Til Death Do Us Part

chapter seven ~ let me try again

I watched as Jayden clenched his hands into tight balls, the skin turning an alarming shade of white.

He didn't speak. He simply seemed to be waiting for some greater force to come down and answer my question for him. I wasn't sure how long he'd expected me to go without taking a guess.
But this didn't feel like a guess.

I was pretty adamant that it's what he did.
I watched the numbers on my dashboard flash as ten minutes passed. If he was expecting me to start the car, he was going to be disappointed.

I needed an insight. Because if he wanted me running around, talking to people for him, then I wanted to know what I was talking about.

Of course it overruled our mutual privacy agreements, but it wasn't like I was asking him to knock random strangers' doors in the middle of the evening bearing news that I'm feeding down his ear like an earpiece.

So when he finally did answer, it came out gruff and angry, "What makes you think that?"

I scoffed, finally switching on the engine. If that wasn't confirmation, I wasn't sure what was. As I tugged on my seatbelt, he asked again.

"What makes you think that, Faye?"

"Because of how everyone tip-toes around it. People are talking about it as if it's your fault -"

"It is my fault." He cut in.

"- and what your dad said about growing up in the church -"

A short hiss escaped through his teeth.
"Don't talk about him."

I sighed, pulling off the side of the curb and back onto the road. The rest of the trip was silent, and any idea in my mind that even suggested that I should ask what he did or why he did it was abolished.

He probably hated me.
But I didn't really care.
Maybe he'd leave me alone.

Perhaps I wasn't the smartest person, the wittiest or the prettiest. But I was observant as hell. And if he really thought I wasn't going to muster the truth for myself, then that just made him stupid.

Yeah, so I didn't pick up on the fact that he was merely an apparition that only I could see, but what sane person would've thrown that in as their first guess?

Nobody.
That's the answer.

As I pulled up on my drive, and got out, I left him sat in the front of my car with a glum look on his face.
Something told me he wasn't going to let himself in tonight.

Good.
Because frankly, I didn't want him to.

•••

The next day at school was my first encounter with the one person who had set their sights on ruining my remaining year as a student.

Charlotte Manson.
Somehow she was the most popular girl here, even with her flat personality and even flatter appearance
Not that I was one to judge. But this wasn't how typical stories went. Sebring was confusing.

She was plain, with a lack of charm entirely. In fact, she was pretty unremarkable.
She had long, muddy brown hair and piercing blue eyes, with cheeks that seemed to be stained pink.

Her mouth was tight and thin-lipped, but it didn't stop her from running it like a Lamborghini.

As I reached my locker, something crashed into my back.
A boy with shoulder-length, greasy black hair had charged into me as he tried to receive a poor pass from another kid who had released the ball, and my backpack had slipped off.