Phoenix Knight [A Bad Boy Story] - Editing

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The following day, I decided to stay home. Some might say that it was an excuse to avoid inevitable confrontation and maybe it was but I didn't see it that way. I just needed some ‘away from other human beings’ time.

I didn't realise until that morning when I woke up rapidly and with a frantic heart that perhaps the events of the past twenty-four hours had been traumatising. The only evidence to show that I had indeed been affected by the previous day’s events was the nightmares. I definitely thought that I was a-okay but the minute my eyes closed and I faded into sub-consciousness, my brain was bombarded with images of guns, blood and mismatched eyes.

I needed to stay home and relax for a little while.

My mother was surprisingly impassive with my reasoning of 'wanting to take just one day off from all the stress' which meant that I had permission to be alone.

Perfect.

I had turned off my phone so as not to be disturbed during my one day of recovery and tranquillity. In fact, I went as far as to purchase nature sounds from iTunes and play them repetitively.

I only felt one thing.

Peace.

I was once again reminded of that blank-faced boy on the wall. The artistic curves and darkened lines that formed his delicate but expressionless face were spiralling through my mind and brought a calm smile to my anxious face.

However, I didn’t think I could just leave those experiences behind me. Despite how much unease I felt, I found that I was addicted to the thrill of performing illegal actions by Phoenix’s side. After all, I was his trusted sidekick, Barbie.

The sound of rain pouring in a forested area caused me to drift off where I sat on a leather couch in front of our flat-screen television. My father liked to watch his characters in the highest definition so naturally, we got the technology to accommodate that.

Hours later, I was driven awake by the shrill noise of our home telephone ringing. I wanted to ignore the call but I was curious as to who might have been calling.

I tentatively got to my feet and began tiptoeing to the phone until I realised that I was being a complete idiot. They couldn’t see me so why the hell was I sneaking around?

When I looked at the caller ID, I saw that it read ‘School Admin’. You see, my mum had this annoying habit of saving every single number from the Parent-Teacher handbook which meant that there wasn’t a school number that couldn’t go unidentified. Yay.

Shit, shit, shit, fudge-in-a-mother-flippin’-bowl­, I swore. What kind of swearing was that? I chastised myself as I weighed my options.

I could either: pick up the phone and pretend to be my mother or just let it ring and delete the voice message that they were bound to leave.

Of course, I did the stupid thing.

“Good afternoon, this is Sadie's mother. Is there a problem?” Due to the fact that I almost always had free time, I had learned to mimic my mother’s voice to perfection just by carefully analysing her voice while she spoke. Yes, that was lame but guess what? It came in handy now and again.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Walker,” Crud, I had made my first mistake. What sort of parent introduced themselves in such a casual manner? The thought of how screwed I was drove me to nervously bite my bottom lip as the lady continued. “The school is concerned about your daughter’s dismissal for two days in a row.”