Society

He sighed, probably deciding I was in need of medical attention.
"I meant it's possible for ghosts to materialise here. You too came straight out of Greek mythology."
He sped walked to catch up with me.
"Maybe you should visit the optometrist."
I rolled my eyes.
Finally he came to a stop a pace away from a line of three tombstones that were all glossy red in colour.
"Michael Carter?" I asked, my voice pitched with curiosity.
"My father," he said. His eyes were wary, reluctant. "My biological father."
I hesitated, staring at his shrewd face. "Jennifer Carter?"
He cleared his throat and his jaw tightened. "My mother."
"And Bradley Carter?"
A shiver rippled through his body, his eyes remained cold, distant. He was quiet for a long time and he hesitantly glanced at me before running a shaky hand through his hair. Whatever he saw there must have encouraged him. He took a deep breath. A few seconds passed before he answered. "That was me."
That was him? What did that mean exactly? I looked away at the fading sun, trying to control the panic before it gave me away.
I swallowed loudly. His gaze made me nervous. "Did your mother kill you — I mean kill Bradley... should I still even call you Roman?"
I couldn't help but glance at Roman as I spoke. His face betrayed no emotion.
He threw a pointed glance in my direction, his mouth turning down to a grimace, and raised my wrist, to place my palm on his cheek.
"Surprisingly it wasn't Jennifer who killed dad — though I have no doubt in my mind that she would have eventually killed him, with her bare hands — technically she killed him."
"What do you mean?"
"Depending on the day, my mother was always drunk or high, my father was a cop, they were knee high in debt. And I still remember that night as if it was yesterday. " His face was hard and there was a faint rumbling sound in his chest as though he was fighting a furious growl. "My mother was out of supply. She was in desperate need of another fix. She was always in and out of rehab and things would be fine for a while and then the cycle would start all over again. My father didn't have money and she kept pushing and pushing. Demanding money. I walked into their bedroom just as my father mumbled a broken I'm sorry and then climbed over the balcony."
Things were beginning to make sense in my head, first Roman's father had committed suicide. Second, Roman blamed his mother for what happened — he didn't have to say it, it was clear in the angry set his mouth formed every time he spoke of his mother. And third, Roman was a broken man, a boy that had been forced to believe that women ruined lives. It was clear now, he was afraid to get too close to a woman. To get close to me.
I thought all this in a second and then in the next second his voice, furious, bitter, broke through my thoughts.
"She turned the gun she had been holding to my father's head to me — she did it all the time, it was just something that made him panic, that made him do as she asked but that night he chose to end his personal torment, the grief on her face was overwhelming for me to witness — and fired. And then she shot herself."
I sank down on the damp grass. It took a moment for me to look away from his tortured dreamlike face. Everything from my neck down felt numb. The sound of my heart breaking was similar to the sound of the water crashing against the shore.
"Oh no, Nuru, no!" Roman mumbled sadly. He was holding my face tightly in his hands before I had time to blink the tears away. "Please, don't be sad, not for me. Seeing you like this is killing me."
I blinked up at him and without thought my hands came up to hold his wrist.
"Don't be sad because I'm sad," I spoke in a broken voice. "I also don't like it. I don't like it one bit."
He leaned into me and placed his forehead against mine and his nose skimmed against mine.
I pulled my right hand from his wrist and traced the outline of his lips.
Suddenly he moved away from me, his breathing quick. "Stop that. It's messing me up."
We stared at each other for a moment.
"Now you're Roman, how?" My voice was shaky with emotion by the end.
"Isaac found me," he said. "We didn't know each other before then. He just happened to hear the gun shots first and he took me to the hospital and Bradley 'died'. I walked out as Roman. Anton handled all the legalisation of documentation. Managed all the legalities."
"I don't get it, why did your mom shoot you?"
"They had no money, Nuru. We were poor and I think that's her primary motivation into ending my life before hers. The bank would have mortgaged the house, repossessed the cars and I hadn't even gone to college with how bad things were financially." He grimaced, shaking his head quickly, looking panicked. "My mother had an embarrassing ethic when it came to money and her secondary motivation, of course, was remorse. I think deep down she knew she drove him to take his life and with dad gone I had no decent future. She saw no other way."
"Did the Reeves' adopt you?"
"No. They didn't." He grimaced. "We are just people who work for the same organisation trying to blend in in today's society."
Now it was beginning to make sense, the questioning look Kate had cast Roman when I'd called her Mrs. Reeves. "But you look like Julius."
"I don't." He sounded as if he'd expected as much. "Did you see how high his cheekbones are or Kate's nose?"
I pursed my lips.
"Come now, you know very well children take the most ridiculous features."
"You have a point."
His eyes slid back to mine, still tight. "They've been with me since I lost my family."
I looked at the date of their deaths. The husband and wife died the same day on the seventh of December and Bradley died three days later. Suddenly I understood his abrupt anger when I'd told him my birth date. If I had known it was the same day, nine years prior, that Bradley 'died' I wouldn't have said anything.