- murderer. jacob barber

three.

x| chapter three.
' never lie to the authorities. '

alice had become an insomniac that night. every time she closed her eyes she envisioned ben getting stabbed, she couldn't get it out of her head. she couldn't help but wonder who would want to do such a thing. murder someone in cold blood. and since she couldn't sleep, she stayed up. all. night. long. it was hell, and soon enough the sun was rising and the birds were chirping. her alarm on her phone went off, though it wasn't exactly useful to 'wake' her. the only thing it did was tell her to stop thinking and start getting ready for school.

school.

this was something she'd been dreading since she found out about the death. she'd have to see people, be in public, be in a place that ben was supposed to be with her. she had classes today that he would be missing from his seat. that hurt her.

she pushed the thought out of her head, trying to busy herself so she'd ignore the topic. she took a shower, forcing herself to try and look presentable. as if all of this wasn't bothering her to pieces. she brushed her wavy hair, leaving it down and natural after her shower. she put on a little bit of natural make up (mostly to cover her huge bags under her eyes from crying and getting ZERO sleep) and then went to her closet to pick what to wear. in a way, she was happy she gave back ben's sweatshirt that morning. that way now she wouldn't have to see it in her house. it probably would still smell like him too.

she settled on some slightly ripped black jeans, a floral designed top, and some yellow converse. it was simple, but didn't look like she was mourning too much to look nice. did she overthink things? yes. she always did that. it was yet another thing that her mother had passed down to her.

she grabbed her phone off of her dresser, quickly texting oliver to make sure he was still giving her a ride to school. her mom had made it very clear that she was not allowed to walk to school anymore. especially since she used to walk through the same trails where ben's body had been found. and of course she still didn't have her license, even though her seventeenth birthday was next week. she had been sort of scared to learn to drive, so she hadn't gotten around to it. so for now, oliver would have to be her chauffeur.

she slowly walked downstairs, not necessarily in a hurry at this point. she grabbed a quick granola bar from the pantry in her kitchen, and sat down at the counter while waiting for ollie to show up. her mom of course hadn't left for work yet, so she was sitting in the kitchen making some coffee. "alice, dear, how are you this morning?" her mother soon spoke up, breaking the awkward silence between the two.

"fine." alice assured her, her voice clearly coming off cold. she was already tired of being asked such a thing, but knew it was only the beginning. her mom would probably be breathing down her neck everyday now, making sure she wasn't depressed or something. but she definitely wasn't depressed so her mom didn't have anything to worry about. wasn't she supposed to be depressed after something like this happened? probably.

her mother sighed at her quick answer, beginning to try and pry it out of her. "alice you can't just shut people out-" but thankfully she was cut off by the sound of a phone ding. alice picked up her phone quickly looking at it then jumping up from her seat. "and that's ollie. gotta go." she commented, leaving as quickly as possible. she mentally thanked ollie's perfect timing to get her out of that horribly messy conversation.

she approached oliver's beat up car, which quite literally hung low at the back end from years of terrible driving. it was quite rusty and the inside smelled old as well. though ollie loved it for some reason. it was a 2001 subaru outback, in a weird green shade (example of the kind of car is in the media above).

while getting in the front seat, oliver was humming to a song coming through the radio, which sounded like it came straight from the seventies. he glanced over to the girl after she shut the door and buckled. "mornin' ali." he spoke with sort of a bubbly tone. he soon realized that maybe wasn't the best approach, reading the air a little bit. "i mean uh-" he motioned to her with his hand, "you look like shit?" he shrugged, trying to make it better, but definitely didn't. he wasn't good with this sort of stuff.