seeing that the door is open:       “Young man, what are you doing here?”       After he puts the box under the bed automatically, Peter gets up sharply on his feet and turns on the call shortly. He sees the old, gray-haired, slim, short woman with dull wrinkled skin of the face and hands and dark green eyes that have lost their gloss. Her short hair is brushed in a tail, she has simple earrings in the form of drops in her ears, and she is wearing old, shabby clothes that are ripped in some areas, and she leans on the wooden cane.       “Erm, excuse me…” Peter pronounces hesitantly.       “What are you doing here?” the old woman keeps resenting. “Who are you? How did you end up here? I don’t know you! It’s not your house!”       “Erm, no, no, do not be scared, please… It’s alright, I’m not a robber and a killer… I…”       “If you do not leave the house now, I will have to call the police.”       “No, no, don’t call the police.”       “Do what I ask you about at your wish, young man. Otherwise, you will ask for trouble.”       “Listen, ma’am, I can explain everything to you. Just give me a chance.”       “Of course, I understand that all the empty houses are open here because nobody lives in them anymore. But it’s not a reason to enter here like this and sort out people’s stuff.”       “But it’s so funny!” the hallucination in the form of Theodore exclaims in Peter’s mind. “It’s so funny to get into the territory of someone and sort out their stuff. Sometimes you can find so many interesting things.”       “It’s my house,” Peter confesses, ignoring Theodore. “I was growing up here. I spent my childhood and teenage years here.”       “Do not fool me, sir,” the old woman protests coldly.       “No, no, I swear it’s the truth. I lived here before. But I left this place several years ago and moved to the center of the city for a better life.”       “How do I know you’re telling the truth? I don’t know you, and I see you for the first time.”       “I… I’m not sure if you can remember me… But you seem familiar enough to me…”       Peter looks at the old woman better, understanding more and more that she seems very familiar to him.       “Excuse me, aren’t you Brittany Lyons?” Peter asks hesitantly.       “Yes, it’s me,” Brittany confirms. “And why?”       “You live not far from here. One or two houses down, I can’t remember clearly.”       “I do.”       “I’m Peter,” Peter introduces himself. “Peter Rose.”       “Peter?”       Frowning slightly, Brittany looks at Peter much better.       “Is…”       “I used to live here with my mother, Cornelia Rose,” Peter explains. “But she left home when I was sixteen. And she never came back before I decided to leave.”       “Oh, God…” Brittany closes her mouth with a hand, looking at Peter from head to foot. “Peter… Boy… Is that really you?”       “Glad to see you, Mrs. Lyons,” Peter cracks a slight smile. “That’s good you’re still alive.”       “My gosh… Peter… My gosh…”       Not believing what she sees and being a little confused, Brittany hugs Peter amicably, while he answers her back with pleasure.       “Wow, how you’ve grown up!” Brittany pronounces with admiration, taking Peter’s hand. “You’ve become so adult… I remember you being a young boy.”       “You disappeared at some moment,” Peter notices. “I thought you died.”       “Oh, no… As you can see, I’m still alive. I recently turned ninety-five.”       “That’s awesome!”       “I disappeared because I left this place for some time. I accepted the suggestion of my daughter to live in the city with her. But I didn’t like it at all, even if I can’t deny that it’s hard sometimes.”       “I see…”       “Gosh, you’ve become so handsome! So tall! You got muscles, as I see. Though you used to be a pale and skinny boy that I wanted to feed all the time.”       “Yeah, I got some results after doing a lot of sports,” Peter shrugs.       “Listen, boy, what are you doing here?” Brittany wonders, comes to the bed and sits on it carefully, leaning on her cane, while Peter joins her. “I knew nothing about you for several years, but now you’ve shown up like out of the blue.”       “Well, I just wanted to check my places.” Peter glances aside for a second, locking his fingers tightly. “The decision was spontaneous, I didn’t plan anything.”       “Got nostalgia?”       “Oh, what kind of nostalgia… It’s been so many years, but the bad memories about my childhood don’t leave my mind.”       “Oh, I’ve never forgotten how everyone mocked you for no reason,” Brittany shakes her head. “And I still don’t understand why they did this to you.”       “I can’t find the answer to this question…”       “But how are you living now? Is your life good now?”       “Yes, it is. I bought a small apartment in the middle of the city for a low price and moved in. But now it’s unbearable to live there because of my neighbors who turn my life to hell, and I’m getting ready to move again.”       “Bought something bigger?”       “Yes, I’m on the final stage of buying a large and light house. I paid the money, signed all the documents, and followed all the steps. I just need to wait for a while.”       “As I understand, do you have a good job since you’re letting yourself do this?”       “Yes, I have money. It was hard at first, but my salary was small, but I solved it later and started to earn much more.”       “That’s good! I’m so happy for you.”       “Yeah, but I can’t call myself a happy man.”       “Why?”       “The ghost of the past chases me. All those mockeries left a bright mark on my whole life. That’s why I… I have problems talking to people. I… I can’t trust them completely. I’m waiting for them to deceive me and shower my face in the mud.”       “Oh, Peter, my poor boy…”       “It’s alright, I’ve been living all my life with this. I learned to subdue my real emotions and pretend to be the party of the company. Not showing that I was broken and ruined.”       “But that’s wrong, honey! Do you understand you can’t live your whole life like this?”       “I guess I have to,” Peter shrugs. “I can’t do anything to myself.”       “You know what, sweetie? Let’s go to my home! So, I give you sweet tea and treat you with cookies… Let’s talk a little: you can tell me about you, and I can tell you what has changed over the past several years.”       “Alright, I agree.”       “That’s awesome, my sweetheart.”       Wincing slightly, Brittany gets up carefully from the bed with the help of Peter.       “Do you remember where my house is?”       “I think so…” Peter bites his lip slightly.       “Let’s go then…”       Peter starts holding Brittany under her arm, while they leave the house together, go outside, and go straight down the path in a slow, careful step.       “It has become so empty now…” Peter notices thoughtfully.       “Yeah, there is almost nobody…” Brittany sighs heavily, leaning on her cane. “Young and active folks like you have already moved to the center of the city. And someone like me keeps living their life. Well… Erm… Maybe only drug addicts and alcoholics feel excellent here and are not going to move.”       “On the way here, I met a company of women and men. Someone seemed familiar to me. But I didn’t find out anything and moved on.”       “Yeah, many young people start to take banned substances and start to rob. Our civil alcoholics are drunk all the time, and nobody believes the promises of drug addicts and robbers to stop doing this. They take money from everyone they have in their way. They steal everything they see. And the sellers of our shop close their eyes to the riots. And they go there and feel like they're home as they take expensive drinks and put them in their coats. In the best case, they only pay for snacks. Not always, huh.”       “I see…”       “After the death of some of my friends, I feel very lonely here. And there is nothing I can talk to these alcoholics about.”       “But you have a phone! You can call your daughter in the city and talk to her!”       “Oh, it's been years since it stopped working! Tara bought me a push-button phone a long time ago, but I still haven’t figured out how it works. It keeps lying in my drawer for nothing.”       “There’s nothing hard with it.”       “No, Peter, I've never befriended technology. It’s too complicated for me. I only know how to turn on and turn off a TV and change channels on the remote control. And I can turn on the radio. This is the point where my knowledge ends.”       “Maybe I can help you solve the problem with the broken phone?”       “You can?”       “At least I can try. Moreover, I’m pretty good at technology.”       “Alright, we will talk about it later. But first, we will drink a cup of tea and talk about what happened.”       “You got so excited,” Peter smiles shyly.       “I just got a wonderful chance to talk to someone and stop feeling lonely.”       “I’m at your service then.”       “I already see my house!”       Peter and Brittany take some distance in a snail’s step before they come to the half-ruined wooden house that they can come to by getting up on stoned stairs that are partly covered with grass. The man helps the woman pass the barrier that is so hard for her at her old age, not rushing, and waiting patiently for her to be ready to get up.       “U-u-u-ugh, I am so sick of your attempts to be a good boy,” the hallucination in the form of Theodore shows up, standing on top with his arms crossed over his chest. “Your attempts to be the one you are not.”       Peter bites the bullet so hard not to betray himself and not to answer Theodore, letting Brittany know that he has been suffering from hallucinations for ages. When he braces himself quickly, he moves his eyes to the woman, who needs to get up several stairs. And when he moves his eyes up again, he sees that his hallucination is gone. Then he exhales sharply with closed eyes, feeling that he can control his condition.       “You should leave home rarely at such an old age,” Peter advises. “How much effort you have to make to get up on these stairs like this.”       “That’s how I can keep myself in more or less good shape,” Brittany replies. “If I stop moving, my body is going to atrophy.”       “I get it, but still…”       “Oh, it’s alright, my boy, I’m used.”       After getting up on the last stairs, Brittany stops to catch some air, while Peter holds her under her arms in case she cannot stand on her feet.       “Hey, maybe you will stop pretending to be a gentleman and take care of this old woman who only has two Mondays to live?” Theodore asks gloomily. “I don't want you to let me become like this. It’s not about me! I am different!”       “Enter the house,” Brittany invites, coming to the door and opening it. “Feel free.”       After Brittany enters her home first, Peter follows her, looking at everything he sees.       “Okay, sit down, feel like you're home. But I will boil the water quickly.”       “Thanks…” Peter pronounces thoughtfully, glancing at the picture hanging above the small burning fireplace.       Peter notices silently that the living room, united with the kitchen, looks old-fashioned, but everything looks comfortable and nice enough. The wide shelf from dark wood with some little things and houseplants in small pots, a middle-sized TV of the old model on the table of the same wood, a couple of old armchairs, a sofa, a coffee table… A little chandelier with a fan on the ceiling covered with yellow spots, a couple of floor lamps in the corner… A soft-to-touch carpet, under which the parquet squeaks. The light wind gets in the room through the half-open window, and everything looks like the owner of the house takes care of it with love, even despite her old age.       “Okay…” Theodore pronounces thoughtfully, looking at everything as he walks into the whole living room with his hands locked behind his back. “This house is way better than yours. There’s a fireplace, and it’s very clean… And the sofa is soft enough…”       Pronouncing the last words, Theodore falls on the soft, dark yellow sofa that definitely fits the interior, in which brown shades and wood dominate.       “M-m-m, pretty good… Very good…”       Peter growls very quietly, clenching his hands tightly into fists and holding down his wish to say something to his hallucination that keeps looking at him with a sly smile, while Brittany returns to the living room.       “Now, my sweetie, the water will boil quickly,” Brittany promises. “Wait for a while.”       “It’s alright, I will wait,” Peter calms down.       “Sit down, Peter, why are you standing here shyly?” Brittany comes to Peter, hugs him around the shoulders, and brings him softly to the sofa, on which they sit. “Okay… Relax…”       “You take care of your home so well. It’s always been so comfortable and clean here. I remember this place like this.”       “Agree, it’s much better to live in a clean and comfortable place. When it smells good, silence and peace settle, and every room is cleaned and ventilated regularly.”       “You’re right. I do the same.”       “Thanks to you, your home was more or less clean. But when you left, everything quickly covered with webs and living things.”       “It was a stupid thing, remembering that my mother was always a slob and never cared about cleanliness.”       “Agree. And she wasn’t even pleased to take care of her personal hygiene.”       “Did she show up here after my departure?”       “She showed up once,” Brittany nods. “Like, one year after your departure. Everyone forgot about Cornelia, but she came back home one beautiful day.”       “That’s how…”       “But she didn’t stay here for too long. Cornelia took some things from home to sell and disappeared again. And nobody has known anything about it since then.”       “She asked about me?”       “She did. She was really surprised when my neighbors and I told her you moved to the center of the city. But she was also very mad. Like, you shouldn't have left her and acted like a thankless pig back then.”       “As if she did a good thing to me…” Peter sighs tiredly, moving his eyes aside.       “She said she gave her youth to you and all her strength and deserved some thankfulness from you. And she showered her ex-husband with mud. The one who left her for a young girl.”       “Yeah, literally a mother heroine!”       “I can’t say Cornelia was worried about you. She only cared about money so that she could buy as many drinks as possible.”       “You didn’t surprise me. I didn’t wait for her to change her mind and love the one who needed her when he was a child.”       “No matter how much I want to protect and defend her, it’s impossible, sadly. Cornelia didn’t care.”       “No wonder. I am nobody to her.”       “What do you mean?”       “Cornelia Rose is not my mother,” Peter says quietly. “I am a strange person to her.”       “Gosh, Peter, my boy, what are you talking about?” Brittany horrifies.       “It’s true, Mrs. Lyons. My real mother is a different woman who died after childbirth.”       “Erm…” Brittany bites her lip slightly. “Why do you think so? Did someone tell you that? Or do you say it because you’re mad at Cornelia?”       “My offence has to do with it. But I recently had to discover many new things about myself. Find out that I… I didn’t live the life I should’ve lived.”       “So, do you know everything now?”       “What?”       “About your real mother and… Your real father.”       “You know something about it?” Peter frowns slightly.       “I know everything about it.”       “How long?”       “Always.”       “M-m-m…” Theodore smiles slyly, spreading his legs aside slightly. “Conspiracy… There are conspiracies around… People try to hide something from you. Nobody wanna be honest with you.”       “So, did you know that Cornelia wasn’t my real mother but say nothing about it?” Peter surprises truly.       “I’m sorry, Peter,” Brittany apologizes with sadness in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”       “And did you know my father was a country-wide famous killer who murdered nobody knows how many people?”       “Yes, sweetie, Marcus Longbottom is really your own father. And his wife, Julia, is your real mother.”       “Marcus couldn’t accept her death and blamed me for everything.”       “Yes… That’s why he was so determined to get rid of you. He sold you to a stinker for a lot of money when you were one.”       “Yeah… He sold me, so they gave me to slavery later.”       “Cornelia didn’t hesitate a lot when a stranger tried to give the child to her after he stole him from the criminals out of kindness. Moreover, she was barren and couldn’t give birth, but the baby would’ve been her everything. But Cornelia’s husband didn’t agree with it and left you.”       “And after that, Cornelia started to blame me for that,” Peter adds gloomily. “I was guilty of everyone’s problems.”       “Cornelia started to drink after her divorce from her husband. She went out of her mind when she saw him looking happy with another woman and their children. So, that woman began to drink her grief down with tons of alcohol.”       “It’s clear that nobody starts to drink without a reason.”       “And Cornelia never tried to wean herself away from her dependence. Though my neighbors and I offered her help many times: coding, group therapy, individual ones… We begged her to put herself together at least for the child, but she just waved her hand.”       “On the one hand, I could understand her. But on the other hand, I wasn’t guilty. Nobody made her take me with her. She could reject me at any time and leave me in any orphan house. But she didn’t.”       “I guess she saw you as a certain servant who would clean the house, cook food, and earn money. Cornelia literally exploited you.”       “At least, now I know what everything started with. And I understand why she didn’t want to tell me anything about my father when I asked her.”       “Honestly, I don’t know if Cornelia found out the truth about you. But before she left home, she didn’t know it one hundred percent.”       “She did. Marcus met her somewhere two or three years ago, talked to her, and told her about me. He confessed that Peter Rose was actually his son, who was born as Theodore Longbottom. She told him everything, too. She helped him understand that his son was alive all the time. And he decided to become famous.”       “Famous?”       “Yes, my friends and I decided to become musicians and started a band. We’ve become successful enough… We’re gonna release our first album soon.”       “M-m-m, does it mean you started to work on music seriously?”       “I can’t imagine myself having a profession that is not related to my own.”       “You started to show a talent for music in your childhood years,” Brittany smiles shyly. “It’s a shame that nobody helped you work on it better.”       “You can think I helped myself. Though I have the opportunity to get lessons from professionals and improve my vocals and drum play.”       “I’m glad you found your way.”       “But I’m still surprised that I’m attracted to music so much. Everything is clear about Cornelia, but Marcus hardly loved her. As far as I understand, he loves working with herbs more.”       “But your mother had a musical talent.”       “Julia?”       “She was a very talented vocalist with a powerful enough voice since childhood,” Brittany confesses. “Her parents sent Julia to a musical school at an early age, and she learned to play the piano and got vocal lessons. Opera vocal lessons.”       “Opera? That woman was an opera singer?”       “She could’ve been the one if she hadn’t stopped getting lessons. But at some moment, Julia went against her mother. Like, she got sick of what didn’t make sense.”       “Do you mean she didn’t care about music?”       “No. But she was given a talent by God. She was destined to become a great singer, but she didn’t want it. I mean, Julia liked much heavier music. She wanted to play drums or guitar, but her mother categorically minded it. Then your mother started to protest by failing everything in lessons and left it after she ran away from home and got married to Marcus.”       “So, do you want to say I inherited my talent for music from her?”       “I think so,” Brittany throws her hands up. “But which instrument do you play? Drums, as you wanted?”       “Yup, drums. And I also sing.”       “You literally fulfilled Julia’s dream.”       “And I can play guitar. I do it rarely, though. But when the people heard me play, they started to tell me to take things into my hands often.”       “I’m sure Julia would be proud of you.       “Excuse me, did you know that woman?”       “Yes, I knew her. She was a friend of my daughter. The girls studied together at the university and didn’t stop talking until Julia's death. Which Tara couldn’t accept for a long time.”       “So, do you know about Marcus, too?”       “Oh, sweetie, who doesn’t know about him?” Brittany sighs heavily. “That man did his best for everyone to talk about him. For everyone to fear him.”       “I still don’t understand what that woman liked about him. Why she agreed to get married to him.”       “You know, Peter, I think Julia let him love her mostly. Yes, she treated Marcus with respect and took care of him, but his feelings were much stronger than hers.”       “He said they were originally half-brother and half-sister.”       “Yes, his father and her mother loved each other and got married when Julia and Marcus were kids. The friend of my daughter accepted him warmly as her half-brother and admired him as her protector. And I must praise Marcus because he really protected Julia when someone hurt her. He could say something bad and start a fight. That’s why everyone started to be afraid to get close to her and didn’t bother her a lot. Though that girl was very quiet, shy, kind, and insecure. A perfect victim for the bullying.”       “According to his version, their relationship was perfect: he admired her, but she went crazy from him.”       “At least, as far as I know, they lived in peace and calm. But I repeat, there wasn’t a great and eternal love between both of them.”       “Did Julia actually know about his crimes?”       “She did,” Brittany nods. “And that was what made her afraid of Marcus. She was afraid to do something wrong and make him mad. She was afraid that he would love to kill her.”       “Are you sure everything was really all right between them?” Peter frowns slightly. “Maybe everything was otherwise?”       “I don’t know, sonny. That’s what my daughter and her friend said. Both of them said everything was alright in Julia’s life.”       “How could everything be alright when that woman was afraid for her life?”       “Julia was a non-conflicting person and always did what she was told obediently. At first, she obeyed her mother, who didn’t give her any right of choice, but then she protested and started to live with Marcus. Started to listen to him. She silently did everything he said and never argued with him.”       “But it didn’t mean she didn’t have her opinion. She could just be afraid to show it.”       “Maybe,” Brittany shrugs. “But Julia was actually a real wingman. Tara often said her friend always made her responsible for choosing how to have fun, choosing food, and everything like that. And when she was suggested something, she agreed with everything.”       “And… She felt comfortable? Was it comfortable for her to agree with everything and do what could be strange to her?”       “It’s clear that she was happy with everything. She got away from her mother as her lord, but then she became a slave of another lord. I think this is just a type of person. Julia was under someone’s control all her life and couldn’t express her opinion even if she really wanted to.”       “I’m not similar to her in this case…” Peter says thoughtfully. “Even if someone tried to break my will, I kept having my own opinion and didn’t want to swim with the flow.”       “It’s about Marcus. He is a very stubborn man whom nobody could control. If he comes up with something, he goes until the very end. He came up with the thought that his son was guilty of Julia’s death, and he didn’t stop thinking of it even more than twenty years later. And he wanted to get rid of you after getting the confirmation from Cornelia about you being alive and healthy.”       “I don’t understand… I don’t understand how that woman could choose that man as her husband. Didn’t she have anyone else? Didn’t she have enough admirers?”       “Sadly, such quiet and insecure girls are always in the trap of those who can subdue their will and control them. They don’t know how to get rid of them and succumb to their charm easily. Marcus understood it and charmed Julia easily by trying to stand up for her.”       “Maybe she didn’t even understand what was happening to her and how people were using her obedience.”       “Alas, it happens. Moreover, it all started with her mother, your grandmother. Ellen controlled Julia cruelly, didn’t stop watching her, and swore at her for any little thing. The mother didn’t give her daughter a sense of dignity and made her feel comfortable. Comfortable for every bad person.”       While Peter swallows nervously with his head inclined, Brittany moves her eyes to the kitchen after she hears the loud, familiar sound.       “Oh, the water is boiled!” Brittany exclaims. “You want tea or coffee?”       “Coffee, please,” Peter pronounces. “With one spoon of sugar.”       “Alright, but I will make tea for myself. I’ve lately had a headache after drinking coffee. Anyway, I have a little bit of it – it’s enough for a cup or two.”       “Thanks.”       While Brittany gets up from the sofa with quiet, tormenting sounds and goes slowly to the kitchen, Peter leans back on the sofa with sadness in his eyes and closes his eyes, waiting for the return of this sweet old lady with a cup of coffee.       “You would’ve been fucking happy to make someone else responsible for your protection when you were young,” Theodore says, sitting in the armchair. “But alas, you didn’t have anyone by your side. And you were too cowardly to say or do something to the crowd. Because you said one word, but they said ten words.”       “Hey, get the fuck off me,” Peter demands coldly in a whisper.       “Yes, sadly, you didn’t have any big and strong brother that would’ve stood up for you just like your dad stood up for your mom. Everyone gave a fuck about you, your feelings, and your emotions…”       “Excellent news… You surprised me as fuck!”       “If you were Theodore Longbottom, none of this would happen. You’d be a strong, confident, and determined man. Everyone would consider you a certain leader. Any yobbo would be afraid to stand in your way, as well as people were afraid to stand in Marcus’ way. And if any little asshole dared to say something against you, you’d deal with them immediately.”       Theodore shakes his head with an innocent smile.       “But you’re still Peter Rose. Whose destiny is super bad. Because he is the opposite of Theodore: weak, insecure, and indecisive. Everyone considers him an outsider. Any asshole thinks they must use him as a rag, say something bad, and test all the possible tricks on him. And he is silent even in this case. He is silent and provokes everyone much more by squeaking with pity about help and crying bitterly.”       “I used to,” Peter whispers. “But I’m different now.”       “Wrong, buddy, you’re still the same. You just learned to pretend to be sassy. Because you’ve got strong guys by your side. Daniel, Terrence, Edward… They’re brave and determined guys. Confident ones who don’t let anyone hurt them. With them, you feel as warm as toast. They give you a sense of safety. So, you’re hiding behind their backs and trying to seem like a threatening dog that scares everyone with its barking. And you ain’t afraid. Because you know they’d come to you to help. I mean, they used to come. After what happened, the guys hate you to the fucking death.”       “I am fucking done with you, honestly. Fucking done.”       “I am the voice of your consciousness that speaks what you try to forget and subdue aloud.”       “I didn’t ask you to.”       “Listen, Peter, stop whispering,” Theodore smirks evilly. “That old woman would know you’re outta your mind. Everyone would know you talk to me and pronounce you a schizophrenic. No matter how hard you’d hide it. Everything comes to light early or late.”       “Ar-r-r-r, did I really deserve this punishment?” Peter growls, raising his head up to the ceiling.       “If you do what you should do, you’ll live a quiet life. Of course, if you still have a wish to do it.”       Peter says nothing and exhales slowly, trying so hard to keep his emotions under control, while he cannot betray himself. Moreover, Brittany comes to him at this moment, leaning on the cane with one hand, carrying a plate carefully with two cups, and trying so hard not to split everything since she suffers from a slight tremor in her muscles.       “Here am I!” Brittany exclaims with a slight smile.       “Let me help you,” Peter says. “You may split it.”       Peter gets up from the sofa quickly, takes the plate from Brittany, puts it on the coffee table, and holds the woman under her arm to help her sit in the place where she was before. And at some moment, he glances secretly at Theodore, who just rolls his eyes as he watches what’s happening, sitting in the armchair with his legs spread widely.       “Enjoy, my sweetheart,” Brittany pronounces softly. “Of course, cookies are a little tough because I bought them a long time ago, but they’re delicious.”       “Thanks a lot,” Peter thanks with a slight smile after he sits on the sofa again. “Won’t you eat?”       “Oh, no, no, I will just drink tea. And I don’t literally have teeth. I can barely chew everything. Now my food is all in liquid form or very, very soft so I can swallow it shortly.”       “Maybe you try to soak a cookie in tea? It can make it softer.”       “I do it sometimes. But I also ate recently. That’s why I don’t want to eat.”       “Alright, as you wish.”       “Eat, eat, sonny, don’t be shy.”       Peter flashes a slight smile at Brittany and takes a plate carefully with a cup of coffee on it, drinks a little, and decides to put it aside since it’s too hot yet. But he does not refuse to take a vanilla cookie that turns out to be really delicious and fragrant.       “Oh, how are you doing yourself?” Brittany asks, deciding to put her cup of tea on the table so it gets cool a little. “I know what about your home and money. But what about your personal life? Have you met a girl already?”       “Not very good, honestly,” Peter replies with sadness in his eyes, looking at his hands. “I’ve always been unlucky with girls.”       “Why? You’re such a handsome boy!”       “The problem is me. I… I was banning myself from loving for a long time.”       “Because of the girl who humiliated you for the entire school?”       “I was afraid that it would happen again. That’s why I didn’t let anyone get attracted to me. And if any girl started to pick me up, I rejected her.”       “But why, sweetheart? Do you understand you could harm those girls?”       “I knew it, Mrs. Lyons. But I could do nothing for myself. Fear was stronger than me.”       “And you… Do you wanna say you still don’t date anyone?”       “Nope… Four years ago, I met a girl I started to fall in love with. I was hiding my feelings for a long time and kept being her friend. But one day, I confessed it. And… I found out that she loved me, too. I didn’t believe it at first, but I decided to give her a chance. And… We started to date.”       “Loving someone is really good,” Brittany smiles shyly.       “I was really happy when we dated. I even started to think seriously about proposing to her. I decided to move to a better place so I could bring her to my home with no shame.”       “I am so sorry about your breakup.”       “We didn’t break up.” Peter moves his sad eyes to Brittany. “My girlfriend died.”       “What?” Brittany opens her eyes widely. “Died? What do you mean?”       “Marcus killed her. He killed her to make me suffer. To make me feel the same pain he felt when he found out about Julia’s death.”       “My God, Peter, my poor boy…”       Brittany caresses Peter softly on his hand, which she takes with both hands and squeezes in hers at some moment.       “I’m very, very sorry about what happened. How long ago did she die?”       “One week ago.”       “And what was her age?”       “She was a little time from turning twenty-six. Her birthday was in September.”       “Holy Mother, she was such a young girl…” Brittany closes her mouth with a hand. “What a tragedy…”       “It all happened before my eyes.” Peter swallows nervously. “And I could do nothing with it. I could not save her. That sick bastard let me do nothing.”       “I imagine what her parents are feeling now.”       “She only had a grandmother. She is in a terrible condition and hasn’t gotten up from the bed since Marcus kidnapped my girlfriend. He held her nobody the hell knows where for one week before he decided to get rid of her.”       “She was murdered?”       “She burned in the fire. She couldn’t get out. And to make sure she was really dead, those bastards exploded the place where she was.”       “It’s awful…” Brittany shakes her head. “What’s the hell happening? And that cad is going to avoid the punishment again. Just like he’s been doing this for more than twenty years.”       “Nope, the police have him caught.”       “Caught? Really?”       “Yes, they show tons of reports about it on TV all the time.”       “Oh, I need to watch it somehow. I haven’t lately watched any news, and I’ve got a stronger interest in old movies or listening to the radio.”       “Though I don’t actually care if he’s been arrested or not,” Peter confesses in a little shaking voice and wipes a tear under his eyes that is about to roll down his cheek. “It won’t bring back my sweetheart. My love I don’t see the meaning in living in this world without.”       “Hold on, my sweetheart, hold on.”       Brittany hugs Peter around the shoulders and caresses his head in a mother’s way, while he clenches his hands into fists and inclines his head.       “I know what losing your beloved person is like.”       “She was the only reason that made me stay strong,” Peter confesses. “The reason why I did nothing to me. The reason why I really wanted to live.”       “Don’t tell me you want to die.”       “I do…” Peter swallows nervously. “I don’t see the meaning in making my suffering longer. If not for Helene, I would’ve killed myself a long time ago.”       “But what about your band? You said you sang and played drums. If you want to die, you’re going to let your colleagues down.”       “I don’t really care,” Peter replies without emotions. “I don’t care about what’s going to happen to the band. I’m having a condition where I don’t want to do anything at all.”       “Death is always hard, it’s always a tragedy. And it’s okay to become a vegetable for some time, feel sad, cry, and talk about the late one. This is the part of mourning that you can’t avoid.”       “No, Mrs. Lyons, I will never feel better. Never.”       “Since God gave life to you and hasn’t taken it away, it means you haven’t completed your mission.”       “What are you talking about?” Peter chuckles quietly. “My mission is to harm someone and be a punching bag for everyone. A rag that everyone can use to clean their feet.”       “Even if one person dies, there are many other people for whom you should keep living. Late people always stay with us, in our hearts and minds. But when the pain is gone, we’ve got a thankfulness for being next to us.”       “I don’t have anyone. I don’t have a girlfriend, a wife, children, or relatives… No one.”       “Think about your bandmates. Think about your friends who are worried about you. I’m sure they’re going to be upset if you decide to end your life.”       “They’ll know nothing,” Peter pronounces without emotions. “Because I will tell them nothing.”       “Peter…”       “And actually, I’m not talking to anyone now. Hiding from everyone.”       “What do you mean you’re not talking to anyone?”       “I don’t want to see anyone and hear anyone.”       “But why, my boy? You must not stay alone in such a hard time for you! There must be someone next to you! You must talk to someone.”       “No, Mrs. Lyons, I don’t want to.”       “Maybe that’s why you think about killing yourself. You keep everything inside and don’t talk about what’s happening in your soul. It kills you inside, and you don’t resist it at all.”       “I didn’t want to live before. I felt like I owed someone. I lived for someone, for a sense of duty…”       “First of all, you must live for yourself,” Brittany says confidently. “You must love yourself and value yourself. It may sound egoistic, but it’s not good to live for someone or something only. Your feelings and emotions do matter, too.”       “Why would I live for me? To keep suffering? To keep asking myself who I am, what the meaning of my life is, and where my place in this world is?”       “We all come to this world with a certain goal.”       “I have it – to be a burden and a rag for everyone. To be doomed to suffer until the end of my life.”       “No, Peter, don’t say it, please.”       “I’ve lived my whole life like my life isn’t mine. It’s like, a part of me was lost. And I understood why I felt like this after Marcus told me the truth. Told me I was destined to be Theodore Longbottom.”       “It doesn’t matter if you’re Peter or Theodore,” Brittany replies softly. “You can’t change your fate.”       “I didn’t feel like Peter at one hundred percent. Theodore kind of tried to get rid of him and take his place.”       “What do you want to say?”       “I don’t know who I really am. Who I want to be. Everything is mixed in my head.”       “So, who do you feel more comfortable being? Which name do you feel yourself with?”       “I don’t know…” Peter shakes his head. “I don’t know… It’s like… Both of these names are strange.”       “You know, sonny, I think all these words are the consequences of the grief over your girlfriend’s death. You’re now in a condition where you don’t understand what’s happening. Don’t understand what you do and say. Everything happens like in a daze for you.”       “My whole life has been in a daze. As if someone controls me. Like… I wanna break free, but someone doesn’t let me do this.”       “Here’s my advice, Peter, don’t run from people. Trust me, the whole world isn’t turned against you. Not everyone wants to hurt you, as you think. We need friends to be with us in hard times. If they don’t give a damn about you and do really value their friendship with you, the guys will do their best for you to feel much better,”       “C’mon, Mrs. Lyons, I don’t actually want to talk to anyone now.” Peter moves his eyes aside. “And I am ashamed, to be honest…”       “Why? Could mourning for your beloved person really be a shame?”       “I just… Made one mistake… And after this, I’m ashamed to look into the guys’ eyes. I mean, I’ve made a lot of them.” Peter swallows nervously. “I am especially ashamed of one of my friends, who suffered much more because of me.”       “He blames you for something?”       “Nope, he doesn’t. But… I still can’t forget what I did. I am madly ashamed.”       “If your friend forgave you a long time ago, it means you should let go of the situation.”       “I can’t. What I did was unforgivable.”       “You talked to him about it?”       “Nope. We’ve never mentioned that case.”       “I’m sure you’ll get better if you talk to your friend about it.”       “I don’t think so.”       “You need to work on your friendship as well as your relationship with your girlfriend. You need to talk about all your problems and claims and find a solution together.”       “It’s always hard for me to talk to people,” Peter replies thoughtfully. “I’m still afraid of them and waiting for something bad from them. Waiting for someone to wish to mock me and shower my feelings with mud. That’s why I’m afraid to open myself to everyone.”       “Do you feel like an introvert or an extrovert? Do you really feel comfortable being alone? Or do you want to be in the company of people but have fears?”       “I think… I want… Because… It’s… I’m afraid… To be alone. Very much. That’s my fear. To be all alone.”       “It means there must be a reason why you’re ignoring people.”       “I think the problem is the school bullying,” Peter shrugs. “The way Cornelia treated me… Other adults… Everything…”       “Maybe something happened much earlier?”       “I don’t know, Mrs. Lyons.”       “Any problem has its roots. Nothing comes out of nowhere. All children are born to be curious and aim to talk to people and explore this world. And if any adult slaps a child on the nose once or twice, shouts at them, or tells them not to do something and adds it’s dangerous, bad, or shameful, they think better.”       “M-m-m, the old woman speaks the truth,” Theodore notices with a sly smile. “The roots of your problems come from your childhood. You need to find answers to all these questions there. Remember everything you’re not happy with, accept it all, and break the invisible barriers that you set up with the hope of saving yourself.”       “I don’t know, maybe you’re right…” Peter sighs tiredly. “But now I don’t want to solve, find out, or look for anything. I didn’t have this wish before, but now it’s gone forever.”       “Anyway, I advise you not to run from your friends and to let them help you,” Brittany advises softly, holding Peter’s hand. “Your best friends don’t wish you anything bad. They want to make you feel better. Since you don’t have anyone else, these people are the only ones you can count on.”       “Nothing can help me. Nothing can heal me from the death of my beloved girl. The biggest and truest love that I will never find.”       “Let the guys help you, Peter. Don’t run from them. You need them like never ever, even though you probably don’t understand it yet. You think you feel good alone, but you’re actually suffering because you can’t cry on anyone’s shoulder and share your sadness.”       “They can’t help me anyway.”       “You miss them?”       “I do. But I don’t wanna see them.”       “You don’t want or are afraid?”       “This and that.”       “Talk to them. Don’t refuse to spend time with the guys if they invite you somewhere. It’s easier to survive the grief together than alone. And actually, a human can’t live alone in this world. They need someone to be near. And it doesn’t have to be a husband, a wife, or a child. There are cases when one friend becomes much closer to you than ten friends. When they’re the only ones to breathe into you and show you how many interesting things this world has.”       “What would I say?”       “Anything you have inside. What you feel after the death of your girlfriend.”       “Her death makes me dream of one thing – to go after her.”       “I get it, honey, but I’m sure you will feel better if you stop running from those who want to help you get through this pain.”       “You don’t understand me, Mrs. Lyons,” Peter shakes his head.       “Do what I tell you to feel a little better. Or better go to a doctor so they can examine your condition and help you get out of this hole.”       “I am healthy. I do not need any doctors.”       “You need, my sweetie. Knowing that you harmed yourself in the past.” Brittany glances at Peter’s wrists. “And you keep doing this, as I understand.”       “I’m alright.”       “By the way, my daughter told me that the mother of Marcus, your father, killed herself one day because she suffered from severe depression. The problem wasn’t her life, which was more than just wonderful. The problem was about her illness.”       “Well…” Peter shrugs. “She was ill, but I am healthy. I’m unhappy, though. I was broken. Ruined. And I can’t fix myself again because a part of the puzzle is lost forever. That’s why I’ve got an unclear and distorted.”       “Oh, everyone says they’re healthy when they actually need help. Nobody wants to admit that they are ill even if it’s clear.”       “I am healthy, Mrs. Lyons,” Peter says coldly and a little incontinently. “I am alright.”       “No, Peter, you need help. What you’re doing is not right. And if you don’t ask a specialist for help in time, you are about to destroy yourself.”       “I don’t need anyone’s help. I can get through it on my own.”       “Fuck, the old lady is annoying!” Theodore throws gloomily, rolling his eyes. “I do wanna grab the plate and hit her on the head strongly.”       “They don’t have any information about you now,” Brittany notices. “But if they had a label about you having suicidal tendencies, they could send you to forced therapy. By the way, your grandmother was on the record of the mental hospital and was put there several times.”       “Gosh, Mrs. Lyons, why do you pay so much attention to me being sick?” Peter asks irritably. “Do you really think I am out of my mind? You want to say I am a certain psycho?”       “I didn’t call you a psycho.”       “I am not sick, I repeat to you. I am alright.”       “Alright, man, do what you want,” Brittany raises her hands. “It’s your life, and you decide what to do. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about it.”       “I don’t want to hear anything about it anymore. So, let’s close this topic, please.”       “Alright, Peter, as you wish.”       “Kill her…” Theodore encourages with a sly smile. “Kill this old woman… Hit her with something heavy… And then burn this house to the fucking ground. It would be super easy to do this since there’s a fireplace here.”       “By the way, I just recalled that I have something that belonged to Julia,” Brittany confesses quietly.       “Really?” Peter asks in a little hoarse, low voice, rounding his eyes.       “Yes, the diary.”       “The diary?”       “I realized it belonged to her thanks to the first pages. I ran my eyes over them briefly.”       “But… How did you get her diary?”       “My daughter brought me a big box with things she didn’t need one day. She said I could leave something for myself and throw something away if I didn’t need it. I checked through it and found the diary.”       “But how did your daughter get it?”       “She later said Julia gave it to her to keep it. Some time before she went to give birth.”       “It’s strange…” Peter frowns slightly. “She took her diary with her… She probably had very personal things there!”       “Yeah, there are many personal things. And tons of notes about her relationship with Marcus.”       “You read it?”       “I only saw the first pages. She told about her life with her mother and father, who made her do what she didn’t like and didn’t care about the girl’s opinion.”       “I see… Can I look at this?”       “Oh, I have it somewhere in my room. But I can’t remember where I put it. Though I know for sure that I didn’t throw it off. Moreover, my daughter gave the box to me when Cornelia moved here with you. When you were lucky not to be sold abroad.”       “But why didn’t you tell me anything about Marcus, Julia, and this situation? You did know everything! You were one of those who could tell me the truth!”       “Right. I could tell you. But Cornelia banned me from doing this. She didn’t want you to know the truth about your father. And about her being nobody to you.”       “It would be fun to hear that she wanted to protect me.”       “It’s true. There was a period when Cornelia really took care of you. When you became her salvation after she got divorced from her husband. She got the official documents, changed your name, and gave you her surname. I mean, her husband’s surname that she didn’t change after her divorce. Cornelia broke down a little later after a serious fight with her ex-husband and his new woman.”       “But you should’ve understood that I’d know the truth early or late. Yes, I didn’t want to know about my father because I thought it wouldn’t lead to anything good. But as you can see, my father found me. Even if I have a different name now.”       “I’m sorry, sonny… I’m sorry about being silent.”       “M-m-m, here’s another reason to kill this old woman…” Theodore notices cheerfully, crossing his ankles and putting his hand in his pocket as he is sitting frivolously in the armchair. “And another reason to make sure everyone lies to you, everyone wanna hurt you, and everyone doesn’t care about your feelings.”       “Okay…” Peter exhales slowly, moving his eyes aside. “I got it…”       “I understand that it was hard for you to know this bitter truth. To find out that your father is a bloodthirsty killer who killed people for nothing. He wanted to kill you because he thought you were guilty of his wife’s death. And that poor girl became a victim of your own father.”       “It’s alright, I will get through it.” Peter swallows nervously and moves his eyes to Brittany. “Do you promise me to find the diary you talked about?”       “I will try to find the diary right now,” Brittany promises, clapping Peter on his hand. “I have one thought about the place where I could put it.”       “Thanks a lot.”       “Sit here, drink coffee, and eat cookies. I will bring your mother’s diary to you.”       Groaning quietly from pain in her whole body, Brittany gets up slowly from the sofa, takes her cane, and starts leaning on it as she goes to the door that leads to her room. When the old woman closes the door behind herself, Peter leans back on the sofa with a sharp exhalation and runs his hands over his face.       “Damn, I’m really starting to get sick of you being falsely gentle,” Theodore frowns strongly. “I do wanna clean my stomach from how hard you try to pretend to be good.”       “I won’t succumb to you, Theodore,” Peter replies in a whisper. “I will not succumb to you and kill this woman. The fact that I almost killed my friends is enough.”       “Sorry…” Theodore yawns with a widely open mouth. “It would be cool if you started another fucking hell. You missed such a cool chance to end this old woman.”       “Will you make me kill everyone I talk to?”       “Only those who dare to say something against you. She dared to call you a mentally unstable freak. She pronounced you one of the ill people. That bitch insulted you. Which means you must get rid of her immediately.”       “But she’s right to some extent. I’m really not alright. I am a guy who’s hiding that he sees his copy that doesn’t actually exist.”       “Why would ya hide?” Theodore surprises falsely. “After what happened, it doesn’t make sense to hide. Your friends have already pronounced you a psycho. I mean, Edward and Terrence made sure about it. But Daniel started to be afraid of you when you tried to kill him for the first time.”       “Stop reminding me of that! I feel lousy!”       “You can’t erase what happened from your memory.”       “Fuck, I’m so sick of you…” Peter runs his hands over his face, leaning on his knees with his elbows. “I am so sick of all this shit…”       “As if I like being in your head and living with the side of Peter. I can’t wait to take my place as soon as possible and erase the other you from this world forever.”       “It’s all the same in my case, but replace Peter with Theodore.”       “Anyway, you have to make a choice and decide how you wanna live. Either I stay and finally take revenge on all the bastards who mocked me in my body. Or you remain a weak and whining one and keep tolerating insults from everyone. And I no longer feed you with hatred, so everyone’s afraid of you just a little.”       “I don’t want anyone to be afraid of me. I want them to love me. Love, respect, and care are the only things I need in my life.”       “Huh, love…” Theodore smirks evilly. “Who needs it? As well as care. And to make everyone respect you, you must make everyone fear you at first. Then people would start to respect you.”       “You’re wrong!” Peter protests in a whisper. “Respect doesn’t mean fear. You can deserve respect by treating people well, not terrifying them.”       “So they wash your face in the mud? Hit you strongly on the balls when you don’t expect it? People don’t understand a good attitude toward them. They start to take you seriously when you show them a powerful fist and raise your voice.”       “Thanks to an adviser like you, I’ve literally lost everyone I have. Because of you, the men hate me and consider me a psycho now.”       “Remember who your relatives are, so everything is more than just clear,” Theodore smiles innocently. “Those who suffer from mental illnesses can’t give birth to a healthy child. But you’ve got a great bunch thanks to your family.”       “If you existed in real life, I would strangle you with my own hands.”       “Don’t forget to stab me with a knife.”       Peter rolls his eyes with his arms crossed over his chest and looks at the window before Brittany returns to him, leaning on the cane with one hand and holding a thick book and several photos in the other hand.       “You’re lucky, sweetie, I found it!” Brittany exclaims happily. “And I found several photos of your mother.”       “You have her photos, too?” Peter asks surprisingly.       “Yes, I found them in the box with the stuff. I mean, they were attached to the diary.”       After coming to the sofa, Brittany sits on it next to Peter very slowly, very carefully.       “Here, here’s Julia’s diary,” Brittany pronounces, giving the thick book to Peter.       “It’s so thick…” Peter notices thoughtfully. “Did she write about every day she lived?”       “Maybe. She was a very quiet and withdrawn girl who didn’t have friends. So, she trusted her secrets with the diary. The paper that can take anything.”       “What if I can know something interesting from this diary? Find out about her relationship with Marcus from her perspective. From the perspective of that woman.”       “You can take it with you and read it at home if you want to.”       “Can I?”       “Of course, take it! I don’t need it, but you’ll need it. This thing belonged to your mother.”       “I guess you had a thought of throwing it off?”       “Nope, when I got this thing, I decided to keep the diary just in case. I thought I’d give it to you one day. You’d… Show an interest in the story of your parents. Wanna know the truth. I knew it would happen early or late. That’s why I kept this thing with me.”       “Thank you so much, Mrs. Lyons,” Peter thanks with a slight smile. “I will surely read it when I’m ready.”       “You can also view several photos I have.” Brittany gives Peter several photos that she is holding. “Julia poses here with my daughter, Marcus, and someone else… I even have some photos that were taken during her pregnancy.”       When he takes the photos, Peter views all of them closely, one by one. He can see the familiar blonde-haired woman, whose eyes seem very sad to him. Especially in the photos, in which she poses with the young Marcus.       “Marcus was very similar to you at a young age,” Brittany notices. “The same hair, the same eyes, the same features…”       “Gotta admit it…” Peter agrees with reluctance. “And Julia looks sad all the time, but she’s especially uncomfortable next to Marcus. It’s clear that he wanna get close to her, but she wanna step back and can’t do this.”       “Oh, poor girl…” Brittany sighs heavily. “There were so many good boys around, but she chose Marcus. She chose the bloodthirsty killer.”       “Julia was actually a beautiful woman…” Peter notices. “Very sympathetic. I don’t believe she didn’t have any admirers.”       “At least, she started a serious relationship with Marcus only. She started to date him at a teenage age, got married to him at the age of eighteen, and lived with him until her death.”       “It’s amazing that she found the courage to go against her mother and leave home for him.”       “I think you will find all the answers to your questions in this diary. Since it’s so heavy and thick, Julia often wrote. And a lot.”       “Don’t worry, I will check everything out.”       “By the way, you can also take the photos if you want. I don’t mind it.”       “Thanks a lot…” Peter takes one of the photos. “I can leave this one to you. As I understand, it’s your daughter?”       “Yes, it’s my daughter Tara.”       “Beautiful…”       “She is very young here. It’s been more than twenty years since this picture was taken.”       “Leave it to you.” Peter gives the photo to Brittany. “And I will take the others.”       “Alright, Peter, as you want,” Brittany smiles shyly and views the photo in her hands. “I don’t have too many photos of hers. Honestly, Tara doesn’t like photography and thinks she looks bad in photos.”       “It’s like Julia wasn’t also a fan of it. She is too insecure in all these photos.”       “It’s so hurtful that such a sweet and kind girl was put in the cocoon. They bullied her so hard that she obeyed someone all her life and rarely thought of herself. It probably happened a couple of times: when she left Marcus’ home since their parents didn’t approve of their relationship, and when she decided to give birth to a child, even despite a mortal threat.”       “There will not be any balance and justice in this world while some people get everything they don’t deserve and others are deprived of it and have to swallow their own tears, saying, ‘thank you’ for having even pathetic pieces from the rich table.”       “It’s alright…” Brittany sighs heavily. “Absolutely right…”       Peter says nothing and moves his eyes to the photos in his hands and the diary he has on his laps, not paying attention to the smirk of his hallucination in the form of Theodore watching him closely with a sly smile. His non-existent copy shakes his head slightly and sits frivolously in the armchair, leaning on the arm of the chair with his elbow and leaning on his hand with his chin. Rose himself tries so hard to pretend that he does not notice his pretense and does not hear a song that Longbottom starts singing quietly under his nose. He kind of purposefully chooses the one that starts playing in the blond’s head again and again like a broken record, causing the sense of overt irritation and a wish to break something.       

***

      Meanwhile, Helene still has to live in the apartment of the brother of Elijah, thanks to whom she stayed alive even in the situation when it seemed that nothing would help her. While the man went somewhere for his business some time ago, the girl spends time reading a book, sitting in the living room on the sofa with her legs put on it. She is incredibly happy to have an opportunity to eat as much as she wants, to find something to do, to lie on something soft and comfortable, and not to suffer from the coldness all day, all night. She is happy she can go take a bath at any time and spend a whole day in it, using the time when she is able not to be in a rush.       Since the book turns out not to be interesting this time, Helene loses interest in it after reading several pages. Deciding not to torture herself, she closes it, puts it aside, and just looks into the distance for several seconds with sad eyes, putting her arm on the back of the sofa and knocking on it with her fingers. The only thing that makes her upset is the fact that she is not allowed to meet her close people. The girl does not doubt that all of them are worried and grieving for her, thinking she is dead. She is especially worried about her grandmother Scarlett, who is not actually allowed to have any kind of worries due to her old age and health, which does not get better every year.       “Ah, guys, I miss you all so much…” Helene sighs heavily. “I wanna hug you all so badly… Let you know I’m alive. I’m okay. You didn’t lose me. I need you so badly now. Girls, boys, Grandma, Sammy, Peter… Can’t imagine how bad you all feel… Especially, you, Grandma… I’m afraid to think I may lose you. I may hear you’re in the hospital or have actually died. I won’t take it…”       Helene swallows nervously.       “Please, my sweeties, wait for a while. I’ll come back to you soon. We’ll be together soon. When Elijah says I can leave, we’ll meet. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll explain everything. And I really hope I will forget what happened with your help.”       Helene puts her head on her forehead.       “I’m still shaking at what those people did to me. I guess that’s my punishment for my past tricks. I will tell you about them soon. I’ll no longer be silent. You’ll know the truth, guys. You’ll know what I did. Why Grandma and Grandpa had to be ashamed of people. Why I was a certain disgrace. Why I couldn’t call myself perfect. Why you have the right to judge me and even stop befriending me. I’ll explain it all. If the girls haven’t done it.”       Helene embraces herself with both arms.       “I wasn’t ashamed at all, but I really started to feel stronger remorse through the years. Understand how disgusting my behavior was. Understand why my grandparents were sometimes too harsh to me. I could’ve easily ruined my life and paid a lot for my tricks. Because of which innocent people suffered.” Helene closes her eyes for a second. “Ah, if I could make amends for them and fix all my mistakes… If I had a chance not to let anything like that happen…”       After sitting on the sofa for a little while, Helene gets up with a tired sigh and starts walking slowly through the whole apartment and looking at every single corner with interest. She notices silently that it’s very good to be here, there is much more light here than in her home, and she sees a gorgeous view from the high windows that she can look at forever. The girl does it, standing in front of the window and starting to watch everything that happens behind the apartment, being in which is not a torture to her. And her fear of Elijah gets weaker, seeing that he treats her amazingly well and is really worried about her being under a threat of suffering in case she shows up earlier and runs into any of Marcus’s accomplices.       But Helene does not spend too much time standing in front of the window and keeps walking in the apartment. She pays attention to the houseplants placed in different corners and in perfect order on all the shelves, in every shelf… It’s clear that this place is cleaned regularly since it’s impossible to find a thick layer of dust – everything literally shines from cleanness, and the floors still smell of a detergent with a mild flower smell. The warm wind gets through the open windows in all the rooms, barely shakes thick curtains and light tulles, and caresses the skin tenderly.       At some moment, Helene pays attention to the big picture hanging on the wall in the living room. The close-up picture of the naked man and the naked woman holding each other in a strong hug, keeping their eyes closed, and looking absolutely relaxed and happy. There is a bliss and calm on the girl's face, while she leans her head back, and he leaves a tender kiss on the front of her neck, keeping his hand on his sweetheart’s cheek. It causes a wish to imagine a scene from a movie, in which tension grows between them more and more, as well as sexual affection. A wish to imagine what may happen next after this kiss on the neck. What this foreplay of two people in love may lead to after they decide to belong to each other here and now.       Looking at this picture painted by the unknown painter, Helene thinks about her and Peter having similar moments. She remembers how both of them felt good when they let themselves relax and not to think about anything but each other. She understands she misses her beloved man so badly, while he undoubtedly suffers as much as her friends do. As well as Scarlett. She still remembers his heartbreaking screams and desperate prayers of holding on and fighting when Marcus’s accomplices caught her in the fire trap she could not get out of by herself. Remembers that the man’s eyes were wet because he realized that he was powerless and could do nothing to save her. Just like his friends, who felt the same disappointment and regret at that moment.       Alongside, she also calls the memories about the case when they were still friends, but ended up in bed together and had an intimate moment after drinking a full bottle of wine together. Helene used to prefer not to think about what made her ashamed and wish to erase any memories of that case or come back to the past and not to let anything like this happen. But now, when she started to date Peter, she started to treat it much quietly, and nothing is left of her regret.       

***

      Three and a half years ago.       Helene and Peter met and became close friends a half year ago, but what they would not have thought about happened last night – the intimate. Yes, it happened under the influence of alcohol that the girl and the man got after emptying the full bottle of wine together due to their personal problems and worries. But it happened. They could not resist the affection that woke up their wish to get much closer than ever and give themselves to their instincts completely.       The proof is the fact that Peter and Helene fell asleep together after everything happened. In the same bed, absolutely naked. Covered with just the blanket with a big red spot on it that showed up after the wine was spilled on it. While the man is lying on his back with his relaxed arm thrown aside, the girl is lying quietly right on him, keeping her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, and having one of her legs around his feet. Their hair is ruffled strongly, and their sleep is so deep that the young cannot be woken up, even with the cat’s meowing from the upper floor that has lasted for a long enough time.       And now it’s more than twelve o’clock, but none of them is going to wake up. The friends keep sleeping tightly in the hugs of each other: Helene feels pretty good as she lies on Peter’s chest, and he hugs her around the shoulders with one arm and presses her to himself. Life does not stop behind the window, judging by the sounds that can be heard from the half-open window, and the bright sun is now at its peak and burns hotly. The shoots of it get right on the faces of the friends. To be clear, on the face of Peter. While Helene’s one is covered with her ruffled long hair, and she snuggles her nose in his chest.       That’s what makes Peter wince slightly and turn his head to the side with a quiet, tormenting moan. After torturing for some time like this, he barely opens his sticky eyes and just looks into the distance for several seconds with a strong dryness in his throat and a severe headache. If he were told to go somewhere immediately, he would hardly do this due to the exhausting weakness, and the need to move slightly becomes an impossible thing for the blond. He just wants to lie and do nothing, complaining about the hard life in this world that may be too cruel.       At some moment, Peter wants to make a deep sigh, but understands that something is pressing strongly on his chest. And when he moves his eyes aside, he freezes immediately in surprise when he sees that the dark-haired girl is lying on him, not recognizing her as his friend Helene at first. His widely open eyes silently show that he is confused about this situation and what happened last night. Seeing that the brunette is still sleeping tightly, Rose does not find the courage to throw her off himself sharply and wake her up, and just moves all her hair aside to open the lady’s face.       Then Peter falls into a much stronger stupor because he finally recognizes her as Helene. And he holds his breath unconsciously when he sees that she is absolutely naked. He finds several hickeys on her neck that she got recently, judging by the fact that they are too bright. He makes a quiet oh when he raises the blanket, looks under it, and understands that he wears nothing too. Nothing, not even an underwear.       “Holy shit…” Peter whispers under his nose, while his eyes are running from side to side. “What the…”       To make sure that his eyes do not lie to him, Peter looks under the blanket several times, where he sees his genitals. And since he starts moving, Helene gets off his chest with a quiet groan and lies next to him under his arm, still sleeping tightly and turning onto the man with her side. Rose gets stuck on the naked female breasts when he slowly and hesitantly removes the blanket off them with a shaking hand, but the unbearable pain that hits his temples so hard wakes him up from the trance at some moment.       Nevertheless, Peter spends some time trying to recall the events of the last night that he does not remember at all. And all this time, he stares at his own chest or looks at the naked Helene, who rolls onto her stomach and is no longer covered with anything, letting the man see her rounded buttocks. He is still wondering what he and his best friend are doing at his home, in his bed, and without clothes. He does not understand how it could actually happen and what everything started with.       “Did we…” Peter blunts under his nose, rubbing his temples with his hand. “Did we sleep? Me? Slept with Helene?”       Peter shakes sharply and shakes his head.       “No, it can’t be the truth…” Peter swallows nervously. “It can’t… No… We… We couldn’t…”       Peter puts his hands on his forehead and rubs them for several seconds, moaning quietly from the tormenting headache and the aches in his joints. Then he moves his eyes to Helene and shakes her slightly by the back with a wish to try to wake her up quietly:       “Helene… Helene, wake up! Helene! Get up! Can ya hear me?! Wake up!”       Peter does not spend too much time getting what he wants. At some moment, Helene makes a quiet, tormenting moan and starts moving her whole body slowly: from her head and fingers to her thighs and feet. She has to make some effort to open her heavy eyes and focus them on the distance just a little.       “Peter?!” Helene pronounces faintly in a hoarse voice. “Is that you?”       “Me, I guess…” Peter pronounces hesitantly, rubbing his forehead. “I was… Recently…”       “Oh…”       Still moaning quietly from pain, Helene puts her head on her forehead and closes her eyes for two seconds, while she also suffers from the dryness in her mouth and the pain in her whole body.       “My head is tearing… Everything hurts…”       “I’m howling from pain, too…” Peter complains, starts to rub his forehead with both hands, and grabs his hair with his fingers. “Ah, fucking shit…”       “Where am I? And what are we doing here together?”       “Erm… It’s kinda my apartment… My room…” Peter closes his mouth with a hand tightly with a sense of nausea in his throat.  “But I’m not sure…”       “Oh, God, I feel so bad… It’s like I carried tons of one-hundred-kilogram bags… It’s like an airplane drove on me…”       Helene makes a lot of effort to turn on the side and closes her eyes with a sense of aches in her whole body.       “Someone, kill me… If I need to go somewhere… Because I can’t… I wanna die…”       “Oh, how much I wanna die…” Peter moans painfully and lies powerlessly on the bed, throwing his hands aside. “My head hurts, my body hurts, I feel sick… Oh…”       “My mouth is so dry,” Helene complains. “Very dry… It’s like I haven't drunk anything for one week…”       “Mine too…”       “If you give me a bucket of water, I’ll be happy to empty it.”       “And I’d empty a full bath…”       Helene and Peter make quiet, tormenting moans for some time, not being able to think of anything because their heads are torn from pain, it’s hard for them to swallow, and they have the strength just to lie in the bed powerlessly. But at some moment, the girl moves her eyes to the man and rounds her eyes with a stopped heart, seeing that he does not wear any clothes now.       “Hey, wait, are you naked?” Helene asks hesitantly, tearing her head off the pillow and glancing at the bottom part of Peter’s body that is partly covered with the blanket.       “As you can see, yes,” Peter runs his hands over his pale face.       “Don’t you even wear any underwear?”       “No underwear…”       Breathing heavily from excitement and opening her eyes much wider, Helene raises the blanket hesitantly with a shaking hand, looks under it, and oohs quietly in surprise when she sees Peter’s genitals.       “Oh, my God!” Helene lowers the blanket sharply, setting her shocking eyes into the distance. “You wear nothing! My God… Oh, my God…”       “Don’t ya feel you’re wearing nothing, too?” Peter asks as if by chance.       “What? What do ya mean I’m wearing nothing?”       Peter points at Helene’s naked breasts with a sly chuckle he has been looking at for a long enough time. Realizing that she is lying absolutely naked in front of the man, the girl shakes and covers herself scarily with the edge of the blanket, turning sharply on her back and sitting up.       “Oh, shit…” Helene pronounces in a shaking voice. “It’s awful…”       “Yeah, it seems like we had a wild night…” Peter assumes thoughtfully, scratching the back of his head.       “How did it happen? What happened between us? Why are we lying naked in the same bed?”       “You’re killing me with this question…”       “Don’t tell me that something happened between you and me. Don’t tell me we had sex.”       “If it’s so, how did it happen?” Peter sits up slowly and leans on the back of the bed with his back. “What were we doing yesterday?”       “I don’t know…” Helene shakes her head. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember what we were doing.”       “Ugh, my head is tearing…” Peter moans, rubbing his temples energetically. “A-a-a-a-a…”       “I don’t like all of this, Pete…” Helene moves the blanket much closer to herself, while her widely open eyes run chaotically from side to side. “What if we did something terrible? I… I’ve got a bad presentiment…”       “Fuck, I wanna die because of this pain. I feel fucking bad now.”       “What’s this?”       Helene squeaking quietly points her finger at the middle-sized bright red spot on the white blanket that makes her tense.       “Is this blood?”       “I don’t know…” Peter pronounces faintly, looking at the spot surprisingly. “Are ya having such heavy periods since you dirtied the bed with it?”       “Nope, it ended two weeks ago. If I’m not mistaken…”       “But what the hell is this, then?”       “Maybe it’s yours?” Helene moves her eyes to Peter and his wrists. “Did you cut yourself again? You cut yourself so that you dirtied everything with blood?”       “I have clean hands!” Peter exclaims, showing Helene his wrists that have old scars but do not have recent ones. “Here, look!”       “I… I don’t understand…”       Frowning slightly, Peter checks the red spot on the blanket with his fingers and tries to feel any smell on them. But then he bends to the one and sniffs it, feeling that something familiar gets into his nose.       “Hey, it’s not blood…” Peter says. “It’s alcohol… Wine… I feel the smell of grape…”       “Wine?” Helene asks surprisingly, rubbing her forehead. “Are you sure?”       “Yes, it’s wine.”       “Does it happen that one of us drank alcohol?”       “I think so.” Peter looks around himself quickly. “Since the bottle is lying on the table, and there’s the empty turned glass on the table.       “We both drank it?”       “We would’ve hardly wanted to undress ourselves and fall asleep in the same bed absolutely naked at our wish.”       “Oh, my God…”       Helene starts rubbing her temples intensively with her fingers, moaning with pity at times from the strong headache and the aches in her whole body. Peter looks around the whole room again, massages his neck, and turns it from side to side, understanding that something is getting clearer in his mind at some moment.       “You know…” Peter pronounces thoughtfully. “The last thing I remember is that… You and I drank the wine… Yes, right! We were lying on the bed and drinking from the bottle together.”       “I’m not sure about it yet, but I think I brought the bottle,” Helene recalls. “I… I felt very bad, I think… I… I fought with my grandfather and grandmother and left home…”       “Yes, yes… You called me and asked if you could come here. When I said you could, you were standing on the doorstep in half an hour. With the bottle.”       “Yes, yes, I think I remember…” Helene nods. “You brought glasses, opened the bottle, filled them with wine… And we drank it together…”       “Then you started to cry, and I hugged you. You started to complain about your grandmother and grandmother banning you from everything and keeping you on the leash all your life.”       “Right… I… I didn’t notice that we weren’t just sitting on the bed, we lay on it. You pressed me to you, but I… I didn’t mind it…”       “We drank just a little, but everything went blurry before my eyes.”       “I didn’t care about anyone or anything. I… I just wanted to talk. Speak out everything I had deep inside. I was tolerating it all for too long. And… I broke down…”       “Yeah… And then… Then…” Peter bites his lip slightly. “Erm…”       “Then…” Helene repeats and falls into silence for two seconds, setting her eyes into the distance. “Then… I don’t know… I don’t know what happened next… Next… I woke up here… Naked…”       “And… I remember… Nothing…”       “Did we start to drink in clothes, didn’t we?”       “Erm… Y-y-yeah…”       “But how did it happen that we’re wearing nothing now?”       “I don’t know, Helene… I… I don’t understand…”       “And where did we put it?”       Helene looks around quickly in search for the clothes of Peter and hers.       “Where are my clothes? Where are they?”       “Oh…” Peter winces slightly, starting to rub his abdomen. “And my abdomen hurts…”       “My God, what if we really slept?” Helene opens her eyes widely, starting to breathe heavily. “After we drank too much?”       “You think we could really have sex?”       “I don’t have any other explanation for the fact that you and I are lying together in the bed, being naked and ruffled! No other explanations for you having your neck covered with hickeys.”       Peter covers automatically one of the areas on his neck with several recent hickeys on it.       “You have them too, by the way! Your neck is covered with hickeys! And you have them on your collarbones!”       “What?” Helene cannot believe it, feeling that her heart misses a beat. “Are you serious?”       “Holy shit…” Peter pronounces surprisingly with widely open eyes. “It’s… Did I leave them to you?”       “Did I leave them to you?”       “I wonder if this is the deja vu effect or if everything really happened like this?”       “Don’t you really remember anything about what happened next? Don’t you remember what we were doing after we drank?”       “If I did, I wouldn’t be so shocked.”       “It’s awful… It’s awful…”       Helene starts breathing heavily, putting her head on her shoulders and pressing the blanket much closer to herself, squeezing it tightly with her fingers.       “How could it happen? How could we let it happen? It’s impossible!”       “You know, friend, even if it’s true, I don’t actually mind it,” Peter smiles slyly.       “What?” Helene surprises loudly. “Are you serious? Don’t you really care about you and me possibly having sex last time?”       “If it happened between the beautiful girl and me, why not?”       “We’re friends, Peter! You and I don’t date! There must be nothing like this between us!”       “You say it like you went to the home of a strange man, drunk with him, and slept with him.”       “I am even afraid to think about it!”       “C’mon, Helene, why are you so nervous?”       Peter puts his arm around Helene’s neck.       “What’s done is done. No need to regret it.”       “What if I get pregnant?” Helene horrifies. “What if I know I’m expecting a child from you in two weeks? My grandfather and grandmother are gonna kill me if I tell them that! If they know I went to the home of the man and slept with him!”       “What’s wrong? You’re not a child anymore. You’re an adult girl, you’re twenty-two. You can become a mother.”       “Did you lose your brain after drinking alcohol?” Helene moves Peter’s arm sharply off her neck. “Or do you always think so badly after a hangover?”       “Oh, okay, okay…” Peter raises his hands. “Relax, girl. I promise, if we know we’re gonna have a baby, I will get married to you. As a decent man who is ready to take responsibility.”       “It’s awful… I’m ovulating now… The middle of the cycle… The time when the chance of getting pregnant is high. My God, what was I thinking about?”       Helene covers her face with both hands and doubles over, while Peter thinks about something with anxiety in his eyes.       “What did we do? How could we let it happen?”       “If you’re only worried about your family issue, they must understand they can’t keep you on the leash forever,” Peter says confidently.       “I am even afraid to imagine what they’ll do to me if they know I slept with you! If they know I didn’t have sex with my husband. For them, sexual intercourse out of marriage is a dirty and unforgivable thing. And actually, the word ‘sex’ makes them feel a great disgust!”       “Hello, friend, we’re living in a different time, but they don’t understand it. They’re used to what was happening in their time and want it all to last forever. And there’s nothing bad about sex. This is a normal thing that happens between a man and a woman.”       “Damn, why didn’t you stop me?” Helene wonders and hits Peter slightly on his arms. “Why didn’t you ban me from drinking? Why didn’t you prevent this shit?”       “Am I so ugly since you’re not happy with the prospect to fuck me?”       “We aren’t dating! We’re friends! Did ya forget?”       “Take it easier, Marshall.”       Peter ruffles Helene’s hair slightly, which already looks disheveled.       “I’m gonna be honest, it was nice personally for me to wake up and see you next to me. See such a beautiful and charming girl next to me.”       “Did you look at me when I was sleeping?” Helene horrifies, opening her eyes widely.       “Just a little. And I am really surprised that I never noticed that you were so sexy.”       Peter brings his face to Helene’s face with a sly smile and looks into his eyes, while she freezes sharply and stops breathing immediately.       “You’ve really got gorgeous boobs,” Peter adds in a much lower and deeper voice. “And your ass is good. I do feel that everything inside me shakes.”       “You…” Helene opens her mouth widely, swallowing the air greedily and trying to say just something. “You… How do you dare? You…”       “Everything is gorgeous about you, though. So gorgeous that I’d be happy to fuck you again in a sober state of mind. Just one thought about making you mine already makes me have a fucking erection.”       “Are you an idiot? Do you understand what you’re talking about now?”       “Hey, cutie, let’s share a kiss? Maybe it can help me get rid of my headache sooner. It’s about to explode from the pain. And your lips are so attractive. My gut tells me that they’re so sweet and tasty.”       When Peter wants to bring his lips to Helene’s lips and leave a short kiss on them, the girl steps away sharply, pressing the blanket much tighter to herself.       “Hey, hey, are you out of your mind?” Helene jabs loudly. “Get off me!”       “Are ya seriously covering yourself with the blanket after what happened between us?” Peter surprises with a sly smile. “Are ya pretending to be a shy girl that’s not similar to everyone?”       “Hey, I’m gonna hit your drunk face!” Helene threatens with her finger. “I promise it, Rose! If you touch me with a finger, you’ll regret it.”       “Since you and I remember nothing, let’s fix it right now. It’s kinda wrong that we didn’t keep the memories of such wonderful moments.”       Peter moves some strands of hair off the face of the blushing Helene, who glances at the bottom part of his body that is no longer covered under the blanket.       “Pervert!” Helene squeaks and puts the blanket sharply on Peter’s genitals. “Cover it, the hell! And dress up, at last! Stop lying here all naked!”       “What’s wrong with it?” Peter smiles innocently and claps slightly on his stomach. “I’ve got an incredibly gorgeous body. Don’t you have a little wish to touch perfection with your slim fingers? Feel up my tough muscles and go crazy…”       “If it wasn’t enough for you to have me drunk and fuck me, find someone else! I’m sure there would be many girls who would agree to lie in the bed with you.”       “Ha, as if I made you drink! As if you didn’t go to my home with a bottle of wine and start to drink it sip by sip.”       “Your duty was to stop me. But you didn’t do this. And you used my weakness! You… You raped me! You literally put me under violence.”       “It wasn’t a rape! Because you agreed to do it. I remember that clearly.”       “I was drunk!” Helene cries.       “I wasn’t sober, either. We drank together.”       “Oh, Rose, I didn’t expect it from you…” Helene resents, shaking her head. “I didn’t think you’d let yourself go so far.”       “Hello, friend, drinks turn off your brain to the fuck. I would’ve been able to do nothing even if I’d really wanted to. And you wouldn’t have listened to me and would’ve gone further.”       “Huh, do you mean I accosted you? I undressed you, took off your clothes, and got your penis into me?”       “I don’t know who undressed and who got something into it!”       “Who cares now? The result matters! We slept, we’re lying here naked, and we’re just fucking friends. F-r-i-e-n-d-s!”       “C’mon, Marshall, maybe nothing happened between us?” Peter tries to weaken the tension. “Maybe… Maybe we just felt too hot. So, we decided to help ourselves?”       “Uh-huh, undress ourselves?”       “Why? They say it’s a very good thing! Moreover, I love taking off everything and sleeping like this at times.”       “Bounder!” Helene pronounces with recentness. “You’re out of your mind after drinking!”       “Yeah, I’m a bounder. But you’re a cutie. You’re pretty good in my sexual fantasies… I can get an orgasm for two minutes only. If you work your fingers and mouth… In the bottom… You'd look really sexy standing on your knees.”       Being red from recentness, Helene slaps Peter strongly in the face so that he grabs his cheek and starts rubbing it energetically.       “I shall not forget it, blond-haired,” Helene says. “I swear you’ll pay me for that. I shall kick your ass hard…”       “Oh, oh, I am so scared…” Peter chuckles stupidly.       “Pray that the pregnancy test doesn’t show two strips. Pray that the doctor doesn’t confirm that I’m expecting a child. I promise you’ll be in trouble in the opposite case.”       “Come to me in this case. So, we play a wedding and raise our baby together. They’re gonna be so precious and sweet that your grandfather and grandmother will immediately forget that you and I made them when we were drunk.”       “If all parts of my body didn’t hurt, I swear I would kick your ass. You would ask for trouble for what you did.”       “By the way, I noticed one thing. While I’m next to you and feel the smell of your naked body, all my pain goes away magically. My head doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel nauseous, nothing aches… You’re literally like a cure, babe.”       “Don’t call me a babe!”       “Maybe we just do an encore instead of taking tons of tablets and repeat what happened last time? Sex is the source of the hormones of happiness and a natural cure for any pain. Physical and moral one…”       With these words, Peter raises Helene’s face by the chin and caresses her bottom lip with his thumb.       “Hey, I didn’t understand what was unclear about my order to get off me?” Helene resents and pushes Peter off herself. “Did I ask you to do something impossible?”       “It’s funny that you’re crying and playing shy after such a wild night when you didn’t mind being mine. When you were screaming like a fucking whole and begging me for more.”       “I’m getting the thought that you know what happened. As if you remember everything that we did.”       “Alas, I don’t. But my gut tells me that you and I felt very good. Knowing that it was a pleasure for me to wake up and see you sleeping on my chest.”       “Listen to me, do not even dare to talk about what happened,” Helene threatens with a finger again. “Do not dare to tell anyone about you and me having sex. Otherwise, you’re gonna ask for trouble!”       “What’s wrong?” Peter asks surprisingly, feeling that everything inside him squeezes painfully and tenses. “We didn’t rob anyone and didn’t kill anyone. We just decided to have sex.”       “You think I’m kidding now? You think I’m pretending that I like all of this? I am happy with what happened?”       “Well… Erm…”       “I am warning you, Rose! Nobody must know what happened. Nobody! You got it?”       “People will understand it if they see hickeys on your neck.”       “I’m gonna hide them since you went so far. And you must cover yours! Cover them with a foundation!”       “But what if I tell someone that the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met was in my bed?       “I will cut your head!”       “Oh, that’s cruel!”       “And yeah, if you want you and I to keep having a good, friendly relationship, you must forget what happened once and forever and never dare to act as frivolously as you do now.”       “Ern, what?” Peter rounds his eyes.       “Nothing happened, Peter Rose!” Helene pronounces determinedly, looking closely into Peter’s eyes. “Nothing happened between us! Forget it! Don’t remember! Don’t tell anyone about it! Never! Hear me! Never!”       “Answer one little question.”       “Which question?”       “Do you remember just something from what happened?”       “Nope,” Helene pronounces with no hesitation and swallows nervously as she breathes a little heavily. “Nothing. I remember nothing. At all.”       “Are ya lying to me?”       “I’m not. And I don’t know what you did to me when I was lying here drunk and naked.”       “But I imagine what you could do to me to let me enjoy the moment. When your soft hands slid over my body, which was so hungry for the ladies’ attention.”       “If you’re hungry, hire a prostitute so she fulfils all your dirtiest dreams. And do not even dare to come to me with this.”       “Maybe you think much better?”       “I said everything, Peter,” Helene cuts off harshly and determinedly. “If you want to remain my friend, forget what happened and do not dare to harass me.”       “But, Helene…”       “Did you understand it well, empty-headed blond? Or do I say it again?”       “Oh, I got it, got it…” Peter sighs resignedly, moving his eyes aside and crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay, let’s do what you want. Our drunk sex means nothing and would not impact our friendship.”       “I want it to be the last time you say this word toward me. You got it?”       “Got it…”       Peter swallows nervously, definitely not being happy with this thing.       “I guess we should really pretend that nothing happened,” Peter adds in a low voice and purses his lips. “It would be better…”       “Pray that I don’t get pregnant,” Helene says quietly. “Though there is a very high chance that it’s gonna happen. Since I’m ovulating.”       “Even if it’s so, I won’t run from the responsibility and will help you raise the child. And I will not tell you to get an abortion.”       “I will not dare to do this. My grandfather and grandmother always said it’s a terrible sin. And I don’t understand how you can kill something alive. Even if I’m not ready for a child now.”       “It’s gonna be alright, don’t worry. No matter what happens… After our mistake… We’ll get through it.”       “I hope.”       A tense silence settles in the air, during which Helene pulling the blanket much closer to herself to cover her breasts looks into the distance with her eyes full of sadness, while Peter looks a little gloomy but tries so hard not to show it.       “Alright, let’s put ourselves in order,” Peter suggests quietly. “Take a tablet for a headache and drink water. I’m barely able to think now…”       “Give me as much water as possible,” Helene says. “Because I’m dying of the wish to drink.”       “When you feel better, call Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. They’re probably worried that you didn’t spend the night at home.”       “I’d rather go home. Brush my hair, wash my face, cover the proof of the crime… And I’ll behave as if nothing happened.”       “Oh…” Peter rubs his forehead. “Let me at least call a taxi for you. So, you can go home quietly.”       “Thanks, but I’ll go home on my own,” Helene replies tensely.       “Sure?”       “Just give me a lot of water and a tablet for the headache, and I’ll go home.”       “As you wish. Do what you think is right.”       Not looking at Helene anymore, Peter sits on the edge of the bed with a tired sigh and doubles over for several seconds, rubbing his eyes with his fingers and running his hands over his hair. During the tense pause, the girl stops her eyes unconsciously on the naked back of the man and looks at every single one on it that – no need to hide – makes her heart beat faster. But she moves her eyes aside shyly when she sees the bright red tracks of nails on it.       While Marshall looks at the manicure on her long, extended nails that need to be refreshed, Rose gets up from the bed and, shaking slightly due to the weakness in his feet, puts the sheet around his thighs. He put it on the table yesterday because he wanted to change the bedclothes, but now he puts it on not to discourage the girl with his natural look. Then he, moaning quietly from the ache in every joint and not looking at his friend anymore, leaves the room quietly to do his business.       Helene keeps lying in bed, pressing the blanket dirtied with wine to herself and being absolutely confused after what happened. She cannot imagine how all of this is going to impact her friendship with Peter in the future. Whether their intimacy is going to ruin the warm relationship that they established six months after meeting for the first time. No matter what, the girl does not want to lose this man because he means a lot to her. She is attracted to him and can easily trust him with any secrets and things she is worried about.       After her conflict with Scarlett and Roger, Helene did not have any doubt about whom she should have asked for help with the hope of calming down a little and coming to herself. She understood she made the right choice by deciding to call Peter and ask him for permission to come. Moreover, the girl has lately caught herself thinking that not only does she see him as a friend, but also someone who is more important to her. Though Marshall tries not to think about it and makes herself think that Rose is just a friend to her. Maybe he is really hot and attractive, but he is a friend. The friend, the relationship with whom she starts to be anxious, because something tells her that this intimacy may impact their friendship negatively and put an inevitable end to it.       

***

      And Helene was worried for the reason because her friendly relationship with Peter suddenly changed after that case. That’s why they did not even talk to each other and lived their lives without thinking of each other for several months. And she thinks about it with sadness in her eyes as she keeps viewing the picture of two people in love and embracing herself with both arms.       “Ah, Peter…” Helene sighs heavily. “How much I wanted to say that I started to like you back then. I didn’t wanna see you as just a friend anymore. I wanted you to be my boyfriend. Befriending you wasn’t enough for me. And I lost any hope of saving it when we suddenly stopped talking. You didn’t text me and didn’t call me… I couldn’t find the courage to… I wanted to do it at first, but the sense of awkwardness was way stronger.”       Helene swallows nervously.       “I… I didn’t know how I’d talk to you after what happened between us. After we slept as friends. And… Even if we started to talk again… We kept pretending that it never happened. We really remembered nothing about it. At least, I remember everything about it now. Well… Maybe not everything, but a bigger part of it. And I no longer feel any regret. Because I slept with my beloved man. The man I love madly to death.”       Helene starts walking in circles in the whole apartment again, recalling what happened between her and Peter several years ago.       “I don’t know what I would’ve done if we hadn’t continued to talk as if nothing had happened. If we’d kept running after each other, not thinking of our numbers on the phone. Trying to find a way not to run into each other. Just like I did several times when I saw him far from me. Who knows… Maybe he ran from me, too. He didn’t wanna talk. He felt offended.”       Helene swallows nervously.       “I bet he remembered almost everything, too. That’s why he looked so gloomy after all my claims and orders to forget everything and pretend that nothing happened. Maybe I even hurt him. Even if I didn’t want to. Back then, I didn’t even hope we’d become a couple in the future. I didn’t really count on anything when I felt sympathy for him.”       Helen comes to the high window in a slow step and starts looking at everything that’s happening outside the apartment.       “Well… I didn’t have time to think about what happened between us. One week later after Peter and I had sex, Grandpa Roger got seriously ill. And he was struggling for life for several months. But he died in the end. Leaving Grandma Scarlett and me all alone. I think it’s another reason why Rose and I didn’t talk.”       Helene draws random figures on the glass of the window with her finger after she breathes on it a little.       “Nevertheless, he came back to my life at the right time. When I needed him so badly. When I was so broken after my close person’s death. Whom I loved anyway, even if he was sometimes too harsh to me and wasn’t too generous with nice words, hugs, and words of support. Of course, Grandma was a little different in this case. More… Emotional…”       Helene sighs heavily.       “Though I got much more support from Pete. Who didn’t stay aside after my grandpa’s death. He didn’t leave me alone and did his best to support me. I didn’t go crazy thanks to him. Thanks to this man who… Really acted as if nothing had happened. He was my friend. The friend I was afraid to lose so badly. The man I miss so badly now.”       Helene closes her eyes for two seconds.       “But it’s okay, sweetie… We’ll meet very soon… Just wait for a while… I’m dying of the wish to do it, but I’d rather do what Elijah says. I’d rather wait for a while and make sure Marcus and his accomplices wouldn’t really leave prison and want to start everything over again.”       Helene moves her eyes to the calendar hanging on the partition that separates the living room and the kitchen and flashes a slight smile, praying that her meeting with her friends and boyfriend happens as soon as possible, but promising herself to wait and do nothing that may deprive her of the chance to live quietly and come back to her business.       

***

      It’s been several days since the dog Sammy has been living in the house of Anna and Daniel, who decided to watch them on their own. But he does not feel better after changing the place. The retriever keeps worrying about the death of the owner, lying quietly all day long somewhere in the corner, and trying not to stand in anyone’s way. Nevertheless, if someone wants to take him for a walk, he does not mind it and walks quietly as long as needed, even if he refuses to play, even with his favorite toys that he did not let go of for hours.       While Daniel went somewhere for his business, Anna is sitting at home and trying unsuccessfully to persuade Sammy to eat a little bit of food that the man and she offer him every day. And when the dog turns his face from the bowl full of food and does not react when she lets him sniff his favorite treat, the girl gets much sadder with the feeling that her heart squeezes painfully in the chest,       “Sammy, my baby…” Anna pronounces softly, caressing Sammy’s head as she is sitting in front of him on her knees under the stairs. “Please, eat just a little. A little bit… Don’t refuse to eat. You don’t have to eat everything. Eat just a little. At least a couple of grains.”       Anna moves the bowl much closer to Sammy’s face while he sets his sad eyes into the distance.       “Look at the delicious food in it. How delicious it seems. You used to eat it so well and asked for more. Don’t you wanna eat just a little bit?”       Sammy whines very quietly with great pity, making Anna sigh heavily.       “Listen, baby, I understand you’re suffering. We all suffer because of what happened to Helene. But you’re gonna die if you don’t eat and drink. Look, you’ve lost so much weight and can barely move. You may get sick, heaven forbid, and we may have to take you to a doctor. Though we know how much you don’t like them. How you hid from your owner when she wanted to take you to a vet clinic for a scheduled examination or a vaccination.”       Anna yanks Sammy softly by the ears.       “You know how bad I feel now. Very bad. I still can’t believe Helene is gone. I don’t believe she died. But I make myself eat just something. Even if I don’t have an appetite. Because I have to. I’m gonna die if I don’t eat anything. And Daniel won’t let me do it. You see how closely he watches it. But I don’t wanna make him upset and worried.”       Sammy moves his eyes to Anna and makes a sound full of pity.       “I promise, baby, the guys and I will not leave you,” Anna promises, grabbing Sammy’s face and caressing it tenderly. “No matter how bad we feel, we’ll never forget you. We’ll always be near. Yes, we won’t replace your owner, but let us be your friends. Your best friends who will take care of you.”       After Sammy barks very quietly, Anny kisses him sweetly on the nose and keeps caressing his face tenderly.       “Let’s eat a little now,” Anna suggests softly, takes a packet with dog treats lying near her, takes one thing from it, and brings it to Sammy’s nose. “Hey, eat one thing. You love it so much. Look how tasty it is. Don’t you want it at all?”       Sammy spends several seconds sniffing the treat Anna is holding in front of his nose before he gives up, touching it with his tongue, taking it from the girl’s hand, and swallowing it.       “Good boy, Sammy!” Anna expresses true happiness, caressing Sammy’s head. “Good job, good boy. My sweet boy…”       At this moment, Sammy licks his face with a quiet smacking, saying it was actually really delicious.       “Let’s eat one more thing!” Anna takes another treat from the packet and brings it to Sammy’s nose. “I don’t know how many times per day Helene gave you this thing, but now you can eat as much as you want. C’mon, my boy, don’t be shy.”       Sammy sniffs the treat for two seconds before he decides to eat it, making Anna bend to him and hug him tenderly.       “My God, what a good boy!” Anna smiles shyly, caressing Sammy’s face with both hands and kissing him sweetly in the area near the nose a couple of times. “Good job, Sammy, you’re such a good boy.”       Anna sees that Sammy starts wagging his tail faintly as he keeps lying on the floor and accepts her caress with pleasure.       “So what, maybe you wanna try to eat food? Just a little!” Anna brings the bowl closer to Sammy’s face. “C’mon, my boy, eat a little. Mrs. Marshall said it was your favorite food. With the smell of chicken.”       But Sammy just looks at the bowl with sad eyes and refuses to eat food, turning his face aside.       “Don’t you want? Just a little! It’s for your well-being! Eat a little, and I can give you some clean water later.”       But no matter how hard Anna tries to persuade for several seconds, Sammy refuses to look at the food.       “Okay, I won’t insist!” Anna exclaims. “You’re a good boy anyway – you ate two treats today. You’re about to come back to the nutritious food.”       Anna caresses Sammy’s head softly, while he accepts this attention and even brings his face to her, so she caresses him much longer.       “Good boy, good Sammy, good…” Anna pronounces with a slight smile. “You’re out very smart, good, and sweet doggy that we all love so, so much. And we can’t watch you suffer. We wanna see you happy and healthy.”       Sammy whines quietly and licks his face, still enjoying the taste of his favorite treat that literally began to bring him to life. Anna keeps caressing him everywhere and presses him to herself for some time before someone opens the hall door. Then Daniel shows up in the living room, looks around after losing the door, and puts a small packet with something he bought on the sofa. At some moment, the man notices the girl sitting under the stairs and comes to his sweetheart, while she caresses the dog’s face that is lying on her laps now.       “Hi, sweetheart,” Anna greets with a sad smile. “Are you back?”       “Hi, sunshine,” Daniel greets. “I am.”       “So, did you visit Cassidy?”       “Yes, I did.”       Daniel bends to kiss Anna on the top of her head and gets down to his knees next to her.       “I told her everything that’s lately happened. Talked to her doctor about her therapy. And then I went to a shop and bought something delicious.”       “I hope she’ll be released soon.”       “Sooner than you think.” Daniel tucks a strand of Anna’s hair behind her ear. “We need to wait just a little.”       “Just something good…”       Anna moves her sad eyes to Sammy and yanks him by the ears softly, while he keeps whining quietly at times.       “He ate nothing again?” Daniel sighs resignedly, glancing at the bowl full of food.       “He doesn’t even look at the food,” Anna replies. “But he ate his favorite treats.”       “Really? He ate just something?”       “Yup, I gave him a couple. Maybe he wasn’t too happy, but he ate them.”       “Wow…”       Daniel caresses Sammy’s head and runs his hand over the dog’s back with a slight smile.       “Good job, Sammy!” Daniel expresses happiness. “Good job, boy! You’re such a good boy!”       “I think it’s just something,” Anna replies quietly as she shrugs. “He used to refuse everything before.”       “We have hope that he will find the strength to keep moving on.”       “Let’s do everything little by little. Now he ate a couple of his favorite treats, but tomorrow, he’ll eat more.”       “Yeah, he’s about to start asking us to give him some food. And even start to play with his toys.”       “I guess we’re on the right track.”       “My good girl!” Daniel hugs Anna around the shoulders and kisses her sweetly on her temple. “My girl did persuade Sammy to eat just something.”       “Yeah, I spent half an hour sitting here and talking to him,” Anna smiles shyly. “But he was lying and looking at me with his sad eyes.”       “You did it right, princess,” Daniel says confidently and kisses Anna on the cheek two times. “My good girl.”       “I understand him completely, through… I feel bad, too.”       “Anna, sweetie…”       “I’d be happy to lie, do nothing, and just stare at the ceiling like this.”       “I understand you, my love. It’s hard for all of us now. We all suffer and mourn for Helene.”       “I wish a miracle had happened and brought our friend back to us.” Anna sighs heavily, puts Sammy’s head carefully on the floor, and runs her hand over the dog’s hair. “But I understand it’s impossible. No dead person can come back to this world.”       “The important thing is not to hold yourself down. If you feel bad, you should talk about it. You must not keep everything inside.”       “I don’t. Nothing. Though I have nothing to say, honestly. Because my words are gone. And I don’t wanna repeat it all for the hundredth time. People would get sick of me.”       “Even if you repeat the same things for the hundredth time, I will listen to you anyway. Listen to them even in the thousandth time if it can help you get better.”       “I know, Daniel, I know…” Anna wipes tears carefully under her eyes and sniffs quietly. “I know…”       Anna gets up on her feet and goes to the stairs, barely holding down the tears that water her eyes more.       “Anna…” Daniel pronounces with sadness in his eyes. “Anna, sweetie…”       But Anna does not react to the call and gets upstairs to the second floor, holding onto the railing, while Daniel keeps sitting on the floor and caressing Sammy’s head when the dog starts snuggling his nose in the man’s hand. When she is on the up, the girl walks slowly down the wide halls and looks at what she sees: houseplants, pictures, tables, and stuff that should better be left in the garage since nobody uses them. Some time later, she comes to the door she needs, presses on the handle to open it, and closes it after she enters the room of Daniel and her. After looking around quickly, she comes to one of the windows and starts watching what’s happening with eyes full of sadness, embracing herself with both arms.       No matter how hard Anna holds herself down, they start rolling down her cheeks slowly, while she just thinks that her close friend Helene is dead. It’s been more than one week since she died, but the girl does not feel better. She still feels apathy and just one wish – to lie in bed and look at the ceiling. Anna has not cleaned the house for several days, and cooking food for herself and her boyfriend is something that she makes herself do by force. If the girl lives alone, she would probably give up on cooking and cleaning and would spend days crying. Just one thought about food makes her feel nauseous, and the thought that she ate a fat and big pig and started to feel like she ate two weeks ahead.       Nevertheless, there is no need to deny that it’s easier for her to get through her grief and hold on not to go crazy with Daniel by her side. Even if it’s incredibly hard for him now, he does not withdraw into himself, tries so hard to encourage his girlfriend with talks and hugs, and tries to get out somewhere with her with the hope of helping her feel better. That’s what the girl is madly grateful to him for. She is grateful to be in love with such a wonderful man who is really ready to be with her in good and bad times. Who does really care about her feelings and emotions and examines them closely to know what to do in one or another situation.       After standing in front of the window for some time, Anna steps away from it with a heavy sigh and makes several circles in the room before she comes to the bed and lies on it. Then she embraces the pillow tightly and strikes an embryo pose as if she feels like something small and vulnerable and wants to be hugged by someone to be strong. Tears keep rolling down her cheeks from her red eyes and leave wet paths on the pillow her head is resting on. Nevertheless, she holds herself down so hard not to let herself fall into uncontrolled hysteria and make Daniel spend a lot of time calming her down.       The memories of Helene that come to her mind at some moment warm up Anna’s soul and make her smile, but also make her much more upset. All of this will never happen again. Never. The girl will no longer be able to spend time with one of her closest friends, with whom she got along without problems when she met her. She did not approve of her actions, but she kept talking to her, believing that there was something light, good, and nice about Marshall. And it eventually turned out to be the truth. It confirms the words of Anna’s close people about her being really good at knowing people and feeling those she would not rather get in touch with because of the problems they may give.       Anna gets busy with the memories of the best moments of her friendship with Helene for a long enough time. And she does not notice that the door of the room opens quietly, and Daniel enters it slowly, holding a big ceramic cup with a spoon in it. He sees the girl lying on the bed, squeezing his pillow, on which he usually sleeps, and trying so hard to hold down the wish to cry bitterly and shout. Not thinking a lot, he comes to the bed, puts the cup on the bedside table, sets himself comfortably next to his sweetheart, and caresses her head tenderly, while she looks at him with wet, childishly naive eyes.       “Anna, my baby…” Daniel pronounces with pity in his eyes.       “I think I’ll never get a little better,” Anna says in a little shaking voice and sniffs. “I will never accept what happened.”       “You’re not alone, I’m with you.” Daniel runs the back of his hand over Anna’s cheek. “We’ll overcome this together. We’ll get through this grief together.”       “You know, Daniel…”       Anna swallows nervously, squeezing the pillow much tighter in her arms.       “I think if not for you, I’d do nothing at all. No cooking, no washing, no cleaning – nothing. I’d just lie in the bed and look at the ceiling.”       “If you wanna clean, we’ll do this together. And cooking. Washing. Anything. You know I’m always at your service.”       “Yeah, but I don’t have any wish to do anything.” Anna sniffs quietly. “The house hasn’t been cleaned for several days, but I don’t really care. I don’t care about the dust around. The dirty floors. The crumbs in the kitchen.”       “Don’t worry, princess, I will take care of it all,” Daniel promises. “I will take everything I need and clean the whole house. I promise I will leave no dust.”       “Don’t do this, sweetheart, you don’t feel better, either.”       “I feel much better than you.”       “But everything happened before your eyes. You saw Helene dying.”       “It’s horrible, I don’t deny it. But I must be strong. For you. For my friends who need me.”       “Daniel, my love…”       Anna puts her hand on Daniel’s hands folded in front of him and caresses them softly before he takes it and squeezes it softly,       “Don’t worry about me, honey, I’m okay,” Daniel assures with a little false smile. “I’m alright enough to take care of you.”       “I’m very sorry…” Anna pronounces with sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry about not being able to comfort you. I need someone to help me.”       “I feel much better ‘cause you’re just near.” Daniel caresses Anna’s wrists tenderly and kisses them and the front of her hand. “I can hug you and kiss you. We can sit down and talk.”       “If you need something, I will do it without problems. Anything. Even if I feel too bad. I can find the strength for you.”       “I need just one thing, Anna. To see you happy and healthy. To see the gloss in your eyes and a smile on your face.”       “I’m sorry about not being able to give it to you now.”       “But you haven't lately eaten enough. That’s what makes me really worried.”       “I have no appetite. Nothing gets through my throat.”       “I get it, but I want you to eat well. Otherwise, you’re gonna get sick, heaven forbid.”       “Sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t really and don’t wanna eat. It’s even hard for me to drink water. And when I try to eat by force, I’m starting to feel nausea.”       “Listen, I don’t wanna eat too much, too. But eating nothing is not good.”       “I know, Daniel. But I can’t. I can’t eat, I can’t drink, I can’t smile, I can’t laugh. I can do nothing. I want nothing.”       “I get it. And I don’t make you smile and laugh by force. A smile you put on by force is really easy to differ from the one you really want to show. Your eyes and body always tell the truth, no matter how hard you try, and show your real feelings. I’d always understand if your emotions are real or you just don’t wanna make me upset.”       “I…” Anna sits up slowly and wipes tears under her eyes. “I don’t really wanna make you upset. I don’t want you to see me like this. Crying, whining, apathetic…”       “It really makes me extremely upset,” Daniel confesses and grabs Anna’s face. “But I want and will be near to help you get through it. Care about you in such a hard time.”       “You can hardly do something.”       “I can’t bring Helene back, sadly. But I can be near to listen, support, and hug you tightly. You can rely on me. I can be your friend. Whoever you want.”       “It’s unbearable…” Anna pronounces in a shaking voice and shakes her head slightly. “I don’t know how to get through this…”       Seeing that tears show up on Anna’s face again, and she inclines her head, Daniel takes her in a strong hug immediately.       “Hey, hey, hey, quiet, quiet, baby, quiet,” Daniel pronounces softly, putting his hand on the top of Anna’s head. “My little, my sweetheart…”       In the end, Anna breaks down and lets herself cry bitterly, pressing herself closely to Daniel’s chest, in which she snuggles her nose a little later, putting her hands on his back and starting to shake strongly from tension.       “It’s okay, I’m here,” Daniel keeps calming down and starts to shake Anna slightly like a child. “It’s okay…”       “I can’t…” Anna sobs. “I can’t…”       “We’ll get through it, sunshine, we will.”       Daniel kisses Anna on the top of her head and runs his fingers through her hair on the back of it, feeling his heart squeeze painfully after every sob of his girlfriend.       “You’re not alone, you’ve got those you can ask for help. Nobody would refuse to do it.”       “I don’t wanna believe it’s all the truth,” Anna confesses. “Can’t believe we’re gonna have to go to the funeral soon. The funeral of my close friend.”       “Trust me, I also want everything to be a terrible dream. I wanna see Helene alive and healthy. I want us to never get through the horror we had to get through.”       “Wasn’t there any chance to save her? What if you could’ve done something? What if you didn’t notice it? What if we could’ve prevented it? What if we could do our best for her not to be killed and kidnapped?”       “If we’d had a little chance, we would’ve used it. We wouldn’t have stood aside. We would’ve saved that girl. We wouldn’t have let Marcus deal with her. We wouldn’t have let those scums mock her.”       “Knowing which horrible things she experienced before death, I am much more shocked. They tortured Helene in all possible ways. Did anything they wanted to her. Everything I’m afraid to think about.”       Anna sobs quietly.       “It’s… It was literally worse than everything I had to experience because of Potter. That's what Natalia and Raquelle had to get through. It’s awful!”       “You have no reason to fear next to me, princess,” Daniel says confidently, puts his hand on Anna’s cheek, and caresses it softly. “I’d tear apart anyone who dares to touch you.”       “Peter said the same things to Helene… But he could not. He could not save her. Marcus did his best to make it real.”       “The guys and I learned from his mistakes and would do our best not to let them happen in case a danger threatened you and the girls.”       Anna says nothing and, sniffing quietly, presses herself closely to Daniel, while he caresses her back with one hand, puts his arm around the girl’s neck, and runs his fingers through her little matted ginger hair.       “Besides, Helene is not the only one we’ve lost,” Daniel sighs quietly. “We’re not just mourning for her.”       “What do you mean?” Anna frowns slightly.       “We lost Peter, too. Our friendship with him ended once and forever.”       “You think he won’t want to talk to us anymore?”       “He blames us for Helene’s death. He thinks we ruined his whole life and were waiting for the moment to mock him.”       “Maybe things will get better?”       Anna steps away from Daniel slowly and squeezes his hand in her hands.       “Maybe Pete is just shocked and doesn’t understand what he does and says, but may get cool and understand his mistake later?”       “I don’t know, Anna…” Daniel shakes his head and glances at the window for a second. “But I’m afraid this is the end. Besides, I’m gonna be honest, I’m not so sure that I need this friendship now. I need that friend. The friend I can expect anything from.”       “By the way, why didn’t you tell me anything about him attacking you with a knife and cutting your vein?”       “I said I didn’t wanna scare and upset you.”       “You think I could be quiet when you came back home with a bandaged hand and looked kinda dumbfounded?”       “The important thing is that I was healthy and alive. And the wound was gone little by little.”       “And I’m really surprised that you still take care of Peter and protect him more than everyone after even that horror.”       “When he did it, I was really mad at Peter and didn’t wanna have anything in common with him. What he did was a great shock to me. I didn’t understand why he did it. What I did. Why that man never attacked, for example, Terrence with a knife. Why I became his victim.”       “Everyone knows he got mad because of your jokes about his relationship. Nobody judges him in this case. But attacking the man and trying to kill him… It’s… It’s too much…”       “At that moment, I didn’t think I did something criminal. I wouldn’t have thought my jokes would hurt him so much. And I didn’t change my mind even after Peter’s attack with a knife. He kept it under the pillow. As if… As if he came up with a plan.”       “Don’t tell me he planned it a long time before,” Anna horrifies.       “Who knows what he had on his mind. But I was scared to death.”       “But why didn’t you stop talking to him? Why did you keep worrying about him?”       “After the news about him doing self-harming for ages, I gave up, at all. And when I saw him lying in the blood with open veins, nothing was left of the anger.”       “And you… Have you ever reproached him for that event?”       “Nope, never. Peter and I have never talked about it. He didn’t apologize for that case, but he asked for forgiveness for the conflict in general. And I’ve never started a talk about it. I’ve always acted as if nothing happened.”       “And didn’t it prevent you from talking?”       “No, and it’s strange,” Daniel shrugs. “After reconciling, I wasn’t afraid of any threats from him anymore. I wasn’t afraid that Peter would love to try to kill me again. I thought he calmed down. He was… A quiet, reasonable man.”       “We all thought so.”       “But to be honest, I've lately… I’ve lately been thinking about that case more and more. Seeing him freaking out… Toward Helene, first of all. Rose was so mad that I was really worried about her. I was afraid he’d kill her. I was worried that the blond hid a knife somewhere and would take it at any moment. He could attack her the way he attacked me.”       “He could really do this back then.”       “And I was much more horrified when Peter went crazy after Helene’s death. When he acted like a certain executioner, starting to destroy everyone in his way with no shame and dealing with a crowd super easily. One person against several people. A chance is almost zero, but Rose dealt with them immediately. Applying some incredible effort. Against which Terrence, Edward, and I were literally powerless.”       “Can’t even imagine what he did.”       “You better not,” Daniel shakes his head. “Natalia, Raquelle, and you would be shocked. As well as Helene. She would’ve probably asked herself if she did the right thing by deciding to start dating Peter.”       “Didn’t you tell her about what Peter wanted to do to you?”       “Nope, I told nobody about it. Peter was silent, too, as I understand.”       “But why did you hide it? Why didn’t you tell the truth when we all tried to find out what happened between you?”       “I just thought I could look like a slanderer to people. Peter would’ve started to deny everything, blame me, and say he wouldn’t do that. And as I’ve said, I wasn’t in a good situation back then. One word could’ve made people tear me apart.”       “I think everyone would’ve believed you if you’d explained what happened to your hand.”       “Hardly. People considered Peter a quiet, shy, and decent guy who would never do anything like that.”       “As they say, still waters run deep. Besides, Peter behaved kinda strangely from the beginning. Nobody can deny it.”       “At first, I actually had a thought of turning everyone against him, telling everyone what he did, and even lying a little. But after calming down a little, I gave up on this idea. I thought I couldn’t be so cruel and mean. Though I thought of myself much more. About what people could think of me. I didn’t want everyone to call me a bastard.”       “The truth would come to light, Daniel. No matter what Peter wanted to do, he should’ve understood that he couldn’t keep being sweet and fluffy for everyone forever.”       “I’ve already said I don’t believe in his indecency. I don’t believe he could be a bastard. Yes, Peter’s got a tough character, but he’s not so terrible. There have been moments when he acted like an adult, wise, and reasonable man who could use his brain well. When any person could go to him for advice and support. That really got me out of the poll when I was freaking bad, sad, lonely, and hurt.”       “Can’t deny it…” Anna shrugs. “Pete has comforted me many times. He’s given me tons of advice and tried to smooth things over. For example, he tried to help you and me reconcile. He didn’t excuse you and did admit that you did a bad thing. But he said you were a very good man who deserved a second chance.”       “And it was true. His anxiety wasn’t an act.”       “I think you’re right. Though your confessions scared me to death. I didn’t really expect anything like this from Rose.”       “Me too, but I’m guilty of that to some extent. I should’ve kept my mouth shut when he was sitting and looking at me closely with an unnatural and evil glance, and then pretended that he didn’t, and that it seemed to me.”       “If he’s really mentally ill, Rose won’t stop after dealing with you. He’s gonna go further and deal with the MacClifes. It doesn’t matter for which reason – for nothing. And then he’ll deal with the girls and me.”       “No, Anna, he will not do this. Raquelle, Natalia, and you did nothing bad to him and have always been very nice to him. And Pete takes it out on those who harmed him somehow. I’ve done it many times, and Edward and Terrence aren’t holy in this case, even if their situation is a little better.”       “Who knows, Daniel…” Anna sighs heavily, embracing herself with both arms. “Who knows what someone like him has on their mind…”       “Don’t worry, my queen, that guy will not hurt you,” Daniel assures, hugging Anna around the shoulders and kissing her on the forehead. “And if Peter dares, he knows what’s waiting for you. I will not close my eyes to that.”       “Anyway, I’m really sorry about you being close to losing your friend. I know how much he means to you.”       “Yes, he’s like my brother who was by my side in hard times. And it’s madly hurtful for me to lose him. But it’s as real as never ever. After Helene’s death, we can’t hold him. He doesn’t have the meaning in living without him. After everything he’s done to the men and me.”       “That’s bad nobody can stop him if he wanna kill himself.”       “Alas, Peter is ignoring us. As I understand, he ignores everyone since he doesn’t talk to the neighbor he used to get along with.”       “Yeah… Hard case…”       “Anyway, he won’t miss Helene’s funeral and will come to the one.”       “Oh, please, sweetie, don’t tell me about the funeral…” Anna shakes her head, closing her ears with her hands. “I wanna hear nothing about it.”       “It’s madly hurtful for me to tear your heart apart, but it’s the truth. We’re gonna bury our close friend soon.”       “God, why was it her? Why was it Helene? Did she really deserve it all? Yes, she’s got sins, but she can’t be killed for that!”       “When we’re born, we automatically become members of a certain lottery. It’s like someone in heaven drums the big drum with the names of those who live in this world, takes several pieces of paper, and adds them to the list of those who are doomed to suffer forever, no matter how hard they try to avoid it.”       “She wasn’t really lucky… Starting with being left by her father and mother. And ending with being killed by the father of her boyfriend.”       “It’s alright, that old bastard is now where he belongs. Where he is going to end his pathetic life.”       “Justice, at least in something…”       Anna falls into silence and starts to look at her hands with wet, sad eyes, inclining his head and bending her legs under herself.       “Okay, my baby, stop crying,” Daniel says softly and wipes tears carefully under Anna’s eyes. “My heart squeezes when you cry.”       “I’m sorry about annoying you with my tears,” Anna apologizes. “But I just can’t do it otherwise… I don’t have the strength to keep it all inside.”       “Don’t do this, I get it all.” Daniel presses Anna closely to himself and caresses her head. “Don’t apologize for feeling bad.”       “Very bad… And I can't do anything with it. I haven’t gotten better over the past week.”       “It’s gonna take a lot of time. I just recently started to come to myself after my parents’ death and accepted the thought that my younger sister is the only one I have from my family.”       Anna puts her hands silently on Daniel’s back and snuggles her nose in his shoulder, still sobbing bitterly and shaking from tension.       “Anyway, I’m here,” Daniel recalls and kisses Anna on the temple. “I will always be near. And I will not let my girl stay alone with her grief.”       “I will go crazy if you’re not with me,” Anna replies in a shaking voice. “I will not get through anything without you.”       “We will never break up. Ne-ver.”       Daniel snuggles his nose in the top of Anna’s head, while she keeps her eyes closed and enjoys the way his strong arms press her to his warm chest, and his soft hands slide over her back up and down.       “Okay, princess, we need to cheer you up just a little,” Daniel says confidently and caresses Anna’s cheek. “Your eyes are puffed and red from tears.”       “Saying in advance, I don’t wanna go anywhere,” Anna replies.       “We can stay home today. But now I have a little different idea.”       Daniel steps away from Anna, takes the cup with the spoon, and gives them to the girl.       “Hey, I have something for you.”       “What’s this?” Anna frowns slightly.       “Chocolate cake. I didn't buy it at a shop, I cooked it by myself, if you’re wondering.”       “Yourself?”       “Yup. I recently found a recipe on the Internet. I liked it and decided to repeat it. Moreover, this cake is very easy to cook: just mix all the necessary ingredients and put them all in a microwave for several minutes.”       “You did this for me?”       “Yeah, I know I’m terrible at cooking. But I really wanted to make you happy. Do something nice for you. So, I decided to do what I’m absolutely worthless at.”       Daniel sniffs what’s inside the cup better.       “I tasted it, it’s kinda good, I liked it. It’s edible, at least.” Daniel laughs shyly. “The kitchen remained safe and sound. And the microwave didn’t explode after my experiments.”       Anna cracks a slight smile, takes the cup from Daniel, and looks at what’s inside, noticing that the cake is soft and tender.       “It’s incredible to look…” Anna notices, tastes a little piece with the teaspoon, and smiles much wider. “And the taste is amazing. Very soft and tender.”       “I’m glad you liked it,” Daniel exhales with relief.       After glancing at Daniel with tenderness and love, Anna kisses him touchingly on the cheek.       “Thank you, sweetheart,” Anna thanks. “Thank you so much for doing so much for me. I highly appreciate the way you take care of me.”       “I’m doing everything I can,” Daniel replies shyly. “I don’t like to look at you being sad. And know you need something.”       “You’re the best man I am madly lucky to meet.”       Daniel kisses Anna sweetly on her nose with a slight smile, caressing her head at the same time. Then she eats a little piece of cake from the spoon and then offers another to the man, who accepts it with pleasure.       “M-m-m, bloody hell, I am a freaking talented cooker!” Daniel exclaims funnily. “It’s really delicious!’       “Watch out, pretty boy, I may make you do this delicious thing for me every day,” Anna laughs, enjoying the taste of the tender cake.       “With pleasure, my princess! For breakfast, lunch, and lunch or all of it!”       Anna smiles much wider, presses herself much closer to Daniel, and sits between his legs, while he hugs her tightly with both arms and kisses her cheek several times.       “I love you,” Anna pronounces with special tenderness in her eyes in a low and soft voice.       “I love you too,” Daniel smiles widely.       And while Anna eats the cake and offers Daniel little pieces, they do not notice that Sammy enters their room a little hesitantly, watching what they are doing with sad eyes.       “Oh, look!” Anna exclaims. “Sammy’s come!”       “Wow…” Daniel pronounces surprisingly. “Sammy, buddy, what happiness!”       “He was just lying in the corner and looking into the distance all this time. But now he came to our room for the first time.”       “Come to us, Sammy.” Daniel claps his hand on the bed. “Come, come, buddy. C’mon. Come to me, boy! Come to me!”       After hesitating a little, Sammy comes slowly to the bed and puts his face on the edge of it.       “Oka-a-a-say…” Daniel caresses Sammy’s head softly. “Okay, buddy…”       “Is the change of place really helping him a little?” Anna asks. “He’s starting to come to himself…”       “It would be a sin not to come to yourself when you have such a wonderful and caring person. The only one who managed to persuade him to eat just something.”       “Daniel…”       Daniel says nothing and kisses Anna sweetly on the top of her head, while she keeps eating the cake in the cup, and Sammy watches the sweethearts and does not reject the caress and attention, thanks to which it’s a little better for him to overcome such a great tragedy as the separation from his beloved owner.       

***

      Edward, Terrence, and Raquelle spent some time at Natalia’s home before Blake and George joined them after they called and asked for permission to come, show their condolences, and support them at such a hard moment. The manager and assistant of “Against The System” were shocked when what happened to Helene and cannot still believe such a young girl could die in such a terrible situation.       “When I found out what happened to you, I rushed to finish my business and come back to the city,” George says with sadness in his eyes, while everyone is sitting comfortably on the bed in Natalia’s room. “I’ve been too busy with other artists. Moreover, I suddenly got some problems. So, I have to consult a lot with the lawyers.”       “And I spent the whole week with food poisoning in the hospital,” Blake confesses. “Vomiting, a high fever, weakness, I could eat nothing… Oh… I just started to come to myself. Found the strength to contact the guys from the team. And I was overwhelmed by this news from you.”       “And the pain in my back just began to weaken slowly,” Terrence replies thoughtfully, sitting on the bed next to Edward and keeping his arm around his neck. “I feel much better now and can move well.”       “But he has to get more procedures,” Raquelle adds, keeping her head on Natalia’s shoulder, while the blonde presses her back to the back of the bed. “For at least two or three weeks.”       “By the way, do you know the date of the funeral?” Blake asks hesitantly.       “Not yet,” Natalia shakes her head. “The police are still investigating.”       “God, why has it been so long?” George wonders. “Why haven’t they still given the body of the late girl to her relative?”       “It’s clear that there was such a powerful explosion and fire that finding some remains turned out to be a hard mission,” Edward shrugs.       “Poor girl… My God… I still can’t believe it. She died for nothing.  Because of the mentally unstable man.”       “We’re shocked too, Mr. Smith,” Raquelle replies with sadness in her eyes. “It’s been a week, but nobody has come to themselves and accepted what happened.”       “We hoped that Helene would be found alive and healthy until the end,” Terrence adds. “But sadly, no miracle happened.”       “I imagine what her relative feels now,” Blake says thoughtfully.       “Her grandmother is now deeply shocked,” Edward confesses. “She says she doesn’t have any meaning in living in this world after losing her husband, daughter, and granddaughter.”       “If I can do something, let me know,” George says confidently. “If she is not able to pay for the funeral, I can do this without problems.”       “Thanks a lot, Mr. Smith,” Natalia thanks. “We will remember this.”       “We’ve already told Mrs. Marshal that we’d help her with arranging the funeral,” George promises. “I know how everything happens because I buried my mother several years ago.”       “Honestly, I feel terrible every time I come to a cemetery,” Raquelle confesses. “I can’t say I fear that place, but… It’s always uncomfortable to be there. I wanna leave it soon. And I’d never go there if not for my mother and father.”       “Agree, I also shake when I come to check on the grave of my brother,” Blake says thoughtfully. “Though I know one crazy couple that loves these places so much.”       “Anyway, you will not have to get through it all alone,” George notices. “I will be with you, Blake will be with you… Not just us.”       “Our families really give us great support,” Edward replies. “They support us and help us watch Mrs. Marshall. They understand it’s hard for us now. We have not to go crazy and to support the others.”       “And try not to think about being guilty of what happened,” Terrence adds. “The men and I are kind of guilty of Helene’s death.”       “No, no, guys, don’t even think about it,” George protests. “You’re guilty of nothing and did everything you could.”       “Yeah, guys, don’t blame yourself,” Blake agrees. “You didn’t do your best for her death to happen, and didn’t stay aside. It means you shouldn’t blame yourself.”       “We know, Blake, but it’s unpleasant,” Edward sighs tiredly, rubbing his forehead. “It’s unpleasant that we didn’t keep the promise we gave. And let down those whom we said everything would be alright.”       “It’s okay, guys, you’re all fine fellows!” George says proudly. “And we’re all really proud of you.”       “We don’t stop telling them the same,” Raquelle confesses. “But Edward, Daniel, and Terrence feel guilty anyway.”       “Though we can understand him ‘cause Peter thinks differently,” Natalia adds. “He blamed them openly for Helene’s death and doesn’t want to talk to them now.”       “I think he says it on emotions,” Blake assumes. “When my brother Matt died, I blamed the whole world literally for it. Anyone who stood in my way was guilty for me.”       “But you hardly lost your mind and destroyed everything in your way,” Terrence replies. “You hardly grabbed a cold gun and shot at the criminals and those who were close to you.”       “Did Peter really attack ya with fists and try to kill you?”       “We’re gonna say more, Daniel recently confessed that Peter had attacked him with a knife before,” Edward replies confidently. “And he eventually cut his vein.”       “C’mon? Seriously?”       “When did it happen?” George opens his eyes widely.       “In the period when they had a conflict,” Terrence replies. “When you were mad because we refused to work. I mean, everything started after that event.”       “And do I know it now? Do I know that the case was much worse now?”       “We recently found it out!” Raquelle exclaims. “Terrence and I invited all our friends to our home, and Daniel suddenly made a confession and told us about Peter, who shouted at him, attacked him with a knife, took a knife from the pillow, and tried to stab him.”       “So, do you want to say Daniel had many more reasons to be mad?”       “Of course, we’re sorry for him, but Perkins was kinda guilty of bringing everything to that,” Natalia replies confidently.       “Though after that confession, we started to suspect that Peter had mental issues,” Edward replies. “Because… A person can’t be reasonable, wise, quiet, and educated but suddenly become heartless and bloodthirsty and get mad at the whole world. These quick transformations mean something.”       “Oh, listen, guys, of course, I can’t be sure about it, but I thought Peter talked to himself several times,” Blake confesses. “Looking somewhere aside. Well… As if there’s someone standing next to him.”       “To himself?” Raquelle rounds her eyes. “Talking?”       “Are you sure about it, Blake?” Natalia specifies. “Maybe it seemed to you?”       “Maybe it seemed to me, I don’t deny it,” Blake exclaims. “But the case is that I’ve been a witness to that scene several times.”       “So, do you want to say Peter is suffering from hallucinations?” Terrence asks surprisingly. “He sees someone we don’t?”       “Well… A person doesn’t usually talk to themselves… Doesn’t shout at something in the air. Doesn’t tell someone to get off and fuck them off.”       “Several people have said these things,” Edward recalls. “Daniel mentioned it and saw Rose whispering with something with his pretense… And Peter’s neighbors said he talked to someone and even screamed at someone at nights.”       “What do we expect, knowing who his father is?” Raquelle sighs tiredly. “A mentally ill man, whose family had crazy folks. Moreover, these illnesses can be inherited: schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, and many others.”       “No matter how much I don’t want to say it, but it’s the truth,” George notices with sadness in his eyes. “Something is wrong with Peter. And I don’t really like the situation with his attempt to kill Daniel. Just like his attacks on Edward and Terrence.”       “Anyway, we’re powerless in this case,” Natalia replies. “If it’s true, a person lives with these illnesses forever.  They can weaken the symptoms, but they will never be gone.”       “He must be taken to a doctor, so they can check on his condition. He must be examined by a psychiatrist, discuss his problems with a psychologist… Peter shouldn’t think he can live with this burden for the rest of his life.”       “I guess he believes truly that he’s healthy,” Terence replies thoughtfully. “Just like any ill person who always says they are alright.”       “What if I can talk to him? Let me go to his home someday and try to figure everything out.”       “Don’t do this, George,” Edward advises. “Peter ignores all of us, and our recent visit to his home didn’t lead to any results. And his neighbors told us many things that got us horrified.”       “Yeah…” Blake scratches the back of his head. “Rose really seemed a reasonable and wise guy. I didn’t think he’d really be out of his mind.”       “Who knows, maybe we’re all wrong, and the case is about something different,” Raquelle shrugs. “But it all makes us tense and suspicious.”       “I can say just one thing, guys: until a person wants to fix something, persuading them is worthless,” George notices quietly. “And as I understand, Peter doesn’t have any wish to change anything. As if he is happy with everything.”       “We know, George,” Terrence replies. “But we can’t lose him. Peter is our friend. We all love him, take care of him, and wanna help him. Even after everything that happened.”       “I am surprised that Daniel keeps taking care of him like this even after all those horrible things,” Blake confesses.       “Agree,” George nods. “Maybe, Daniel was really mad and wanted to hear nothing about him at first, but then everything suddenly changed.”       “Alas, we’ve never had the power that Helene had,” Edward upsets. “She was the only one to impact Rose and keep his mind more or less sober. But after her death, nothing can hold Rose down.”       “That’s why we can see that we’ve lost two friends, not one,” Terrence adds.       “That’s bad he withdraws into himself and ignores people like this,” George notices. “Peter may go out of his mind. He may not just start talking to someone. He may actually go to, heaven forbid, kill people. Just like his father did it somehow.”       “We’re powerless in this case,” Natalia shrugs. “And I’m afraid that we can do nothing for the second time. Peter will get what he wants and… Kill himself. And we’ll know it when we only have to bury him.”       “Maybe everything isn’t lost yet?” Blake asks hesitantly. “What if he just needs to be alone? What if he comes to himself later and starts to talk to you again? At least one of you!”       “Hardly, Blake,” Terrence shakes his head. “We’re now enemies of Peter. The people who wanted to hurt him. The whole world is his enemy now. He was waiting for something bad from everyone. He didn’t even trust Helene completely and got terribly mad at her, even after one hint at her betrayal.”       “Okay, guys, don’t be upset in advance,” George advises. “Let’s believe that everything isn’t so bad, and you’ll have a chance to help Peter. You’ll assure him to solve his problems somehow: discussing his problems with a psychologist and taking the cures prescribed by a good doctor.”       “Honestly, hope is fading away rapidly,” Natalia replies thoughtfully.       “Well, if the man doesn’t want it, don’t make him do it. You'd better focus on what you can do. Helping those who need it and are ready to accept it. You’re ready to support each other and the relative of the late girl – so, you'd better focus on it.”       “Don’t worry, Mr. Smith, we will get through this. We have many things to do, but it’s easier when we’re together.”       “And yeah, guys, don’t even worry about the band’s business,” George says confidently. “I will solve it all by myself and solve the problem with the events we scheduled before.”       “Thanks a lot,” Edward thanks. “We’re sorry, but we aren’t just able to think about it. We understand that you’re risking getting penalties, but still…”       “Don’t even think about it. Come to yourself, help each other, and bury your friend, while I solve your business.”       “We’re so sorry about giving you problems again,” Terrence says hesitantly. “About you losing a lot of money because of us. Not just you, but also the organizers.”       “It’s not a thing you should be worried about now, Terrence. Money comes and leaves, but depression, sadness, suffering, and apathy have been friends to a human. Before you think about your business, you need to come to yourself and come back to that when you feel you’re ready.”       “We promise to do our best to put ourselves together as soon as possible,” Edward replies quietly. “Give us a little time.”       “C’mon, guys, why you would be worried!” Blake exclaims. “Come to yourself as long as needed. Your fans are understanding enough folks and wouldn’t tear you apart for not promoting the album that is about to be released. They can understand it all and would be waiting for your return.”       “If only the guys didn’t have to make a comeback in an updated composition,” Raquelle sighs heavily. “It might probably happen that Peter doesn’t want to come back to the band.”       “Time will show, guys,” George replies quietly. “Don’t think about it now. As I’ve said, take care of each other and get ready for your friend’s funeral. And I will solve all the band’s issues.”       “Thank you so much, George,” Terrence thanks amicably. “We’re so grateful to you. Gotta repeat that we’ve got the best manager in the world.”       “Hold on, men!” Blake exclaims. “The girls need you. Their eyes are tear-stained and puffy. They probably cry all day long.”       “You’re right…” Raquelle pronounces hesitantly.       “Yeah, the girls and I have lately cried a lot,” Natalia confesses and wipes a tear carefully under her eye. “I think I would’ve been sitting here and crying if the guys hadn’t decided to come here.”       “But where are your parents, Natalia?” George asks. “Had you been alone before we arrived?”       “Dad’s working, and Mom went out with Grandma for business. They won’t come back until the evening.”       “All our relatives are busy with something,” Edward notices. “My parents went somewhere for business and said they’d be late.”       “It’s a cool reason to go to someone's home and talk,” Blake replies cheerfully.       “Is Daniel busy with something too?” George asks.       “He kind of wanted to go to the clinic to visit his sister,” Terrence replies thoughtfully.       “Don’t you know when she can go home?”       “I think, soon. Cassidy’s therapy is going very well. And she got used to that place, judging by Perkins’ stories. She doesn’t have time to be boring there.”       “At least some good news.”       “Oh, alright, let’s drink something,” Natalia suggests tiredly, rubbing her forehead. “I haven’t offered anything to you yet.”       “Oh, I’m not allowed to eat everything after food poisoning,” Blake replies thoughtfully.       “But what did you get poisoned with?” Raquelle asks.       “I bought some overdue rotten stuff in a shop. I took it without checking the expiration dates. I did it when I started to feel sick. I thought it would be gone soon, but I decided to call an ambulance when I got much worse: I couldn’t stop vomiting, and my fever got high and didn’t get down.”       “Be careful next time, boy,” George advises. “There is often overdue food in shops. And even if the expiration date is fine, you may feel bad anyway. So, you need to taste everything very carefully.”       “Oh, honestly, I’ve been lucky to have good health. I got a cold all the time when I was a child and didn’t let go of handkerchiefs, cures, and a thermometer. A cold, a sore throat, flu, bronchitis… Measles, chickenpox, pertussis, jaundice… I’ve had everything I could! And nothing has changed. I can get sick immediately. And my stomach doesn’t accept any kind of food. When I wanna taste something new since I’m sick of old food, my organism doesn’t accept it.”       “But I think you’re allowed to drink weak tea,” Natalia replies thoughtfully. “We have a little here. My grandma has always loved tea more than coffee and can drink several cups per day.”       “Thanks, Natalia, you’re so nice to me.”       “Okay, give me a cup since you’re offering,” George says cheerfully.       “And I wanna support Blake,” Raquelle replies amicably. “So, give me tea.”       “What about you, pretty boys?” Natalia addresses Edward and Terrence. “Stand up against the others with a cup of coffee or join the collective?”       “I’m not a fan of tea, but the collective spirit is above all,” Terrence replies with his head proudly raised.       “I won’t stand out,” Edward shrugs. “We need to support kids. Especially when they’re sick.”       “I’m not a kid!” Blake protests. “I’m twenty already.”       “Oh, let’s go…” Natalia sighs tiredly, getting up from the bed. “Sit at the table while I boil water in the kettle.”       “Now it’s time to please ourselves and eat a little bit of cake with two or three thick layers of crème,” Terrence rolls his eyes dreamily.       “Wouldn’t it be too much for ya, glutton?” Edward adds.       “A little piece is not too much. But a full cake is pretty much for you.”       “Sweet food is good, but eating it all day long to weaken the stress is a bad idea,” George notices.       “Raquelle, sweetie, could you help me set the table?” Natalia puts her hand on Raquelle’s shoulder. “We can do this much faster together.”       “No problem, friend,” Raquelle smiles shyly. “And the men can sit at the table and talk a little.”       “That’s right…” After looking at each other, Raquelle, Edward, Terrence, Blake, and George get up from the bed and leave the room after Natalia. Then the girls go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for everyone and find some sweet food, and the men decide to sit on the sofa in the living room. They all try to get busy with talks about something that is not connected with the death of Helene and the problems of Peter, completely understanding that they may go crazy if they keep thinking about the things that are impossible to fix, in their opinion.