Chapter 10

Aiden

"I've been digging for hours, Jonathan. When the hell are we going to get there?" I throw at his face, which is Ronald's as well. Ron told me that his twin brother, Jon, would accompany me here in Provence. (It took strength of will to not laugh at the rhyming of their names.)

"I told you it was buried deep. You got yourself into this," Jonathan says with a smirk as he munches on his crème glacée. I'm the one digging in this burning sun and he thinks he deserves a big bowl of ice cream.

"No, actually, a goddamn century long curse did this to me," I say, still digging. "Now, can you help me 'cause I think I..."

A loud sound of metal on metal resonates. I go for another dig, but am stopped by something strong and rough.

I throw the shovel away and jump in the hole I dug out. With my hands, which have been shaking since last night from the lack of any food, I push away the compounded soil surrounding it and pull a little copper and aluminum box out. Probably the size of one of my textbooks just with a superior height.

I put it on the grass so that Jonathan could see as well.

I reach out to open it when Jon slaps my hand away.

"Not here and not now. Fill up this hole and meet me back at the house."

"Are you serious?"

"Goodbye for now." He salutes me. He starts to walk away when I hear: "Don't get heatstroke."

I flash my middle finger behind him before I get to work.

***

Once I have cleaned away the dirt off my hands and the box, I walk into Jonathan's office where his guests, including Ron, are waiting for me.

"So, this is Mr. Aiden Ozim, huh?" one of the older men says with a smirk.

"That's me."

Some conversation goes between the rest of the men while Ron, Jon and I wait silently for them.

Once they realize they aren't the only people in the world and that there are more important matters in hand, they sit back in their chairs and wait for us to speak.

"So," Ron starts. "I will explain Aiden's real story for whoever doesn't know it and had heard rumors, perhaps. The curse is said to make the Ozim be forgotten, but somehow it went the other way around. When the Asli caster was shown the image of the person to cast the spell on it was the member of the Asli family Aiden was destined to fall in love with. Aiden believed her after. He helped her and since the feelings came rushing back, he needed to save her from the death the curse imposed on her so he left her, he came here. Because he knows that he needs to find some other way to break the curse. Or else he needs to stay here."

"So to all of the gentlemen saying that Aiden ran away because he raped her or that he is a coward who is afraid of death and he actually knows Layla and is faking it, you're all dead wrong and absolutely stupid. "

I send Ron a smile.

"Now Aiden, if you please, could you explain what you have been searching for the past week?"

"Certainly."

Jonathan's office is a very large one, though most of the space is taken up by the book shelves surrounding us on every wall. All the furniture is antique, dark brown and gold. He lives in a custom made condo on the side of the river in the middle of nowhere, just outside Provence. I have been here for a week already and I still haven't seen all of his property.

I approach the men sitting in the large seats around the coffee table. I put the box on the table and proceed with my explanations.

"As you might already know, this land includes the ruins of an old Ozim Mansion. More and more of the infrastructure is degrading, but anything that was kept in the underground of the mansion, still is there. For the past week, Jon and I have tried locating this box. We searched through maps and books to find where they could have possibly hidden it.

"It contains the journal of the very first Asli, the one to have put the curse on us all. We had read that in her journal, she left for those willing to search, a spell to break the curse. We are hoping to find a caster who will be brave enough to take on this task and I have one in mind."

I kneel down by the table. I wrap my fingers around the box and I as I push the lid up, all of my doubts are refuted because there lays the journal of Cemile Asli. I let the lid fall slowly back. Once I start reaching for the journal, but one of the twins hits me behind my head.

"What the hell who-oh, right, gloves. Sorry."

I take the gloves from the hands of a flustered Jon (or Ron?) and with an apologetic smile, I put them on.

I pull the book out. I skim through the pages and the smell is nauseating. I assume it must be the last page. Once I land on it, the words of the spell written in Latin seem so grand and important. She had written the rest in Ottoman Turkish, like we suspected, so I turn the journal to face the only Ozim we knew that could translate it to English. The quiet old man who is the wisest. The codger who speaks the less but knows the most.

I admire men of that kind. The ones who have all the words in the world to sit some people down, but still let the arrogant get the attention they don't deserve but so desperately need.

"Here you go Mr. Adil," I say as Ron gives him the gloves he needs to put on.

He bends over the table and reads over Cemile's words with amazement.

With that warming old man voice that my grandpa used to have, he speaks up, "she explains why she put the curse. And that she hopes that humanity will see a better future than she even hopes for it. For that reason, she is giving the Ozim and Asli families a chance to normality and love, if only they earn it."

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't.

"Earn it?"

"Yes," Mr. Adil starts again. "The first step to earning it is leaving which you have bravely done. But the next thing is going to be the hardest. A sacrifice. If one of the destined lovers performs a suicide, the curse will be broken."

All hope flees my body. I don't want to die.

"If there isn't anything else then it's the same damn thing as me leaving, isn't it? I've left her and people might be remembering her now. If she kills herself, she guarantees the break of the curse, but at this point I don't care about whoever is after us if she will die. If this has to happen, I'm the one to go."

He looks at me with watery eyes, "there is another way as well. This Cemile hasn't gone easy on you all. She says that she has found a stone, a part of the Asli mansion's walls in which one of the casters stored all of her powers. Find the stone and you can use the spell that follows to break the curse."

"Where's the stone?" Ron and Jon ask in choir.

"Buried with her. You have to find her body, more like the location really because all that is going to be left is bones."

"Ready for another round of research boys?" I ask Ron and Jon with a smirk.

By their smiles, I know they're as ready as I am.

***

After the guests drink their teas and leave, I ask Ron and Jon for a few hours alone. I can finally eat something, video chat Layla and sleep.

I walk up the plywood stairs to my room with a bowl of salsa and chips in my hands.

The first door on my left leads me to my room. I walk over to my desk and turn on my computer. I wait for the familiar notification sound I get at this time. When it sounds, joy fills me up and I really wonder if I am not a twelve year old girl hugging her crush for the first time.

I click on the green button, waiting for her face to pop up, but it doesn't for a while. I get nervous. My palm starts sweating and the other crushes the chip in my hand. She makes the call and isn't showing up in front of her webcam. I don't know what will happen.

"So," her voice booms from behind her webcam. "Which one do you think I should wear?"

"I'm honestly a few hundred kilometers away from killing you right now."

She scoffs, "would like to see you try."

"Seriously? You started a call and didn't show up in front of the camera. Did you expect me to guess that you were playing dress up?"

"Yes, I thought you knew that I was careless and somewhat selfish and deadly in love with clothes."

That gets a laugh out of me, "I know you're having fun with Emmeline spoiling you, but take it easy on me. I'm too tired for this," I say leaning my head back on the desk chair.

She appears on the screen and I cannot help but smile. Her eyes brighten and she grins, waves excitedly. "Hi! I chose this, couldn't help it." On her shirt was written; I'm a boss ass witch.

The call never gave me the chance to eat my chips, which is what I begin to do. Her eyebrows cork and she purses her lips. I felt as if I was going crazy, I could almost smell her from here. I was crazy.

"How impolite of you to munch on chips and salsa in my face while I have to wait another hour for Emmeline to make me food."

"Chill, woman! If you'd know how long it's been that I haven't eaten, you'd feed me through the screen."

"Self-pitying much?"

I laugh at her attempts to sass me, "so how have you been?" I'm tired

"Good, considering I only have Emmeline. No one has started to remember me."

"Give it a bit of time. It's only been a week."

She whips her dark hair behind her ear and scratches behind it. She's nervous about no one remembering her, more than she's letting me know.

"I know, I just... I just wish you were here. I miss you. And I miss my parents, I miss my friends. God, I miss Ariel. I miss too many people."

She bites her lip and that simple action makes me go wild, I don't know what to think.

"I wish I could see you too."

Someone calls her from outside her room. "Got to go serve my stomach," she says, with a sigh of relief. She smiles and it fades away.

"Okay," I try to return the gesture but exhaustion wins me over.

She nods before reaching to turn the computer off. "Bye!"

"Wait!" I cry out, "Hey, don't hold back from me, okay? I know it's hard for you to pour you heart out when I'm not there to pick the pieces up, but just try it once. I don't want to see you broken on the inside, I don't want to see your façade."

I took a leap saying all of this to her and her silence. It makes me nervous.

"You're the best, Aiden," her shoulders relax. "I'll talk to you soon. Try not to miss me too much."

"I can't promise that. Take care."

And just like that, she disappears from my screen, but never from my thoughts.

***

Jon and Ron decided that I needed a night out. They don't have any real food in that house and they made a fake I. D. for the second I landed so bar it was.

There was a football match between Manchester United and Arsenal tonight anyway, so a sports bar it was. They give me no more than 7 minutes to change before they bust into my room and pull me out.

They knew that I'd rather stay home and finish Breaking Bad or even watch the game alone in my bed, but they weren't accepting that.

They pushed me in Jon's red Honda Civic.

Just that car name brings so many memories. That's how I first became friends with Layla, by fixing that car. I can still remember the look she had fixed on me as I was working.

I miss her so god damned much.

The car ride is blissful. Street lights in the dark and a slow rain falls. None of this feels like home, I am a stranger in this city. It can never welcome me as well as her arms do; even the rain can't kiss me and make me feel the way she does.

I muster all my emotions together and act like I'm happy to be out. I put a smile on and try to enjoy their company; the twins are trying. So should I.

The game has already started so the booths are all taken. We end up sitting at the bar where a woman ,with more showing than covered, serves us whiskeys without asking us what we wanted.

I don't drink it. I order a bowl of nachos, slide the drink to Jon and try to avoid her eyes. They are practically screaming in desperation.

I watch the game. I actually enjoy the game. I cheer when Man U scores and I cheer when Arsenal scores. I love both teams so, why not?

The night is over thankfully, when the people in our vicinity are so drunk, we cannot stay close without being forced to do something.

All three of us escape from the pulls of different drunk woman. Laughing our asses off, all three of us run down the street to a coffee shop.

The waitress brings us three cappuccinos, three drinks we actually ordered for. As I sit there, turning the cup around, the two faces that are exactly the same stare at me.

I nearly jump. "Stop doing that. God, it would creep on its own if I only had one face staring me down."

"See, told you it would work," Ron says hitting Jon's shoulder.

"We needed to get you to talk. You didn't say a word except when you were cheering for both teams."

"Which I do not consider. talking by the way," Jon adds.

"Hey, I've got a lot on my mind. The fact that I left the house is huge, okay?"

I can't tell them that I feel like I'm walking on broken bones.

"Aiden, you need to take your kind of this all. sometimes. You need to get out, go for a run, meet someone in the park. You know that talking to a girl isn't cheating on Layla?"

I dismiss his mockery. I stare at the girl who walks in the coffee shop. Her long black hair flows. Her curves seem so unique and familiar at the same time. I know this girl.

She's Layla.

I try to look away. My eyes land on another girl sitting behind me working on an essay. She bobs her head to the music she's listening to. Her raven hair is curled and neatly placed beside her cheekbones. Her jean jacket makes her seem like the person I spend my days thinking about.

She's Layla too.

I stare at every girl in this coffee shop. They're all the same. They're all a certain person. Every one has an aspect of hers, the eyes, the lips, the clumsiness.

That's when I know.

I'm head over heels for this girl.

Every girl I see, she is not just a girl but my Layla. But Layla is still in Tampa. She is far away from me and I have to learn to accept that.

I'm not made for anyone else.