Keeping Her Love

by Tiger Hill

  Odd. It’s probably nothing, though. Maybe from that ball that came down a few days ago. I’ll check it out later. I don’t really have time for it now.

  Going into the bakery, he scored a free scone and latte from Tula. The place was uncharacteristically mellow that day, so Rhett took the opportunity to chat up with Tula while she made is espresso drink.

  As she lowered the steam wand into a pitcher of milk, she asked, “So you’re here a little later today than usual. What’s up with that?”

  “Just overslept. I figured I might as well come in and see my sweetie if I’m already running late.”

  The peach gloss she wore that day shined like a summer glow as she smiled at him. “Try not to get into too much trouble today.”

  “Oh, I’m all about trouble. Can’t talk you into eloping and running away with me yet?”

  She sent him a questionable look. “Don’t tempt me. I might just take you up on it.”

  “I could always just knock you up. Then you’d have to have a shotgun wedding with me. At least that way there’d be a bundle of joy to distract your parents from wanting to throw fireballs at me.”

  She let out a cute little cackle as she poured the espresso into his paper cup. “Nice idea, but I am definitely not ready for a kid. As much as I’d love to marry you right this minute, I’d also like to live out my dreams.”

  “Fair enough,” said Rhett.

  “And what dreams would that be, my dear?” Came the familiar voice of Karma.

  Tula outright jumped when she realized that her boss was right behind her, and the entire pitcher of steamed milk cascaded to the ground. Karma let out a little hoot as he bounced back along with Tula, his white hair elevating in a way that didn’t seem natural. In his pleasant manner, he brushed aside the toppling of the milk as a simple accident and helped Tula mop everything up with some spare towels. Rhett did his best to distract Karma from asking any more questions about Tula’s ‘dreams,’ asking how he felt the universe was treating him that day. Glad that he had nowhere to go that morning, Rhett stood with the old man for a good fifteen minutes as he described the visions he’d received during his morning meditation.

  Tula made Rhett another drink quickly, scurrying off to the back as Karma talked his ear off. Rhett completely understood her trepidation about sticking around, and waved as she coyly left.

  A line of people soon showed up, and Karma had to regrettably get back to the concerns of ‘the mortal world.’ He parted with a cheery grin, taking orders and grabbing pastries just like any of the employees working there might do.

  It’s hard to dislike the guy, thought Rhett. Any man who works right alongside his workers is a good person in my book. Too bad Tula is terrified of letting on what she plans on. He probably wouldn’t even be that mad about it. I can understand, though—she doesn’t want anything to change about their relationship as long as she has to still be around him for the next year.

  Rhett walked out, making sure to cover his head with his hoodie as he went, and climbed back into the car. By the time he got back to the house, every one of the cars were gone. He’d consumed the latte and scone without much difficulty as well, so all there was left to do was to go into the house and begin inspecting. He parked a few blocks from the house, not wanting to raise anyone’s suspicions if they came home for lunch, and walked back. Before going into Max’s room, he checked every single room to make sure that no one was still lounging about somewhere. Once he was sure the coast was completely clear, he went down his hall and climbed the stairs to the upper level of the house. He didn’t often go up there, and had actually never once taken a look inside of Max’s room. He had never seen the need to look inside, and besides felt that it was a slight breach of privacy.

  He opened the door slowly, though he didn’t know why he treated the opening with such trepidation. Perhaps he half expected the door to be locked. In any event, he took in the faint smell of body spray and spices as he took his first step inside. The room was larger than he expected it to be—surely larger than his room. The walls had a few punk rock posters hanging along with some shelves covered messily with books and stuffed animals. He had two large black desks that were wedged up against opposing walls, completely covered in a mess of electronic pieces that Rhett had no comprehension of naming. The twin bed was the only thing not covered with stuff, neatly tucked with a navy comforter.

  “Okay,” Rhett mouthed to himself, surveying the space.

  He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for as he closed the door on himself. There was a desktop computer on one of the desks, so he figured that would be the best place to look in case Max had some kind of manifesto written out in opposition to Rhett. To his delight, the computer was about as easy to get into as the room had been. All he had to do was hit the power button and wait for the operating system to warm up. A little jarringly, the wallpaper was nothing more than a black wasteland. There were no icons besides the recycle bin.

  Rhett clicked around at the task bar, bringing up all the files that he wanted to go searching through. Rhett wasn’t the most computer savvy of guys, saving all his technical knowledge for working on cars. He clicked through some folders, occasionally thinking he was onto something when he found some word files. Most of the files he opened were simply homework or some kind of resume for jobs around campus. There was nothing close to personal to be found, aside from the family photos he had stored in an easy-to-access area.

  Curious, Rhett decided to enter the word ‘boobs’ into the search bar. What came up was a very large list of pornographic videos featuring what seemed to be made up exclusively of blondes.

  Can’t fault the guy for looking at nudie videos. It’s not like 99.5% percent of the male population doesn’t look at this stuff. I don’t see anything too weird here. Just your average videos from the major porn sites. I suppose he torrents these. He’s an engineer-in-the-making, but he’s not pulling in a ton of money right now. Maybe if he’s acting up I can somehow let mommy and daddy in on this little collection of his.

  Giving up on poking through Max’s hard drive, he opened a browser and began clicking around through his search history. Rhett yawned as he scrolled through it all. By his approximation, it had to be the most boring browsing habits he’d seen in his life. If Max wasn’t checking out all of the technology blogs on the Internet, he was hanging around on engineering forums or his school’s website to upload homework.

  Christ, this guy. I’ve got zero dirt on him so far, and this is probably the best place to find something worth dinging him on. Maybe I was wrong about him. He seems about as normal as any person I’ve met. But then, I haven’t really had the opportunity to look through the rest of his place. Lord knows there’s many layers to this room to search through.

  Shutting the computer off, Rhett began looking around on top of the desks. He picked up a few of the pieces of electrical materials, observing them as if he were picking up the spare parts from a UFO.

  What the heck does this guy do with all this stuff? He is studying to be an engineer. I guess that should answer itself.

  Departing the desk, he checked out the bedside table that had a simple lamp placed at the corner, an old glass of water, and a ballpoint pen. Opening the drawer, he pushed some knick knacks aside before finding exactly what he was looking for: a fancy moleskin journal, frayed at the corners and looking like it had see more than a few hundred active days. He picked it out and flipped it open, seeing that more than half was filled with the thick black ink of Max’s hand. The first entry was from two years ago, far before Rhett had come into the picture, so he skipped ahead to the last page of the book.

  Yes! Thought Rhett. That was the day after the beach trip. This should be pretty rich.

  April 28th

  I enjoyed my time with Layla and everyone else. I hope that Tula liked the gift I got her—a silver watch with some features that should help her with her baking career. The beach was beautiful and I feel lucky that I could get
some time away from my studies to go to such a nice place. It’s a somewhat isolated location, surrounded by bluffs and ridges that have these beautiful trees that remind me of pines.

  Oh, who cares about that? Rhett paused to think. Get to the juicy stuff! He scanned ahead, trying to pick out words that would attract his attention.

  … I’m sad when I think about the fact that Tula will be leaving the house with her boyfriend, Rhett. He’s nice enough, but I get this strange feeling that he has some kind of sinister underbelly that the rest of us don’t see. I just get paranoid thinking about them being alone together. I wish that Tula had chosen someone from the church, someone that we could really fully approve of. Rhett just walked into the bakery one day and asked Tula out on a date. We don’t know anything about him.

  Anyway, I revealed all of this to Tula that night on the beach. I held her so close and let her know how much the family cares for her and wishes her well. As twins, we have this special bond that no one else could possibly understand. It’s a gift from God, really. She said she understood, and that she loved us all so much. I can’t believe she’s going to be leaving us soon.

  Rhett raised an eyebrow as he read the last of the entry.

  It’s believable enough, I suppose. Especially his apparent disapproval of me. But something about it just seems strange. I don’t know what it is. It’s almost as if the voice in his journal doesn’t match the words that usually come out of his mouth. I don’t get it. Is this how this guy really thinks? It’s true that he’s usually a person of few words.

  He sighed.

  I don’t know. Maybe I should just go on and read more. I don’t want to spend too much time in here, but I want to get a better idea of who he really is. I don’t know if it’s my preconceived notions of him that makes it hard for me to believe that he’s actually like this. Am I the crazy one? Maybe the entire family just has a general distaste for me, and I’m targeting Max because he was just more honest about his feelings for me.

  He meditated briefly on that last thought.

  Is that it? Am I chastising him because he was the only one who actually showed his emotions? Tula told me before that her parents are too easy with their love, while it must be earned from Max. She also told me that Max is kind of in a confusing stage of his life. A nerdy engineering guy… Because of his natural good looks, it’s hard to believe that he would have trouble relating to people, but you never know. He’s not the most friendly person in the world.

  He flipped through more of the journal, wondering to himself on what Max was like before he came into the picture. He’d settle on a random page or two with an old date at the top, typically from the year before, and just scan for key words that seemed important to him. Often he simply searched for Tula’s name, but he also kept an eye out for an instances of rage or perversion. Typically, Max’s journal was pretty bland in nature. He would most often write about events relating to school, like his teachers, friends, and difficult homework assignments. As Rhett analyzed the text more closely, he realized that a lot of the entries were pretty similar:

  Woke up a bit late today. Finished my homework assignment at the last second. I really need to break that bad habit. Mr. Garrison did not seem pleased with me, especially considering that he says my handwriting is practically illegible. Garrison is kind of mean, though, so I don’t put a lot of stick into what he says. I just want to finish this class to the best of my abilities and be done with it.

  Sang says that he feels the same way about the professor. He’s not as good at engineering as I am, so he seems to get twice the grief. I try to help him as much as I can, but this isn’t an easy field to slide through. He tells me that his parents are the ones who put pressure on him to go into engineering, otherwise he would have been an actor or photographer or something.

  There wasn’t much about Tula and the family besides the occasional mention about a dinner they went to or a minor spat between two of the family members. Rhett couldn’t ascertain anything he wanted to find—namely, evidence of some kind of sexual fixation on Tula, or signs of pathology. Rhett had to admit it: Max seemed about as normal a person as any. Shutting the journal, he set it back inside of the drawer as carefully as he could, trying to remember to place it exactly as he’d found it.

  He took a moment to consider whether he should continue looking through the rest of the room, which consisted mostly of the bookshelf and the closet. Max seemed to already prove to Rhett that he wasn’t the mastermind he’d thought he was. Why continue filtering through things when there wasn’t anything to find?

  I still just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more behind all of this, Rhett thought as he picked up another one of the indiscernible pieces of electronic equipment. But what can I do? He’s completely clean. It really must be some kind of male-on-male aggression instinct coming up in me. I can’t explain what motivates me otherwise. Max explained himself in his journal on why he seemed so close to Tula that night. I can’t find signs that he’s been sabotaging the relationship between Tula and I. Maybe I’m just barking up the wrong tree.

  He paused to check his watch. 10:30 AM.

  It’s still early. What the hell else am I going to do with the rest of my time if I give up the chase?

  Momentarily, he considered following up the inspection on Max’s room with a quick sweep of Mr. and Mrs. Florian’s room.

  No, I can’t go that far. If I were ever caught going through their stuff, I’d be tossed out in a second. I have my suspicions about them, but I’m not gonna go searching through their stuff.

  He looked up towards the shelves on the wall, covered with a long line of books of every shape and color. Rhett took his shoes off, stepping up on Max’s bed to get a closer look of the collection. The titles ranged from science fiction to textbooks, and didn’t seem to be ordered with any kind of system of logic.

  The textbooks didn’t hold any interest for him, so he didn’t check them out. What hidden secrets could he possibly find in the pages of an old pre-calculus book? He did pick up a few of the fiction novels—just some sci-fi and thriller titles—checking out the titles and blurbs before briefly flipping through. He checked on what was behind the books occasionally when he pulled one or two out. He only really found a thick layer of dust, some bookmarks, and some old unlit emergency titles.

  It was only right before he hopped down from the bed—when he was sure that there was nothing of interest to find—that he discovered something special. He almost didn’t pick up the hardcover, thinking it a waste of time to search through something vainly, but some little voice in his head told him he should be thorough. It was a non-fiction book by his approximation, one of those titles that might be under the self-help category of a book store. Finding Your True Self was the title, and when he motioned to flip it open, something felt very peculiar about the motion.

  It was only on closer inspection that he realized that half the book was glued together.

  “What in the hell?” He mumbled to himself, pulling back the flowing pages of the first half of the book. When he set back the last free page, he saw something rather interesting. Cut into the glued half of the book was a small rectangular shape, and inside of that was a key. He picked it up, trying to figure out where this key might go from the shape and texture of it.

  It seems to go to some kind of file cabinet or safe, he thought, feeling at the square shape of the head. The lower half of the key had sharp, jagged cuts into it. It seemed like a sensible idea to take the key and try to find where it belonged to, since it very likely went to somewhere inside of the room. I just can’t forget that I took it from here. If that guy came in here and discovered that it was gone, he’d have a shit fit. If I can’t find where it belongs to in here, I’ll have to come back another time. I could always follow the guy around for a day and see if he reveals the secret himself.

  He was about the close the book before he realized the there was something else there. Pasted above the rectangular cut
out was a wide inset. Poking his finger inside, he felt around for a piece of paper. The thick paper was no bigger than four inches wide and had a watercolor flower on the front. He opened it, recognizing immediately the handwriting of Tula.

  Just want you to know that I’m thinking of you, brother. You’re such a deep soul, and I’m afraid that most people won’t realize that about you. Karma told me this book really helped him find himself as a person, and I enjoyed it, so I thought that I’d give it to you. You’ll find your way in this world, I promise.

  I love you with all of my heart,

  Tula

  He flipped it around, wondering if there was anything more to this little note, but didn’t discover anymore details.

  It’s nothing too odd. I wonder why he felt the need to keep it. And further, why he had chosen to glue this book together when it was a gift from his precious sister. I guess I’ll never know.

  He shut the cover closed and put it back, keeping the key in his pocket. Stepping down from the bed, he saw that there was another shelf opposite to him, but the only thing up there were a bunch of stuffed animals and statues that appeared to have been made in some kind of high school pottery class.

  To the closet.

  He opened the door to the little room, facing walls of hanging clothes. It seemed about as ordinary as any closet he’d ever seen, but figuring he might as well, Rhett stepped inside to take a closer look. As soon as both of his feet were firmly inside, the door slammed closed behind him. The space was relatively dark, the only light coming from a small sliver of a window seven feet above him.