I bit my lip as I walked towards Harper's front door. It looked almost exactly the same as the night of the house party. Not a pot plant out of place. It was a darker shade of white, almost similar to the color of pearls. It was separated into two parts, but both of them were owned by the Brown family. They were the richest family in town and everyone knew them. If you walked through the CBD you would see their name everywhere.
I took the last excruciatingly slow step and began to knock on the door. I looked at my watch and saw that it was exactly five minutes past three.
I have to say that I am impressed with myself. I have this habit of always being late. He opened the door and already looked irritated. I wonder if he was born with that face. He was always frowning and scowling. Would it kill Harper Brown to smile?
"You are late" He stated and stepped back so that I could enter the house.
"I was actually early, but it took me like five minutes to get passed all the security. Your butler or whatever seemed to think that I was a serial killer. After that I had to wait a few more minutes for you to open the door. Did you get lost in the rough terrain of your house? It is probably super dangerous in there, right? We wouldn't want you to walk by a mirror and have to bare the shock of seeing your own face."
Take that Mister popular. One for McKenzie and Zero for Harper.
Was that rude?
I sometimes have this habit of saying exactly what I am thinking without putting it through a filter. Hashtag no filter.
"Shut up McKenzie. Let's just get this over with." He walked ahead of me and I reluctantly followed him. I am surprised the Browns did not end up losing each other in the house.
I would love to say that I managed to look like I could not care less where he lived, but I totally failed. I looked like a pelican while I stared at the inside of his house with my mouth hanging open. It was strange though. Although it was big and beautiful there were no pictures anywhere. No family portraits. No pictures of Christina and Harper when they were younger.
"Seriously McKenzie! Close your mouth. You have seen the inside of my house before."
"I know. This is not a house. It is a Hotel. What deep and dark secrets are hidden behind these walls?" I meant it as a joke, but the look he gave me made it look like he wanted to kill me.
Just my luck that we happened to walk into the kitchen at that moment filled with a large amount of sharp knives. I swallowed uncomfortably and stood in the middle of the kitchen. The kitchen looked like one of those fancy kitchens you would see in magazines and TV shows like Master Chef and Top Chef. Everything was silver and black. They had one walk-in fridge and a separate pantry as big as our house. Why would anyone need such a big fridge? Unless they all hide in it when the world gets taken over by Zombies or maybe they are serial killers and they hide bodies in there.
I stayed dead quiet as Harper brought all of the ingredients out of the pantry and placed them on one of the big tables. I have little doubt that this little experiment of ours will end up with me setting their kitchen on fire. It took him almost four times to walk up and down for all of the ingredients. He took a cookbook and put it down in front of us. I bent down and read the title of the recipe;
"Death by Chocolate Cake"
I read the title and started to laugh. Harper looked at me like I was stupid.
"What is so funny?"
"There is actually a recipe with the name death by chocolate?" I continued to laugh and he just rolled his eyes at me. After a while I calmed down and read through the rest of the recipe.
"Piece of cake" I gave him a broad smile and Harper stared at me with no emotion on his face.
"Get it? We are going to bake a cake and I said...piece...of...cake..." I spoke the words slowly and he just looked annoyed.
I finally found one thing the golden boy Harper Brown does not have, a sense of humor. The list of what Harper Brown does not have is actually really short. Other items on the list include, a personality.
"Okay...So where do we start?"
"Just read the recipe McKenzie and do what it says! It is not rocket science."
"Easier said than done..." I mumbled and looked at the recipe again.
"Where is the oven?"
Harper lifted his left eyebrow as if though I had just asked him the stupidest question ever.
"Right in front of you smart a$%" He opened what looked like closet doors and inside was a silver oven.
"Well how was I supposed to know that you hide your bloody oven behind closed doors? Why do you do that? That is so weird. Are you scared the house help will steal it or something?" Harper did not answer me and turned on the oven to the right temperature.
I guess what I said was a bit offensive and mean. It was honestly not my intention. I just cannot help myself around Harper. For some unexplainable reason I just really hate him. I can't stop myself.
"What is your problem McKenzie?"
"Nothing...you...everyone..." He was not the first person who asked me that question.
The truth was that there were so many things that were going wrong that I did not exactly know what the precise issue or problem was. I had ninety nine problems and he was definitely one of them.
"Well do not make your problem, my problem. You always go on and on about how rude I am and how I am such a jerk, well you are exactly the same."
Harper picked up something from the table and started to rub it on the tin we will be using to bake the cake in. I do not really understand why I have to learn how to bake a cake.
Our family is not exactly big on the whole cake thing. Normal kids had cake on their birthdays, but as long as I can remember Skye and I have never had cake on our birthday. Every time it was our birthday we usually go to the coffee shop close to our house called the Red Flag and we would buy one chocolate muffin for each of us. Along with a scoop of extra ice-cream for me. Skye was not a huge fan of ice-cream. Then again, Skye is not a huge fan of eating in general. I have confronted him about it, but he does not want to accept that he has a problem.
I remember there was one birthday that we were not together during our birthday. It was last year. I was invited to Ashley's house and the girls held a girls night for my birthday. We had a bunch of cocktails and we put on face masks and did our nails.
We even played Truth or Dare. Later that night the boys snuck in and we played spin the bottle. I will give you one guess on who it landed when it was my turn. I am currently in his house at the moment.
"Earth to McKenzie...Are you in there?"
I spaced out again. It usually happens every time I started to think about the past. Not only did it happen in front of Harper, but I only now realized that during my daydream I started to eat the chocolates that we would need to bake the cake.
My bad.
"Yes. I was just checking the consistency of the chocolates."
"Yeah right. You are weird, you know that?"
"Yes and you are a stupid jock. I am glad we got that out of our system. Now I feel a whole lot better and I am inspired to bake this cake. Where were we again?"
I picked up the remaining chocolates and started to break them into pieces. Harper started to show me how to melt the chocolate by putting one pot into another pot which has boiling water in it. I always thought that you would just throw the stuff in the microwave and press the button.
At the party at Ashley's house I can clearly remember the expression on Harper's face as the bottle pointed towards him. We kissed in front of everyone and before anyone could say anything my cell phone started to ring. It was my brother calling to wish me a happy birthday. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was at the Red Flag with Edith, Tyler and Natasha. He did not sound like himself. He sounded off. I got this feeling that something was horribly wrong.
I knew that he was lying. I can always tell when he is lying. I later found out that him and Goliath had gotten into a fight that night. My mother was not even there. Goliath had got it into his head that he needed to teach my brother some respect and his method of doing this was to kick and hit my brother repeatedly.
I promised that day that we would never be separated again during our birthday.
"Seriously McKenzie...pay attention...you are hopeless." I gave him my best impression of a death glare and took one of the eggs in my right hand. In my head I could already see myself throwing it onto Harper's head, but instead I attempted to break open the egg. Harper in return attempted to show me the correct method and how to mix all of the ingredients together.
Apparently you have to mix all of the dry ingredients together and then you can add the wet ingredients and whisk it. To be honest I was honestly not paying attention. Through the rest of the lesson I spaced out on purpose. I got this strange feeling as I looked at his house again. It was almost devoid of any personality. Empty. It was like no one really lived in it.
After the basic mixture was done we put it on the tray and into the oven. Afterwards we started to make the icing. After everything was done we had another awkward ten minutes to kill before the cake was supposed to get out of the oven. It was extremely uncomfortable as we stood waiting against the counter. Things only got worse when his sister showed up.
Christina Brown is what people would call a blonde bombshell. She is a cheerleader and she has blonde hair and blue eyes. Why did our school have to be the only school in the Province to have a cheerleading team? It is such an American tradition forced upon the rest of us in school. She was the female version of her brother and last year we were best friends. Now we hate each other.
"What the hell is she doing here?!" Christina threw her hair back with a sharp movement similar to a golden retriever shaking its hair out. If she was not careful she would end up dislocating her shoulder.
"Get out of my house before I end up catching loser."
"Oh No! How horrible? Poor Chrissie. How does that make you feel?" I gave her my best fake smile.
"B#$%"
"Cow!"
"Argh! Whatever. It is almost five Harper." She turned around and walked out of the kitchen while Harper glanced at the watch on the wall.
"S#$@. I have to start cleaning up."
Now that is something I know how to do. Why could they not ask those type of questions in Home Economics? Why could they not ask how to get wine stains off of a couch, or how to get ash out of your clothes, or how to get rid of blood on a carpet? I was an expert in that. I stared into nothingness and imagined a few of the stains I have had to remove over the years.
"Move McKenzie"
"What?"
"I said move. You are blocking the way." He rudely shoved me out of the way.
"Rude much?"
"Just get out. It will go a lot quicker if you are not in the way every second."
He shoved me towards the door. He half pushed me out and I stood there baffled.
The familiar uneasy feeling came from inside. I gasped as I realized this feeling.
Something was wrong with Skye.
Someone was hurting him.