Chrysalis (Dangerous Secrets)

by Francis, Rose

  “I guess. I guess I handled it all wrong.”

  Sydney laughed.

  “Yeah, you did,” she said. Then she was quiet again, disconcerting Nicholas once more.

  “Hey, I want to play truth or dare,” she said, looking at him strangely.

  “Um, okay,” he replied. “Sounds like fun,” he said with heavy sarcasm, rolling his eyes.

  “It’s your punishment. I’ll go first: truth or dare.”

  “Dare of course,” he said, smiling.

  She seemed unhappy with his choice.

  “Okay, I dare you to tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

  “I believe that’s cheating. But if you insist...let’s see—it would have to be in boarding school with those friends I told you about. We sealed a few people up in their room once. Wait, that’s not the worst.” He laughed. “One time one of the students left for some reason or other—funeral or something. We emptied his room, put down wet paper with cress seeds on it so in a few days, the floor looked like grass. Then we—” he chuckled, “—we got a couple of rabbits and set them loose in the room and when he opened it, some were eating the grass...” he couldn’t help laughing at the memory. “Holy shit that was funny. You should have seen his face! Boy did we get in trouble for that one, but it was worth it.” He started to get excited. “I guess peeing in someone’s shampoo bottle was pretty bad too but that guy was a total jerk; he deserved it, I promise. And we used to glue...”

  She held up her hand.

  “That’s it? These are truly the worst things you’ve ever done?”

  “As far as I can remember,” he replied, grinning. “I’m sure there are worst things—what, you think I’m a criminal? Nothing hardcore—just misdemeanor pranks. Not sure I can say the same about Winston though—he went on to...bigger things.” Nicholas felt his mood darkening. “Anyway, my turn. Truth or dare.”

  Sydney sighed.

  “Truth.”

  “You want to tell me the real reason you want to play this game?”

  She sighed again.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Cheater...”

  She threw him a sharp look. Then she quickly morphed it into something more pleasant.

  “I just...I want to get to know you more. The deeper, darker side of you...”

  “And we have to play this stupid game to do it? And what darker side are you expecting? Sydney, I don’t understand what it is with all the questions. Just spit it out, whatever’s on your mind.”

  She was shaking her head.

  “I can’t. Because although I’m asking, I don’t want to know.”

  He was about to respond when he saw her raise her hand to stop him again.

  “Please don’t push. It will all be revealed soon—I’m sure of it.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Evelyn’s singsong voice wafted over to Edward.

  “Oh Edward...”

  Edward turned to face his mother, not quite ready to hear what she had to say. He didn’t trust her tone. Once he saw her face—the mischievous glint in her eye, that wry smile—he knew he would be proven right.

  “Yes mother?”

  He made a conscious effort to turn the corners of his mouth up and hoped he didn’t look demented with effort.

  “Why do you say it like that? Edward darling, I just thought you’d be interested since what I have to say involves that half-Mexican ex-girlfriend of yours, but since you’re not interested...”

  “Mother, please don’t play games. What could you possibly have on Maria?”

  Evelyn affected a wide-eyed innocent look.

  “Edward really! I have nothing on her. I just wanted to tell you that I met an ex-boyfriend of hers the other day.”

  Edward nearly choked on the air.

  “Her ex-boyfriend? Mother, that doesn’t make any sense...”

  “Well, it’s one of Nicholas’s old friends dear! Isn’t that interesting? Oh, but she slapped him something silly when she ran into him...”

  “What?”

  Once again Edward felt shock rippling through him; Evelyn hadn’t made something up, or made a mountain of a molehill after all. He figured only an ex-boyfriend would be fit to receive such treatment.

  “Mom, who is this guy?”

  “Brandon something or other.”

  She shrugged, looking a little bored now, as if she had only come to let off some of her own steam by creating some in him, and now the transfer of emotion was complete.

  Edward tried to make sense of the thoughts racing through his head and he finally settled on one of them: he needed to find Nicholas.

  He headed to Nicholas’s room where he met him on the bed watching television with Sydney.

  Nicholas glanced at him.

  “I guess I can come back later,” Edward said.

  “No. You wanna talk alone?”

  He turned to Sydney and whispered something to her.

  Sydney got up and left the room.

  Nicholas folded his hands.

  “So Eddie, long time no talk. How are things with you, Lily, Cindy and Maria? Oh wait—I forgot Maria’s no longer in the juggle. How are Lily and Cindy? Got them to agree to be sister-wives yet?”

  “I don’t feel like I should be making such a choice right now. Anyway, that’s not...”

  “And why not? Don’t you think it’s kind of hypocritical considering, if I remember correctly, Maria’s flirting bothered you?”

  “I don’t feel it’s in my best interest to make any big commitment anytime...”

  “Why? Because the one you really want you don’t want to commit to? Because you’re leaving room to pull her back in? Listen Eddie, no matter how many women you decide to date at the same time, they won’t magically equal Maria.”

  “Look, that’s not what I came here to talk to you about all right? That girl’s got you watching too many damn romance movies or something. What’s up with Evelyn?”

  “What, you mean me telling her off? You should have heard Allison trying to stop me; she’s so sweet, trying to make excuses for her. Sometimes I wonder how such an angel came from such a devil.”

  “Nicholas, come on. Stop being so hard on her.”

  “I’m being hard on her? Since when are you so protective of Evelyn? You never liked her either...” Nicholas’s voice trailed off. Then he found it again: “Wait a minute—come to think of it, none of it ever bothered you, did it? You never held any of it against her—you’ve never spoken a bad word about her.”

  Edward sighed.

  “What would be the point? No use getting bogged down with negative energy. Move on bro, move on.” He took a breath. “Anyway, that too, is not what I came here for. Nicholas, what the hell is mother talking about? What’s this about some Brandon guy and Maria?”

  His brother looked to the side briefly.

  “Oh that. Well, I don’t really know what that was about—I’m waiting for Sydney to tell me. Maria sure slapped the hell out of him, you should have seen him.” Nicholas started laughing. “I mean I felt bad for him, but he probably deserved it.”

  “So this is the same Brandon you used to hang out with in boarding school right?”

  “Yeah, and you know how we were back then. He was probably a jerk to her somehow.”

  Edward regained control of his breathing and took a few moments. He decided to just voice his concern.

  “You think—you think she still has feelings for him? That that’s why she reacted so violently?”

  Nicholas suddenly looked smug.

  “Oh, so that matters to you?”

  Edward folded his arms and looked around the room, his eyes resting on one of Nicholas’s photos of the four of them. “You know it does Nicholas.”

  “Do I? Not with the way you’ve been acting.”

  “God we’re back to this again. Well, I have decided Nicholas. And when did you get so...”

  “Have you? Did you really just make up your mind for real this time? Because o
f this new information?” Nicholas guffawed. “You know, it actually amuses me because you’re so decisive about everything else. I think this is just another case of you not wanting someone else to get the better of you. You want to remain number one in her heart right? That’s what this is really about isn’t it?”

  “Nicholas you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Edward breathed a deep sigh. “I love Maria, I do.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. Oh wait—you did. You fooled all of us! You’re good.”

  “Nicholas stop it, I’m trying to tell you something here.”

  All of the affected amusement left Nicholas and he stared at him, waiting.

  Edward sighed again.

  “We both know she doesn’t quite fit in our world.”

  “And Sydney does?”

  “Come on, you and I both know you’re expected to get everything wrong.”

  Nicholas’s eyes averted, making Edward realize his words had him.

  “Nicholas I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant...”

  Nicholas shrugged, lifting his head again but he no longer looked him in the eyes.

  Edward decided to continue.

  “Well anyway, I can’t go against our parents like you. Our standing, this legacy—it’s all I’ve got okay? I can’t risk any of it. You know our money’s our only source of comfort Nick.”

  “No, bro. Not me anymore.” Nicholas stood up and still not looking at him, said: “It’s just you now.” Then he got up and started heading for the door as if about to leave. Edward figured he was going to fetch Sydney.

  “I’ll get her,” Edward said, stopping him.

  “Game room,” Nicholas replied, turning back toward his bed.

  ***

  On his way to the game room, Edward was still wrapped up in thoughts of Maria. At no point in time during their relationship did she mention this Brandon fellow—where could he have come from? If she had always been in love with him, then surely she would’ve said something about him at some point. But perhaps she deliberately hid him for that very reason—she didn’t want to let on that she still felt for him, and it was certainly a smart move on her part. Still, something about the whole situation did not sit right with Edward. He was hardly ever wrong about anything and he was pretty sure she was in love with him, truly, madly, deeply. Therefore, any feeling she would have had for this Brandon guy would have dwindled, perhaps disappeared. At the very least, nothing he had done in the past or present would have roused her to hit him.

  Edward thought and thought about it, suppressing a strong desire to confront Maria. Nothing was making sense—unless Brandon really had done something abominable to her, and if so, he definitely needed to know what it was. Yes the only two people who knew the real story were Brandon and Maria, and he wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with either at the moment. Edward didn’t imagine himself approaching Brandon; after all, his feeling was so strong that he had hurt Maria in some way, he might give him an encore strike across the face. As for Maria, he was pretty sure she didn’t want to talk to him anytime soon.

  Then a thought occurred to him, and he was surprised he had missed it before: not only was Sydney likely to know, but he was comfortable speaking with her, and even if she had a fierce loyalty toward Maria and he couldn’t get the details he wanted, she would let on just enough to alert him to the nature of Brandon’s offense.

  It could only have been fate leading him to her now.

  When he got to the game room, he saw her practicing hitting the balls on the pool table. She was terrible.

  “Hey Sydney, can I ask you something?”

  He saw a mask of caution come over her face.

  “Sure Ed, what’s up?”

  He forced a laugh.

  “I heard about what happened the other night—something about Maria slapping one of Nicholas’s friends?”

  He saw her go rigid.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  Edward laughed again.

  “Do you know what that was about? I just can’t imagine Maria just hitting someone out of the blue. It sure makes for a funny visual though.”

  He waited as she cast her eyes downward. She was clearly calculating what to say and how much. She finally looked up, her face relaxed. A slight smile even rested on her lips.

  “Oh, he was an old boyfriend. You know Maria—such a wild cat. No one gets the best of her! You’re lucky you walked away unscathed,” she joked, poking him lightly and appearing to genuinely smile as she started to head past him.

  He pretended to laugh with her.

  “So that’s all it was then,” he said. “Pretty funny stuff.”

  She glanced quickly at him, so quickly, he almost wondered if he had imagined it.

  “Of course!” she said. “What else do you think it could have been?” She rolled her eyes and gave a dismissive wave. Is that all?” she asked. She looked him straight in the eye for the first time since the conversation began.

  “Yeah...unless you want to tell me more?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing more to tell. Anyway, Nick’s probably waiting for me, I should go.”

  She waved and was gone. He watched her go, silently thanking her for giving him what he wanted. Whatever Brandon’s crime was, it was not negligible in the least.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sydney was home, as usual, by midnight.

  She no longer felt suspicious of Nicholas once they had talked, and definitely once they had settled in to watch a movie after Eddie left them alone.

  As she walked into her bedroom, she was still free of the thoughts that had strangled her before. But she found as she headed to the bathroom for a shower, that her mind had nothing else to chew on, so it went in the direction she had avoided for the past few hours. She didn’t want to think about all the clues, but they swarmed past her, teasing her. She knew a memory was coming, and she tried to run away but couldn’t since she didn’t know which way to go.

  Once she started showering, she realized the battle was lost—the thoughts came at her from all sides, becoming louder and clearer until she could no longer ignore them or push them away. Then they stopped tickling her brain, slowing down to peel back the layers of her memory and show her their spoils. She remembered...

  His strange behavior and facial expressions when he spoke to her in the beginning, running away from her. Guilt?

  Then there was the cabin. It felt familiar—she even recognized a vase. He also started to feel weird there eventually.

  And of course, the myriad coincidences. He was clearly a bad boy in his day. Besides, he knew Brandon. And he had been part of a threesome.

  Wynken, Blynken and Nod...

  Winston, Brandon, Nicholas? All she had to do was ask him and the mystery would be solved. But would he admit it? Did he even remember?

  If he was who she thought he was, then the blow to the head might have affected his memory.

  She put her hands to her temples and shook her head.

  She couldn’t ask him directly—she didn’t want to know for sure. But she couldn’t keep torturing herself with not knowing either.

  Sydney decided to call Maria over. She needed someone to talk everything over with.

  When Maria arrived, she came right to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  “Why exactly did you call me over again?”

  Sydney felt her heart warming up for a race.

  “I think...it looks like Nicholas could have been the one who...you know.”

  Her news was not as earth shattering to Maria as she expected.

  Maria looked like she was weighing it for a few seconds.

  “Nicholas, huh? Can’t say I disagree.”

  “I’m probably wrong. We both are.”

  “I don’t think so Sydney.”

  “Okay, I know it looks bad, but come on. You know him too—how could you think he would do something like this?”

  “Who knows why people do wha
t they do?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you...”

  “Syd, guess what—I figured it out on my own. There’s no way I can chalk all this up to coincidence. No way. Neither can you. Look, I know you’re a little blinded right now, but forget about all that for a second, forget about what you think you know about Nicholas. Let’s do some number crunching here...”

  “Numbers lie Maria. I’ve read about greater coincidences than this. For example, there was this case in the sixties that involved a black man with a beard whose white girlfriend had snatched a lady’s purse. The girlfriend wore her blond hair in a ponytail and their getaway car was yellow. Policemen found a couple matching that description—white lady with blond hair in a ponytail who associated with a black man with a beard who owned a yellow car. The jury convicted them, agreeing with the prosecutor that it was statistically improbable for them not to be that criminal couple. And guess what—they found out they were wrong later. It was another interracial couple who drove the same kind of truck, the same color. So don’t tell me anything about coincidences Maria.”

  Maria chuckled.

  “I understand that Syd, but I can’t help it. How I see it, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck...”

  “Didn’t I just say? Okay, there was this other case...”

  “Stop it Syd. Don’t be afraid to face the truth!”

  “There is no truth at this point Maria.”

  “Yes, there is Sydney.” Maria sighed, lowering her voice. “Sydney, I wish it wasn’t the case too, but what more evidence do you need? Listen, didn’t Nicholas mention that he and these other two guys hung out together in boarding school?”

  “Yes.”

  “And come on, N.O.D? Okay sure, that could just be a coincidence, but he knows Brandon and yeah, that’s not exactly a smoking gun either, but you know what Brandon did to me, you know it was all part of a plan. Birds of a feather Sydney. And why do you think he has been so fixated by you, huh? Why do you think he’s gotten together with you Sydney? Why else would he pick you out and pursue you? Don’t you think he was just trying to alleviate his guilt? I mean it’s good that he feels guilty and all but...”