Back in the Rain

by Elen Chase

  "I am sorry, we can show the cartels only to a proven family member."

  "He's my family, he is..." That was useless, wasn't it? I shook my head, ready to give up.

  "I understand. Try telling me his name, maybe I can let you talk with his doctor."

  "Dan Price," I said, and he searched for his name in their database.

  "This is strange," he said, "I don't see him here."

  "Eh?" Was it possible that he had his cartels erased from their records too?

  "Do you know when he was here?"

  "In March this year."

  "Nothing. This is really strange, are you sure he was hospitalized in this facility?"

  "Absolutely sure," I said. Or maybe I got it all wrong? What if the old lady had sent me there to make me find out in reality he was never their patient?

  "Wait a moment, I'll call the director," he said, and left me at the table to make the call. I waited there, nervous, until he came back and said, "When I mentioned your friend's name to the director he asked me who you were, and now he wants to see you. I think he knows him after all. Come with me." I followed him to the director's office, relieved that Dan had really been there and hadn't lied to me, but I instinctively tried to memorize the way out, to run away from the place if needed. When the door closed behind my back, however, simply looking at the director was enough to understand that wasn't necessary; a man in his forties, dark brown wavy hair with ocean-colored eyes. They were slightly smaller, but they looked exactly like Dan's. Also, the shape of their face was absolutely the same.

  "Andrew Lowell, I hoped I would have the chance to meet you sooner or later. You look surprised," commented the director with a serious attitude, giving me his business card. Mark Miller, plastic surgeon.

  "How do you know about me?" I asked him.

  "I wasn't his doctor, but I followed Dan's therapy from up close. Of course I'd know about you. Please, sit down," he said, and I sat on the other side of his desk. "Tell me, Andrew, is Dan alright?" he asked, worried.

  "I'm here because I hoped to hear that from you," I replied. "Who are you, Sir? And why was Dan hospitalized here?"

  "I was a close friend of Brook, his mother, when we were younger. I met Dan often during the years, and I really care for him. At the beginning of the year I learned of his situation from an acquaintance of mine, and I brought him here. But he refused my help, and left after just a little time. I could never get in touch with him afterwards, except for a call I got a few weeks ago."

  "Are you his real father?"

  Dr. Miller was stunned by my sudden question, then took a breath and said, "No, I am his uncle." I didn't know what to think about that. "Brook's family and mine were very close; we grew up together. She and my younger brother, Zack, had a relationship that resembled a soap opera for five years: a lot of passion and drama. But when the drama ended and they were finally going to settle down, my brother decided he got bored of that relationship. Zack was always like that, taking whatever he wanted and throwing it away easily, when he had finished with it. His dreams were bigger than that. He wanted to be on top of the world. Brook got married right after he left, but she was probably just trying to forget him. After a while I heard she had a kid and went to see her, but the situation I found was the worst: her marriage was falling apart, she had cut all contacts with her friends and family, and worst of all, she was still in love with my brother. Her husband, James Price, was a good man. He knew Dan was my brother's son right from the start, but he was ready to raise him like his own child. Unfortunately, Brook's attitude kept him from forming a bond with him; she kept saying to him all the time how she was happy Dan looked like my brother, that he was nothing like him and so on. When James realized the kid had ended up being scared of him, he decided to get a divorce. At that point Brook’s mental condition improved considerably, and when Dan started grade school she finally listened to my suggestions of bringing him to Uptown. I was an intern at the hospital at the time, and I had heard about your father. You know the rest better than me."

  Somehow that matched what Dan had told me about his family. "If you care so much for him, why didn't you help him when his mother left?"

  "I asked him to come live with me more than once, but he always refused. I sort of felt responsible for that mess of a family he was born in, so I decided not to force him and let him do what he wanted. I understand now that I was wrong."

  "Do you have any idea what he did for seven years in Downtown?" I said, angry. "You let your fourteen-year-old nephew do drugs and prostitution just because he refused to come living with you?"

  "I didn't know at the time what he was going to do. He talked to me seriously, saying he wanted to live alone and work, and I believed in him. I considered him mature enough. I made a mistake, and now he's the one paying for it. You are absolutely right on that."

  "What happened to him? How did you bring him here, what did you find out about him, and why did he leave?" I asked. The answers I had been seeking for a long time were now so close to me.

  Dr. Miller looked at me carefully, and seemed to be thinking a lot before answering, "I am very uncertain, Andrew, if I should tell you or not."

  "What?" I felt like someone poured an ice bucket on my head. "I need to know, I've come here just for that. You asked me if he's alright, well, he's not! He needs me, I know he does, but if nobody tells me what happened to him, how can I help him?"

  "I'm uncertain exactly because he needs you."

  "That doesn't make any sense."

  "Andrew, please, listen carefully to me. I see how much you care for Dan and I can assure you that you are as important for him as he is for you. But you missed an important piece of each other’s lives, and whether you like it or not, you both changed during that period. Looking back at the past seven years, your very way of thinking has changed, hasn't it? You have to consider it's the same for him."

  "I already know that. But no matter how much we've changed, we are still us. He's the same Dan I knew, and he's proving it to me every single day."

  "What you see in him might not be what he really is. If you want to help him, you should be ready to accept the fact that he's not what you think. Did you ever get this feeling? That behind his attitude toward you he keeps something else?"

  It was basically the same thing Lilian had told me. "I do have, sometimes, the feeling that he acts differently with me. No, it's not just a feeling; I know it's like this. He can be an asshole, he can be violent, he lies easily and never trusts anyone. But with me he's different; he doesn't lie to me. There are things he cannot tell me, but that's because he's hurt. And I have to find out why."

  "What if I told you that he's been lying to you too?"

  "No," I said, shaking my head, "he doesn't lie to me." Saying that out loud made me doubt my own words: why?

  "He does," said Dr. Miller. "He lies to you more than to anyone else."

  "No, no!" I said again. "You don't know how he cried in my arms last night! That can't possibly be a lie!"

  "The fact he lies to you doesn't imply that he's never honest. Andrew, people are not as simple as you think."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "I won't tell you what I know about him," he said, "because I am fond of that boy, and the way you are now, if you were to find out what happened to him, you would break him once and for all."

  "This is ridiculous."

  "Keep thinking that and you will lose him forever."

  "You know nothing about us."

  "You know nothing about him, Andrew. I'll tell you just one thing, and I hope this will make you understand even just a little what I am talking about. One day, at the end of April, I got a call from the Rosedeer University Hospital: he went into hyperventilation due to a panic attack, and was hospitalized there for a day, in which the doctors were expecting a nervous breakdown."

  At the end of April? I was already living with him at the time. "No way, that never happened," I said, absolutely sure.


  "I talked to him myself. I asked him to come back here. And he said he was not gonna leave you. In the end he had his therapy changed to strongest medicines, which won't help him, unless he gets his psychiatric disorder cured."

  "This is…"

  When? When did it happen? When did the pills change? It was around the time I was hit by Marshall's car. No, right after that… could it be? He didn't come see me that day in my hospital room, and he came back home the day after. And my parents, they were acting strange when I asked about him… that was when it happened. I was confused and angry.

  "That's the way it is, Andrew. Ask yourself if you really want to know him, and if you would be able to accept whatever the truth may be. Take some time to think about it, and if you're not convinced, leave him before it's too late. It's the best for both of you. On the contrary, if the next time you come here you will be ready to hear whatever I have to say, I'll tell you everything."

  I left that center feeling completely empty. So that's the way it was: he was lying to me, despite all that was going on between us. But what was exactly that was going on between us? He was kind to me and I lost my mind. It was definitely a phase I was living, probably caused by my recent loss. But it was time to end it.

  Chapter 39

  I went straight home, but he wasn't inside. From the terrace I saw him walking on the beach, and ran to him.

  "Drew," he said when he saw me, "where have you been?"

  I threw the pamphlet of the center on the sand, and I saw his expression change as he understood the situation.

  "What did he tell you?" he asked me, pale as a corpse. It made me even angrier than before.

  "He didn't tell me shit," I said, furious. "Must be a family habit."

  "Who gave you that address?"

  "Oh, no… I ask the questions today," I said, grabbing him by his shirt. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  "This is none of your business."

  "No, of course. Maybe I should remind you what happened last night."

  "You weren't even supposed to be there with me." He was growing angry too.

  "Sorry we live under the same roof."

  "This is something I can handle on my own."

  "A panic attack is not something you can handle on your own!"

  "Stop playing the hero, Drew, I'm sick of you!" he screamed at me, shaking my hands off. "I don't need your help, I don't need your pity, I don't need to be saved by you. Just mind your own business and leave me alone!" That hurt pretty bad.

  "Be careful what you wish for, Dan," I told him, trying to stay calm one last time, "because if I give up on you, I'll give up for real." I was just too disappointed in him. In the last month he had given me so much, I had started thinking I wanted to give him everything too. But evidently I was wrong.

  "Give up then; finish what you've started and go home, do whatever you want, and I'll do the same."

  "If I am such a hindrance to you, why are you even helping me?"

  "I want to keep my last promise to An. I'll stay by your side until this is over."

  "Is this what I am to you? A promise to keep?" A voice in my head kept repeating that wasn't really happening, that he was saying those things out of anger. But it was too cruel.

  "We're not kids anymore, Drew. You have your own life and I have mine. We don't need anything that will be a burden to us once the investigation is over," he said. When the investigation is over, what will you go back to? I thought you had nothing. I thought you were desperate. I thought we could live together. I thought we could go back to what we were.

  "You were everything to me," I told him. "You and An were all I needed to live. When you left me, after she died, I felt so betrayed, but now I understand; she was what kept us together. I was never enough for you, never. Even now you're here by my side for a promise you made to her. This is what you're telling me, isn't it?" My chest was hurting so much I thought I was about to have a heart attack. A deep remorse was now clearly showing on his face.

  "Drew," he said, but I felt I had heard already too much, so I lifted my hand as to ask him to be silent.

  "Now I understand why you were so angry the other day when I disturbed your information gathering," I told him, giving him a bitter smile. "Of course, you're free to do whatever you want. Kiss who you want, fuck who you want. Why should I care? I'm sorry I pushed myself on you." I was furious and disappointed but I wanted to keep a shade of dignity, at least. "But it's fine, now that we're clear… I won't give a shit about you anymore. I'd appreciate the help though, since you promised it to my sister." He was standing in front of me, and as I was saying those things, he grabbed his shirt, held it strongly over his heart, and covered his face with the other hand. I don't want to see him cry now. If I were to see him cry, I would fuck all that we said until now and fall back in his magic. I was hurting too much to forgive him yet, so before I could see his tears, I left him there and ran back home.

  I locked myself up in my room, like a teenager who gets dumped for the first time. I felt like an idiot. In the afternoon I was as hungry as a bear, but I didn't want to go out of the room, afraid to meet him in the kitchen. Just when my stomach was getting the best of me, Bill called me.

  "Hey Drew, wanna come over to the facility?" he asked. I wanted to go, but I didn't want to meet Dan yet. "Dan is not coming; he told me to call you," added Bill before I could ask him.

  "Yeah, sure," I said. "Do you have something to eat there?" I asked.

  "What are we, a hotel?" said Bill ironically. "Yes, but don't expect too much."

  He sent me the coordinates to follow to get there, and I gladly took the opportunity to get out of that house. The facility in question was a real ice cream factory, complete with real employees working normally.

  "Are you kidding me?" I told Bill when he welcomed me at the entrance. "I thought Jim's official activity was a club," I said.

  "Yes, and in fact this is my family business. Wanna take a tour?"

  "Already did one in first grade, thank you. I'm hungry though."

  "Here," he said passing me a basket full of different types of ice cream. "Just like Dan said."

  I froze off, hearing his name, "He said what?"

  "That you never hold back asking whatever you want."

  "I see." Was this how he saw me? But indeed, he was right.

  "Anyway, our assassin doesn't want to talk at all, so we’ll have to get a little more persuasive with him. I don't really wanna show you that."

  "If that's the case, why am I here?"

  "Come with me," he said, and brought me to a gym on the first floor of the building. "You said you touched Brown's gun, right?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you take it from him? Show me," he said, and took out a toy gun. I showed him how I stole the gun from Brown, and he said, "Full of holes but it's a nice move. How did you learn it?"

  "I didn't learn it, I just sort of did it."

  "What, was it your favorite hero's move as a kid?" he said sarcastically, and I stayed silent just not to admit he was right. "You know, the first time I saw you I thought you were a spoiled brat who wanted to play with fire. And then you jumped on that poison maker and almost killed him with your bare hands. ‘Ah, this kid's got guts,’ I thought at that point. And the other day too. You did well."

  "All of this to say?"

  "All of this to say that I'm gonna teach you how to shoot, fight and run away."

  "Run away?"

  "Don't look so disappointed, that's what saves your ass the most. So, deal?"

  "Deal," I said, remembering Sean's advice, and I shook hands with Bill. We spent all evening making a training schedule for me. I asked it to be a full day schedule, in order to stay away from the apartment as much as I could. I was planning to go back only in the evening, to work on the articles before sleeping. And we did so. I went to the facility every morning and spent all day there. Often I was trained by Bill himself, and from time to time by some other member of the
group. At the same time they were trying to have that man say something about the sect, but he had no intention to talk. Bill also told me they had to be careful because he could have killed himself to be sure to keep everything secret. I was starting to get more and more in the mental scheme of the “kill or get killed.” During the run-away phase of the training I had to dodge bullets and flee from people with fake guns. At first I probably underestimated that simulation, but when I realized that all the bruises I got from the fake bullets could have been actual holes in my body, I figured out how important it was to know how to escape from a dangerous situation and put much more effort into it. What I liked the most was, however, physical combat. Probably because I had done sports all my life, my body reacted well to what I was taught, and my reflexes improved a lot too. Shooting was my weak point, especially with moving targets.

  "Well, considering you started a couple of weeks ago, I have to give you credit. You have talent," Bill told me on my sixteenth day of training. I was pretty satisfied with myself too, considering the progress I was making in such a short time. That very day I got a message on the watchpad account I had used to contact the head housemaid, Ms. Wilson. Like I was expecting, she had written back to me, “Who are you? What do you want?” I wanted to show it to Dan before replying, but it felt still awkward for me to talk with him, so I decided to do everything on my own. “I am just someone who wants to know the truth.” This time she didn’t write me back.

  Chapter 40

  "You should have Dan teach you how to shoot," said Bill on my twentieth day of training. "He's even better than me."

  "… I'll keep practicing on my own," I said, pointing the gun at the target.

  "Did you break up or something?" Bill asked me, and he caught me so unprepared I accidentally shot too far left.

  "What the fuck kid!" yelled one of Bill's men who was passing that way.

  "Sorry, Steve!" I screamed back at him.

  "So, did you?" insisted Bill.

  "We were never together in the first place," I replied to him, reloading my gun.