The Chocolate Box

I won

The sudden silence was ominous, yet pleasing. It all had stopped, but I did not know what came next. I looked at the women. They were, to say the least, destroyed. Then I looked at Thomas and his face bore the same expressions. 

I then looked at the chocolate box. I had involuntarily taken the blowtorch off it and it was now not so red, but hot still. Air of relief escaped me as I saw a little dot of metal resting subtly on the floor. 

Ma, Thomas and Shana’s eyes fell on the chocolate box and they seemed to. . . understand. Even before I could contemplate the fact that they knew about the aemula, I was taken into a group hug while Ma sobbed into my arms, apologising for something she (technically) hadn’t done. 

The thought of not being not known was, to say the least, eerie. It felt new, which was ironic, as the forgetting had started just recently. I hugged Ma as I felt the warmth return to my house and in my life return to my conscience. 

A week later it was all back to pretty much normal. As it turned out, when the aemula had possessed Ma, Thomas and Shana, they had been provided with all the information about the aemula and its effects. When Thomas had, while being possessed by the aemula, asked me to run, it had been his tiny part of Thomas that had, for a split second, turned out to be more powerful than the cold power of loneliness. 

I was thinking all this while walking to a restaurant for a date with Lucy. Yes, I was going on a date after what had happened just a week earlier. Ma had, again, said that I needed to take my mind off that event. I looked at my heavily bandaged left forearm and remembered what Ma had said, “If anybody asks, you fell down the stairs and scratched you hand on the railing,”

“This much for a scratch?” I had said, grinning, 

“Say it was very painful,” Thomas had said. 

I was wearing very tight shoes. But Ma had made sure that I did not wear anything dingy and too big. It hurt my feet, but, according to what Thomas had said, “Comfort don’t matter when it comes to dating.”

I reached the restaurant and saw Lucy at a table. I joined her while the question of why I had not yet been able to kiss her came to mind. “What happened to your arm?” she said, worried.

“Oh, that?” I said as if I hadn’t been expecting that question, but then “falling down the stairs,” would sound too puerile. I thought about it for a moment and came up with an idea. “Thomas and I went for fencing the other day, and, you know, he is a sore loser,”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes questioning my brother. “Can we change the topic? I don’t wanna talk about this,” I said, finally telling the truth,

“Okay,” she said, mulling over what she wanted to talk about, “Hey, you live next door to Shana Goldstein, don’t you?”

Shana. Oh, crap. Lucy might have said something after that, but all I did hear was static hissing produced by my own mind. I suddenly got up, amusing Lucy and said, “Will you excuse me for a moment,” I said. I went towards the restaurant restroom, but I left the restaurant from there. 

While I was on a date, five minutes ago, at least, Shana had been on one, too. With that annoying git, Jeremy. I was going towards my house and, after a few minutes, I noticed I was running. “Oh, damn you,” I threw my shoes on the ground. I knew it could hurt if I stepped on something, but the darn shoes were making a fuss of my feet. 

I did not know why I had run. But I did when I closed in on my house. 

I was on the road in front of my house when I saw Shana on the road of her house. She was looking at me. She was wearing a blue dress, looking oh so beautiful when she started walking towards me. I followed her lead. 

When she was close to me, without a second thought, without a speck of doubt, I grabbed her waist and kissed her. That was the reason I had not kissed Lucy, but that thought was a long way from the things I currently had in mind. 

I felt Shana’s hands reach up to the back of my neck and I tightened my grip on her waist, pulling her as close as I could. To put that complex feeling in three simple words- That felt gooooood.

I opened my eyes to a smiling Shana. I pushed a string of her hair behind her ear (well, duh) she smiled while I found myself smiling, too. “Oh, you are. But you aren’t Jeremy,” she said, giggling. It seemed as if the thing that had been circling my mind was annoying her, too. I’m not your boyfriend, I’m not Jeremy. I had said.  

As I kissed her again, I knew that all was good. And, more importantly, everybody knew me.