Into the Night

Death continued

It's a strange juxtaposition to be in high school and eighteen years old. You can be tried as an adult in court, but yet you'll still be dragged into the principal's office by the ear. So that's where Sella sat at the age of eighteen, next to the red head that slugged him. Red paint was smeared across her back and still drying. Her rubber band covered arms crossed over her chest tightly. Her hair fell messily from the bun she once had it in. Sella pretended to be untouched and collected. He held up a compact and applied concealer to his swelling jaw.

"Nice punch," he said.

Her chin picked up from her crossed arm chest. She expected sharper words than that, not the beginnings of a guilt trip. Not that she had a single thing she regretted. Charlotte stood by everything she did and believed in it with a sincerity that bordered on stubbornness.

"Pssh. No it wasn't. I was aiming for your eye and instead I clipped your jaw."

"Aim higher next time."

"Or maybe next time don't cower?"

He scoffed at her undisguised gall. Such a refreshing emotion in a world where nearly everyone wants to take a part in a masquerade of frozen faces and pointed words. It was a world that he took a part in. She could never last in an elitist social circle with their piranha hunger, snapping for a higher standing in the group. He couldn't either, but he could at least put up a fight before being stripped to the bone.

Instead of fueling her rage, he walked forward in the conversation with curiosity, not spite. How a person's motive is perceived, can often can be what makes and breaks a conversation. He didn't need her shutting down on him.

"Maybe next time don't hit me for telling you that your brother thought I was cute."

Charlotte balled her fists until the knuckles turned white. Rage beat a shut down any day of the week. That meant passion kept the conversation going.

"Did you not know he was pansexual?"

He approached the subject delicately. She already exploded once, a second time wouldn't be unheard of. Though the second time he'd defend himself. The shock of their resemblance could only extend so far.

"I'm his twin sister, of course I knew. No one else in this whole damn town knew. Until you blabbed-"

She shook her head and the rest of the bun collapsed around her. For the last few days her life had already began falling apart. Wrath returned to her face and morphed it back into a mask of bitter indifference.

"I don't need to explain anything to you." Her raspy voice shriveled back with contempt and anguish. Suffering in silence was her fallback method.

"Considering you assaulted me, I could press charges. I have a whole classroom full of witnesses that can testify to that. Unless you don't want that to happen, I'd quit with the teenage angst and start explaining before this friggin principal come in to lecture us. I am too old for all of this"