Chapter 13

Dear reader the following events take place on Friday the 13th, 18:00pm.

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Thursday night had come and gone as fast as Friday morning had stayed.

It was now afternoon and that meant that Nathan's mystery neighbours would be at his house at any moment now.

Nathan still wore his black hoodie and shabby hairstyle, even if his mother did scold him to put on something more appealing.

He never got around to grasping the concept of trying to impress people by the way you dress.

Nathan helped his mother set the dining room table with various plates and saucers, including the patented silver fork and knife combination.

Sitting at the middle of the wooden table was Mrs Marquette's infamous Cassoulet. It was a rich, slow-cooked casserole containing meat, pork skin and white beans, originating in southern France. It is named after its traditional cooking vessel, the casserole, a deep, round, earthenware pot with slanting sides. It was also Mrs Marquette's attempt at French cuisine.

"So are you sure that you didn't see Muffin Mix anywhere?", Nathan asked his mom while putting down some glasses onto the table.

"We would have seen him. He is definitely...Uhm, unique.", Mrs Marquette tried to refrain from mentioning the dog's weird nature.

Mrs Marquette was just happy that Nathan was able make a friend, even if that friend was a gross-looking genetic mutation of a dog.

"I'm sure he just ran off after a car or something, he'll be back. I wouldn't worry about it honey, it's what dog's do.", Mrs Marquette reassured Nathan.

It had barely been two days and Nathan had already lost his dog "Muffin Mix" who he saved on Wednesday night.

"Are the Morvans here yet?", asked Nathan's dad as he walked in the room whilst fastening his shirt tie.

"Not yet dear.", replied his mom.

There was something about that name..."The Morvans".

Nathan thought that it sounded strange but also vaguely familiar.

There was something staring him right in his pupils but he just couldn't see it. Had he met the person before with the surname "Morvan" or was it just a simple feeling of deja vu? What was he missing?

It felt so important yet trifling.

It was inconsequential, being bound to have a *sequela of some sort.

"Ding Dong....",

The front door bell rang.

Mrs Marquette flattened out her dress as she hurried along with

Mr Marquette to meet the people at the front door. They fully anticipated it to be the Morvans whom they had been expecting for dinner.

Nathan didn't follow too closely.

He watched the front door from a corner in the hallway.

His body was just visible enough to say, "Hey I'm also a part of the family and have to unfortunately greet you on the way in."

"Honey do I look alright?", whispered Mrs Marquette to her husband.

"Darling, you are stunning.", replied Mr Marquette as he opened the wood and glass paneled front door.

From Nathan's perspective, he could only see a man and a woman standing on the outside patio.

The man in question was rather short compared to the woman.

He was dressed casually in a pair of jeans complimented with a golf shirt and a hat to cover the lack of hair strands at the centre of his head. Despite his lack in height, he had quite a muscular build.

The woman standing next to him, also wore casual cargo pants and sneakers, complimented by a modern blue short sleeve T-shirt.

Nathan was somewhat relieved seeing only the two of them and nobody else at the door. He was happy that "Morvan" had meant nothing more, other than being the surname of people whom he had no idea existed.

While coming out of the hallway to greet the guests, he couldn't help but still feel as if he were forgetting something or someone.

And that is when it happened.

Mr and Mrs Morvan stepped in through the front door, but behind them existed a brown haired, blue- eyed girl.

It was Jade...Jade Morvan.

It was all horrifically clear now.

He had heard Jade's surname before, when Aaron had first introduced them to each other, but somehow it had slipped Nathan's mind to understand that she was also his neighbour from down the road.

"And this is my son, Nathan...", said Nathan's dad as he brought the guests inside.

Nathan was expected to greet the Morvans, but he simply stared at them with a *paralytic twitch in his arm.

He never shook their hands or anything, he was just barely able to muster a wave of "Hello.".

"*Merveilleux, how wonderful.", exclaimed Mrs Morvan as she forced through Nathan's wave and hugged him instead.

When it was Jade's turn to pass Nathan, they both exchanged glares of surprise (Nathan's was slightly filled with more horror than Jade's).

When they said that they had plans with their respective neighbors on Friday, they had never once expected to be spending it together.

Jade tried to give Nathan a hug, but he wasn't sure what to do, so it ended up being an animated frame of Jade trying to hug him and Nathan waving in her face halfway through the hug.

"Please, come through. Let's sit at the dining table.", Mrs Marquette gestured for everyone to follow her to the dining room.

Mr Morvan was the first to follow,

"What a lovely home you guys have here...", he said as he saw the hallway.

There was nothing too special about the hallway. It was a pretty average house, but of course Mr Morvan was just following the norms of visiting someone else's home.

After passing a few rooms,

the two families arrived at the decorated dining table.

The Cassoulet at the centre of the table was still steaming as it had just come out of the oven.

There were six varnished wooden chairs arranged around the sides of the dining room table.

The two families sat in this order:

Mr Morvan sat opposite Nathan's dad, Mrs Morvan sat opposite Nathan's mom and Nathan sat opposite of Jade.

SIDE NOTE.

As you can imagine, Nathan would have never voluntarily sat close to Jade. Nathan only sat opposite of Jade after this conversation. It went like this:

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Nathan tried to take a seat next to his dad opposite of Mrs Morvan, but Nathan's mom squeezed her way in before he could.

"Why don't you sit there.", Mrs Marquette showed Nathan the seat opposite of Jade.

Mrs Morvan added,

"You kids know each other, don't y'all? Jade told me that you were the new student in her history and biology classes."

Nathan nodded silently and then spoke softly, "Yeah we-uh...met.".

"Yeah Nathan is pretty much a history genius in our class.", Jade said with praise.

Nathan was bewildered as to why Jade would lie that he was any sort of a genius. He knew that he was average at best.

"Oh, he is? And y'all are in the same class, you didn't tell me...", Mrs Marquette sounded surprised and disappointed at the same time.

"Why would I tell you? It wouldn't even be important if we didn't have this dinner.", Nathan mumbled to himself.

Nathan sat in his chair opposite of Jade and never looked up from his plate again.

Now that you know how Nathan ended up there, let's continue...

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"Oh, I'm starving, looks delicious.", Mr Morvan took a plate and dished out some of the Cassoulet from the casserole dish at the centre of the table.

The rest of the guests *followed suit and did the same.

Mr Marquette poured some red wine and grape juice in wine glasses for the respective age groups (ie Jade and Nathan got grape juice).

"Mrs Morvan, you have such a lovely daughter.", exclaimed Nathan's mom.

Jade gave Mrs Marquette a warm smile of acceptance for such a compliment.

"What is she going to do once they finish school this year?", asked Nathan's mom.

"Well, she is going to be studying at only the best university in Rome, *La Sapienza. There she will learn neuroscience.", said Mrs Morvan, humbly boasting a little bit.

Mr Morvan struggled to eat the Cassoulet in his plate with a fork and knife so he decided to use a silver spoon instead. For those of you who have tried Cassoulet before, then you know that it's supposed to be a perfect blend of wet and dry so that it's neither too "soupy" nor too "solid". Mrs Marquette must have done something a little bit off the recipe, because the Cassoulet was definitely too soup-like.

"And what is Nathan planning on doing?", asked Mr Morvan.

"Well... I...uh-", Nathan who was quiet thus far was quick to respond only to fumble his words, because he had no idea what he was going to do.

"Nathan is still deciding, he has been looking around now for over 17 years of his life. I'm sure he'll come to a decision soon.", Nathan's dad chuckled a little bit as he filled his mouth with more of his wife's watery Cassoulet.

Mr Morvan laughed, "Don't worry I'm sure he has big plans in mind."

He continued,

"So what made you guys move from the states to little ol' Paris?"

"Mark, here had been looking for a good job for a while now and we finally found one here of all places. We just couldn't skip on the opportunity to live in this amazing city.", explained Mrs Marquette.

Mr Morvan drank some of his wine,

"And what is it that you do Mr Marquette?"

"I'm in the risk management department as a risk assessment analyst.", replied Nathan's dad proudly.

"Quite a mouthful I know.", he added.

"That's funny, I also wanted to work in the risk management department but I ended up as a fire firefighter of all things. One of the most high risk jobs...", Mr Morvan laughed.

"Funny how the world works.", He added at the end of his laughter.

"But lucky that he is a firefighter. He actually saved my life from a blazing building once and that's how we actually met.

On that night he was the last firefighter in response..."

Mrs Morvan stopped and shook some salt from the salt shaker into her food.

Mr Morvan continued,"It's true. That night the fire was so intense that we couldn't put it out. So we evacuated everyone and we had orders to let the building burn out. But I had an instinct that someone was still inside. So while everyone else left, I still went back inside and found her.", Mrs Morvan and Mr Morvan smiled warmly at each other.

"Wow, that is such a romantic story.", Mrs Marquette smiled broadly.

Nathan silently buried his gaze deeper into his plate, wanting to run away from the table and the guest's seemingly perfect lives.

Been saved by the love of your life from a burning building is something which only happens in movies. It somewhat annoyed Nathan, thinking about the real world and how much better a cinematic world was. Everything always seems to mean something in a movie but in real life that is just not the case. It further got him thinking that his feelings for Jade were stupid. Love doesn't really make sense. Why feel attracted to somebody? Why feel the need to have a companion to share things with? Billions of people chase it, but why? Love is selfish. It drives people to do evil things. And even worse, eventually people have things called children. These children don't even have a choice on the matter of existing. And then they have to later deal with the sufferings of the world brought upon by the older generations. People are selfish for having children just to satisfy their own joy. Who would willingly bring another human being into this world full well knowing the evils which exist?

"All Mark ever does to save my life is tell me the dangers of fun.", Mrs Marquette teased her husband.

"So have you guys been to the Eiffel Tower yet?", asked Mrs Morvan.

Mrs Marquette began,

"I keep begging Mark to take me there but he says...."

"It's too dangerous. There's a 12% chance that the top will topple over.

It has been there for 130 years and in the last two decades there has been nobody up there to do a maintenance break. That could leave some of the connection points eroded.

You see even though it's only a 12% chance, we can only see the probability but not the probable impossibility of it happening while we're there. I can't take that chance." , Mr Marquette finished his wife's sentence.

"I can respect that, a man after his family's safety.", Mr Morvan agreed with Nathan's dad.

Nathan had barely eaten any of his food. And it was not just because he had a poor appetite that night. It might have been leaning more towards Jade being there, his troubled thoughts or his mother's awful Cassoulet.

"May I be excused from the table?", asked Nathan as he had figured he'd been there long enough.

His mother knew him all too well. She didn't like the long periods of time which he spent alone, so she suggested that he take Jade with him.

"Why don't you take Jade with you and show her your toys.", suggested Nathan's mom.

"Toys?!", Nathan blurted out in horror.

"Yes toys, you know those ones which you play with at night. Don't think that we don't hear you up there."

Everyone looked at Mrs Marquette with a concerned look of confusion.

Nathan felt red faced. He had no idea what his mom was talking about, but the implications might have been more *promiscuous to their guests.

He thought quickly in his mind as to what she could possibly mean.

The most likely was his guitars which his mother referred to as "toys". It would make sense because that is the only thing with sound which he would often play with at night.

Nathan felt slightly annoyed that she called them "toys".

"Mom they're not toys, they're guitars.", said Nathan in a slightly more raised voice of defense.

"Oh wonderful, you play the guitar?", exclaimed Mrs Morvan.

She continued,

"Jade here has been struggling to learn the piano. She has trouble with chords. But guitar and piano, it's basically the same, maybe you can show her.", suggested Mrs Morvan.

"That's a great idea.", agreed Mr Morvan.

Jade awaited for Nathan's approval.

"Well I guess... I'm not that good, but I could try and show her a few things.", shrugged Nathan.

So Nathan and Jade left the dining room and went upstairs to Nathan's room.

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DeFInItIOns IN ThiS ChaPTEr :

*Sequela - a condition which is the consequence of a previous action/disease or injury.

*Paralytic - relating to paralysis or being paralyzed.

*Merveilleux - (Ma-r-vil-you) (pronounce "ma" as in the word "mam")

French term for "wonderful."

*La Sapienza - Italian for wisdom.

*Follow suit - Imitate or do as someone else has done, as in Bill decided to leave for the rest of the day, and Mary followed suit. This term comes from card games in which one must play a card of the same color and shape.

*Promiscuous - A term pertaining to immoral sexual behaviour.