Sleep was difficult after the nightmare. It felt like I could feel eyes on me at all times, filled with madness, watching my every move. I kept waking up through the night, from dreamless sleep that I was thankful for, by the time I woke up I was exhausted. That wasn’t all though. I was sick to my stomach, sweating, and felt like I was on the brink of death. Desmond was worried out of his mind and it seeped into everyone else’s mood, worrying them about me. They closed the shop early and the day after the nightmare and no one went out on any jobs. Desmond took care of me and everyone helped out. I couldn’t move, I could barely form words. It felt like I had been run over with a bulldozer.
I was laid up in bed for two days, unable to move, terrified of sleep. I could feel those eyes, I could feel the grip of that man still on me. The Lord. He had a hold of me, but I couldn’t prove it. The only words I could manage to get out were things about the dream and Desmond thought I was hallucinating. I said things about the red eyed king, how they were planning to kill a girl. I kept saying that the Lord was holding me and wouldn’t let me go. When I was barely conscious, I swear I could hear Desmond crying. I never did ask him about that.
When my fever broke, Desmond helped me out of bed and forced me to eat a plate of solid foods after only drinking soup for two days. I threw up a little after eating the solids, after effects of the two days of a fever and an all soup diet. Desmond said I would get better, and I did, but not as fast as I wanted. He put me on desk duty at the shop until it came time for the job. If I thought I was up for it and he thought I was really up for it, then I could do the job. If he decided I was still too bad off to do it, then he would send Westie on the job. Part of me actually wanted Westie to have to take over the job. If I didn’t do the job, I could go to Lyria’s graduation and try to patch things up with her. Desmond really wanted me to do the job though. He was proud of my planning and was excited to see me carry it out.
Until Saturday came, though, I would be on desk duty at the pawn shop. That was one of the most boring parts of working for Desmond, having to sit around at the shop and wait for someone to come in. It beat trying to sort out Desmond’s files and filing them in the right cabinets. The pawn shop was small, but big enough to hold a fair-sized stock of things. Some things were kept in the warehouse, but there was a binder on the desk with all the stored items that people could look through in case they wanted something from the warehouse. There was another binder kept in a safe in the office that had anything on sale that was a stolen good. Only certain people had access to that catalog.
The first day of desk duty went by quiet, a couple of regulars popped in, some people I had never seen before looked around and left. One guy came to sell something for way more than it was worth. When I wouldn’t pay his stupid asking price, he just left it on the table, flipped me off, and left. I was willing to pay him something, just not what he wanted, and he ended up walking away with nothing at all. The next couple of days passed in much the same way. Nothing really happened until Thursday.
We opened at about 8 in the morning, but no one started coming in until about 10. The 2 hours between were always a drag. An elderly man came in a little past 10 with a smile and a cane. He was a friendly guy, looking for something nice to buy for his and his wife’s 50th anniversary. I showed him a nice necklace with an amethyst jewel hanging from it. He showed me $530 in cash, which was below the asking price of $650. Desmond always hated having me on desk duty because I sometimes had a hard time being objective when speaking directly to a buyer. I took his price and wrapped up the necklace in its box. I even gave him a little card to write his own personal message on. He called me a nice boy and left with a big smile.
There were a few more people that came in and out after that. They either bought or sold. I made quite a bit of money that day, and also made a couple good purchases. That was a good day. Then, the door opened, the bell above it rang, and the last person I expected to walk in came walking up to the desk. She was digging around in her purse, unaware of my presence.
“Lyria?” I asked, surprised. She looked up at the sound of her name and she looked about as confused and surprised as I thought I did. She pulled her wallet out of her purse, still staring at me.
She managed to get a question out, “Do you… work here?” She crossed her arms and shifted a little, obviously uncomfortable. I nodded and smiled, happy to see her again. She rubbed her arm a little and I could see the gears turning as she tried to make sense of the situation. “Okay,” She was talking slow, still confused, “I’ve been talking on the phone with an older guy, Desmond, I think. Is he here?” She didn’t want to see me.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked away from her, “Yeah, he’s… he’s in the back. I could help you, if you tell me what you guys were talking about.” Lyria sighed and shrugged. It was apparent that she didn’t like that idea. “Never mind, I’ll just go get him. I’m sorry,” I turned to go find Desmond. I hoped she understood that I was apologizing for more than this one thing, I was apologizing for everything. At this rate, it seemed that there would never be a time for me to explain everything to her, no matter how badly I wanted to.
“He just knows what I need,” Lyria added in her comment. It only made me stop for a second before I went into the office, closing the door behind me so I could get Desmond from downstairs. She was too kind to be coldhearted and freeze me out entirely. It reassured me that she did not hate me, but she was still upset by the last time we saw each other.
Desmond came upstairs after I yelled for him multiple times. He came running, annoyed that I had interrupted his paperwork. He liked getting finished in one session rather than working on it for three whole days. When I told him that a teenage girl was here to see him, he perked up and his ‘business casual’ smile appeared on his face. We went back out to Lyria who was now looking at some of the items on the shelves on the right wall.
“Miss Matthews, I assume?” Desmond asked, with a voice he hadn’t used on me since we were getting used to each other after he adopted me. Lyria turned at the sound of her name and smiled at Desmond. She came back to the counter and leaned forward. Her eyes never met mine even though I looked at her for way longer than I should have. It broke my heart to think that I had hurt her this way.
Desmond bent down and pulled a box from under the counter where patrons couldn’t see. He sat it on the glass top and opened it up, inviting Lyria to look inside. He motioned for her to go ahead and she excitedly reached in to pull out a thin box, covered in blue felt. It was a necklace box. She popped it open and her face lit up at the sight of the necklace inside. The necklace had a silver chain and five sapphires dangling it from it. The jewels went from small on top to one big gem on the end.
“It’s perfect!” Lyria exclaimed. Desmond grinned, but it wasn’t the good kind. I knew that grin. When dealing with pawn shops or other personally run stores, you must deal with the salesman cautiously. Never show them how excited you are or that you’re in need. If they see that, they’ll charge you extra. He may have been dealing with her for a while, but that didn’t mean he would show mercy.
Desmond was about to talk price, but I interjected before he could steal her money, “What price did you guys agree on?” Desmond turned to look at me, a bit of anger on his face. I shot him a look that said more than I could have with words.
Lyria shrugged, “$500 was the last price we talked about. It’s for my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary so I saved up a lot for it.”
Please stop talking, I thought. She was just digging a grave for herself saying stuff like that. I wasn’t about to let Desmond do anything though. “Sounds good to me,” I said with a smile. I closed the jewelry box and pushed it toward her. She smiled at me for the first time that day. It made the pit in my stomach grow smaller. She pulled the money from her purse and handed it to me, taking the necklace with a smile and a wave as she walked out the door.
The second she was out of sight of the windows and the door, Desmond smacked me hard on the back of the head. I took a step back from him and glared at him as I rubbed the sore spot on my head. “What the hell’s the matter with you,” Desmond growled, “I could’ve raised that price!” It wasn’t even worth it to argue with him about this. I shoved past him to go downstairs and he followed close behind, still fuming.
We got downstairs and Desmond sent Lettie up, realizing that there was no way I was going back to the shop that day. I tried going to my room, but when I started on the path to my room, Desmond caught up to me and grabbed my arm with a jerk. He turned me around with a rough pull and glared hard at me. This was a mode that scared me, a mix between disciplinary father and disciplinary boss. He could’ve torn into me and destroyed me in that moment if I didn’t help myself, somehow.
“You’re one step away from digging yourself a deep grave,” Desmond growled. “You will not go on the job, you will be grounded for a damn month, and you will have no pay for that month. Drop the attitude, now.” He released my arm, leaving an ache where he had been holding on. I rubbed the spot as I tried to figure out how to save myself. Being grounded? That was bad, how could I go to her graduation? Not going on the job? Sort of bad, sort of good. I could go to the graduation without consequence, but it would be a serious blow to my self-esteem. Not being paid? That was the least horrible thing he could do to me.
“I wasn’t going to stand there and let you take advantage of my… friend,” I hesitated on the last word. It was difficult to figure out the word to use when talking about her.
“Your friend?” Desmond demanded.
“Lyria,” Her name was all I had to say. The anger on his face disappeared and it devolved into understanding. He had no idea that she was the Lyria I had told him about. I had never mentioned a last name and, even though he was a smart guy, he had been taken in by the possibility of a purchase. He had never even tried to make the connection.
Desmond ran his hand over his face and nearly walked away, “Julian, I’m… I didn’t even realize.” He didn’t make eye contact with me after that, angry at himself for having been upset with me. I shrugged and turned away to go to my room. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder, “Come on, Julian, you never talk to me anymore.” In that moment, I knew that he knew what I had done. He knew I had opted out of college and he knew why.
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted.
“You should’ve gone, Julian, I never wanted this life to be all you had,” Desmond’s voice was raised with emotion, “It was supposed to be temporary. Why didn’t you go?”
I pushed his hand off my shoulder and turned around to look at him, “I’m happy here, Desmond. I’m going to do that job on Saturday and I’m going to do it well. If I can, I’ll go to Lyria’s graduation before. Then I’ll keep going on with my life just the way it is because I’m happy. That’s all there is to say.” My rant was finished and I went to my room, locking the door behind me.
Maybe I hadn’t told the truth to Desmond, but it was what I wanted the truth to be. The life I had been living was the life I was going to keep living. If that meant I didn’t go to college then that was fine, for the most part. I would just do my job the way it needed to be done. Should I have spoken to Desmond? Yeah, I should have. Was I going to? No, I was going to talk to someone else, someone that knew what I did for a living because I had broken Desmond’s first rule: keep the job a secret.
I just couldn’t keep a secret from her.
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