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I place my hand on the spine to pick it up but to my surprise, when I do, the whole wall with the shelf slides open. It’s like I’ve been placed in a spy movie.
A small room greets me that looks more like a stationery closet, but there is a row of guns on one wall and old boxes line the other side of the room.
I can tell the maid doesn’t come in here but I’m sure she must know about this place.
I walk into the room, hoping that door doesn’t close on me and trap me inside.
I don’t know which would be worse, the being trapped part or Cillian finding me locked in here.
This is obviously somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I feel like I’m intruding. Because I am. Yet I keep going. Curiosity takes me to the first box on my right labeled stuff from the past.
Would I find what I’m looking for in there?
Maybe this is a case of ‘if you see it, you’ll know it’.
I open the box and the first thing I find is a photo album. It looks old and when I open it, the pictures inside are indeed very old. The first couple of pages are Cillian and Olivia with a couple who must be their parents. Cillian looks exactly like his father and Olivia like their mother. They’re like clones of their parents.
I find some goofy pictures of Cillian with Dante and Virgo. It’s weird seeing them like this. Young and free and with fewer tattoos. In some of the pictures Virgo and Dante are so young they don’t have any at all.
I find myself smiling. It’s nice seeing a different side to Cillian’s life. A part of him he hasn’t shared. Other than telling me his parents died, he doesn’t talk about them at all. If I hadn’t met Olivia and Seamus I would think he had no family.
I reach the end of the album which has a nice picture of Cillian and his mom standing together at his high school graduation.
The remaining things in the box look like old documents from school and college, so I decide to put the album away. But just as I set it down another picture falls out from inside the plastic covering.
This one is of Cillian and his ex. The dead twin of the woman I saw months ago in his office.
In the picture Cillian has his arm around her and she’s smiling while she leans into him. You can tell they're a couple. It’s the way they look. And the way Cillian is looking at her.
His ex is pretty.
She’s identical to the girl I saw months ago but this girl doesn’t look like she has an evil bone in her body. Not like her sister. It might not be fair to say that since I didn’t speak to her. I also don’t know her, but she didn’t know me either yet she looked at me like I was filth.
I try to peek under the plastic cover to check if there are any more pictures but I don’t find any.
“There aren’t any more. That’s the only one,” Cillian says, cutting into the silence.
I jump at the sound of his voice and gaze at him, bewildered and embarrassed that he caught me.
Oh no.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have come in here.
The expression on his face starts off unreadable, but it morphs into a hardness I’ve never seen before when he walks in and comes up to me.
“I’m so sorry.” I slip the picture back into the plastic sleeve and set the album back in the box properly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I gave the rest of the pictures to her family. People always say you should keep one,” he explains, not acknowledging my apology.
“It’s for memories.”
“Yeah. I suppose so. Whether good or bad.” He stares at me for a long moment and I think he’s going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He looks away from the box like he’s dismissing it. “I need a shower, then we should get some sleep.”
“Sure. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just had a long day. Come on.”
He slips his arm around me and guides me to leave, but I feel like he’s ushering me away from the box.
