Til Death Do Us Part

chapter fourteen ~ let me laugh

Jake was asleep on the end of my couch, his head resting on my chest.
I wasn't sure how we got into that position. Part of me didn't mind either.

I had also fallen asleep like that somehow, and as he stirred I froze in order to not disturb him.
Yawning and reaching for my phone, I flinched at the brightness of the screen in the dark lounge.

Static flickered on the TV, and the lamp was off.

I slid out from beneath him, trying not to wake him up, and walked into the kitchen where I'd left my phone on the breakfast bar.

Reaching for it, I chewed my lip as I downloaded Snapchat, and then I typed in Jayden's details slowly.

I knew there was only twenty-four hours to see a story on the app. To my luck, I could see what he wanted me to see on pretty much everyone's stories.
Apparently on a lot of them there was only an hour or so left to watch it.

My eyes flickered to the time.

It was already two in the afternoon.

Hesitantly, I chose Al's story and watched it load before my eyes.

In the shot was Charlotte's car, clear as crystal. She'd just climbed in, and was talking to someone in the passenger seat. I squinted, noticing the little balls of multi-colour plasticine were still stuck to her windscreen.

And I was about to find out the purpose they served.
Rain had begun to fall.

I didn't even know it had rained yesterday. And so, unfortunately for Charlotte, as she started her engine, her wipers came on.

For a moment, I was stunned.

And then, I howled with laughter.
Al was a genius!

In the shot, I watched Charlotte's look of dismay as the colourful wax smeared along her windscreen, and stuck to the glass in the heavy downfall.

I also watched it turn to anger as she attempted to clean it off with the wash bottle, only to make it much worse.

For a few more seconds, she kept doing this, only to become more agitated by the crowd of people around her, who now gathered to see what was happening.

More people were recording it.

Just as the story ended, and I wiped tears from my cheeks, remnants of my laughing fit, I felt my brow pull together as I saw message after message for Jayden flash on-screen.

Of course, I couldn't read them. But my thumb hovered over the little blue speech square anyway.

Just as I considered tapping the top one, off a girl called Alexis Forman, Jayden was beside me, an angry expression on his face.

"Are you stupid?"

I stared back at him in surprise.

"What? No - I... I wasn't going to..."

"Yes you were!"
With angst, he ran a hand through his hair. He appeared to be counting to ten.
I put the phone down guiltily.

I was about to completely invade his privacy. What was I doing?

Suddenly, I felt like crying again but for all the wrong reasons.
He must have noticed this because he sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Faye - it's not about what the message says. I don't mind you seeing that, or I wouldn't have let you log in. I'm talking about the fact that people are bound to notice a dead guy opening their messages. And that's gonna be a bit creepy, you know?"