A Lily Amongst Roses

Two

There was air conditioning. Thank god.
I noticed he made sure the air was on me and stared at me through the mirrors of the car as I buckled my seatbelt in place, my so called brother following my actions before putting the key in ignition, starting up the engine of the sports car.

"If it gets too cold, let me know, I'll turn it off. And if needed, there's a blanket behind you." He spoke, pulling out of the airport car park.

"Thank you." I whispered out. My voice hardly there, but I believed he heard me.

"The flight good?" He asked.

"I was terrified." I saw him glance at me before turning back to look at the road. It had baffled me to see how we were driving on the different side of the road.

"Fear of flights?"

"Something like that... You guys drive on the different side of the road?" I asked, best to change topic of the fear of flights conversation.

He nodded, "Yes, I guess it could be confusing for you from being in England all this time."

"I guess so." I stared at the Minecraft bee that lay in my lap. I just wanted to sleep. It was about 18:13 at the moment, due to going forward an hour.

"I'm Arlo by the way. Giovanni would've picked you up, but he had to attend a last minute work meeting, which the others also had to attend." He explained, chuckling slightly,

"What work is it?" I asked slowly making sure to articulate my words, I can be quite quiet sometimes, I looked up at Arlo who stared at me a few seconds longer, he shook his head.

"It's complicated. But, hey you get siblings now that must be pretty cool right?" He was quick to change the subject, I frowned slightly at the question as I realised that he didn't know about Nellie.

"Yeah, it'll be cool." I leaned against the chair.

"Sleep, we have a good hour before we make it home."

Home. I still can't process people saying that.

-

I felt the car pulling into a driveway, the lights in the car turning on automatically, and a gentle voice from Arlo announced to me, "Rue, we're home. It's almost half seven, we gotta get you inside there's forecast for a thunderstorm tonight."

My eyes fluttered open, I stared my hazel-green eyes into his deep brown eyes, he smiled slightly, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door getting out, he then went down to grab my bags from the boot of the car. I followed suit unbuckling my seatbelt before opening the car door, I tucked my bee teddy under my arm and stepped outside the car. Before even acknowledging the house, I grabbed my headphones that had fallen from my hand down to the car floor of the passenger side, after closing the door I then went round to the boot to help Arlo with my bags. Thankfully there wasn't a lot.

"Is this all that you brought with you?"

I nodded.

"We'll get you more stuff." Arlo mentioned, closing the boot and grabbing my suitcase and my rucksack.

"I can take my rucksack." I held out my hand for him to pass it back to me.

"No, it's fine, you've had a lot to process in the last 24 hours I can imagine. I'll look out these in a safe space while you eat some dinner." He locked the car before turning towards the house.

And that's when I noticed that this house was much bigger than I had originally imagined it to be. At least three or four times bigger than my original home back in Bolton, half an hour away from Manchester. It has surprised me when I noticed the outside to look old, just like the rural town, I admired the beauty, we walked up the beautiful sandlike stone pathway where lights lit up the pathway, on each side were roses, a deep crimson. Funnily similar to the Batman hoodie I was wearing.