Chapter Seventeen

The room was moderately clean. Hugo let out a sigh of relief and made himself comfortable enough to sit down on the bed.

"Well, see you in the morning," she said and as she was about to go out, he called her back.

"Is there really a possibility of someone trying to kill me?" he asked.

"Yes, if you are not the one who is committing the murders," she said.

"Me? Why would it be me?"

"Well, if you think it is not you, then yes, there is a possibility, I believe. And…"

"You are rarely wrong," Hugo finished for her. She gave a nod of affirmation. It was surprising how sure she was of herself.

"You might want to sleep a bit," she said. "Tomorrow will be a long day."

With that, she was gone, closing the door behind her. Hugo stared at the door for a bit. That was the place where she had been standing even two seconds ago. She looked very comfortable in his presence. Whether she did not think of him as a man, or if it was just how she was with others at home, it did not make him feel bad.

Rhea's suspicion was not baseless, but he had a hard time believing someone might be trying to kill him. He had done nothing that could get him killed.

He shoved the thought out of his head and opened the book. He had been holding it so tightly that his hand felt a little sweaty. He loved books, so he was very careful with them. There were times when he would clean a book on both sides to make sure not even a single dirt was there.

He opened the book. On the first page, just above the title, her name and a date glistened in glossy black ink. Rhea Elrod. He read the name once, twice, again and again, until his brain clang to it so hard that it was impossible to forget it.

He was surprised. Surprise probably was not the exact emotion he felt. A mixture of shock, astonishment, and silliness filled his mind. He also laughed out loud.

There were notes tucked within the pages of every chapter, explaining what she liked about it, what she hated, what she thought about each character, what annoyed her, and what she expected.

Hugo smiled like a silly boy as he read her notes one by one. He carefully placed them inside the book the exact way they were placed after reading each note. But his smile did not last long as he soon found out something that almost shattered his hope.

It was soon clear what kind of guy Rhea liked. Rhea praised Mr. Darcy's looks more than three times and wrote how much she liked the way he behaved. She had a thing for dark-haired men with quite an awkward personality. She wrote about how much Mr. Darcy matched with her dream boyfriend. In short, her dream boyfriend had bronze skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and a passionate personality.

Hugo was not sure what she meant by passionate personality, but he was already heartbroken enough to try to guess.

'What does she see in bronze-skinned guys? What's wrong with pale skin? And what's this thing about dark hair? Is gray hair that bad? Are dark eyes better than gray eyes? They are just eyes in the end! What is a passionate personality?'

Hugo could not sleep. His mood was far too bad. He would need to recollect himself before morning, which was merely a few hours away.

He lay down and looked around the room. It was a medium-sized room in general. But compared to Rhea's room, it was tiny. It had a bed and a desk. The walls were filled with different types of drawings. A girl and a swan, a boy and a girl running in a field of lavender, a woman in a corn maze, a woman in the middle of two men, holding one man's hand while the other man stared at her.

'Rhea's father was a painter.'

The paintings always contained a few numbers of characters, but the themes were different. He even painted a car with a man sitting in the driver's seat. It was a white Lamborghini.

Hugo let out a soft chuckle. Rhea's place was quite big and they were quite rich perhaps. However, they did not look rich enough to afford a Lamborghini. It must have been Rhea's father's dream to buy one someday.

Hugo fell asleep at some point as when he was woken up by bangs on the door, he noticed it was six in the morning.

He opened the door, rubbing his eyes. It was Ronan, who woke him up.

"Riri told me to wake you up at six so you can get ready," Ronan said. He looked to be in good spirits, which Hugo believed was because Hugo was in a different room than his sister.

After waking Hugo up, Ronan went to bang on the next door. Rhea opened the door quickly enough.

She had her own bathroom in her room, which was a luxury Hugo wished he could afford. His father would never let him have the one room with a bathroom in their place as he would practically never get out of his room.

After Rhea got out getting ready, he took a few seconds to admire her from head to toe. Her long hair was tied in a bun and she wore a black camisole beneath a black unbuttoned shirt with black wide-legged jeans. He realized he was staring, so he quickly gulped awkwardly and gave the book back.

She did not seem to mind him staring. Or, she would have confronted Hugo. Hugo found himself quite fortunate in this part, even though he had never believed in fate.

They had orange juice and pancakes for breakfast that Ronan made. Hugo actually liked the fact that they had enough food for breakfast. At Verdell's place, they rarely had anything and Verdell always ran to school with a piece of bread in his mouth, which never sat well with Hugo. He could not bear the thought of getting out of the house without his belly full.

"The house feels empty," Ronan said. "At this time, Mom would eat breakfast, then probably go to sleep, or work. She would tell me to take care…"

"And leave me alone," Rhea added.

"Well, that too. She would say take care and leave Riri alone," Ronan said with a sad chuckle. "I really miss her."

"I am sorry," Hugo said. "It must be really hard."

"It is," Ronan said and looked at Hugo. "How is it for you and your father? Do you ever miss your mother?"

"I don't," Hugo admitted. "I never did. I have never seen my mother."

"Ah… I'm sorry," Ronan said. "I did not know."

Rhea did not say anything. She was focused on eating. Did she know? She always seemed to know everything.

"I will go and…," Ronan muttered to Rhea and left, waving me goodbye.

"He is going to his girlfriend," Rhea said. "They go to school together."

"So, you always go alone?"

"Yeah," she replied, locking the doors. "I don't like how chummy they act. It grosses me out."

"Why? They are probably too much in love," Hugo said, even though he also felt gross when a couple acted too intimate.

"It is weird to see your own brother tangling his tongue with a girl. It is weird and gross," she said. Hugo had to admit she had a good point. "He would have yelled and injured my eardrums if I just hugged a boy."

"He said you are asexual."

"Well, I am."

Hugo just let out a laugh. Rhea could be anything, but not that. When Rhea let him borrow her book for the night, she knew he would know what she was like.

"You joke in a weird way," he said.

"Careful there, Barrett. I might joke about you ghosting people when you die," she said, her brown eyes serious.

"I would love to see that from above," he said.

"From heaven, you mean," she said. "Your god will not let you go anywhere else. They might let you place your head on their lap while they run their fingers through your hair."

"From heaven?" he repeated. It did not matter whether there was a god or not. But heaven was the last place where he would be. Rhea did not know him, not yet. She did not know what he could do, what he did.

"What is god to you?" he asked as he started walking by her side.

"Nothing," she said.

"Nothing?" he repeated.

"Mom said god is nothing. We are made of matters. Our world was created because of natural events; the big bang. If you believe in science, you cannot believe in a stronger existence," she said. "I chose science. God and science cannot coexist. We do not learn science to understand god's work. We learn science to understand god. The more we learn, the more we step towards the truth."

"And then comes the barrier," Hugo added. "We cannot go beyond that."

"We must," she said and repeated. "We must."

Her voice echoed. It was full of confidence, determination, and hunger. Hunger was what kept her moving forward. Hunger for knowledge, and hunger for truth almost ruined her mother's life. She could not wait to share the same fate as her mother. Hunger was in her veins.

Hugo watched how her face glowed. He did not care they were late. He did not care that Rhea purposefully was late to avoid the morning assembly. He hated it too, but it was the rule. But he did not care anymore.