-----------------------------------------------
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F O U R
❤
I woke the next morning to Jasper knocking on my bedroom door.
“Have you seen my wallet?” He called out, and my head immediately snapped to where I knew it was sitting in my bedside table. I'd picked it up when Jasper left it behind at the Purple Palace but had never givenit back. I grabbed it frantically, before throwing myself onto the carpet and shoving it under my bed. I frowned in confusion after I’d done it, I had no idea why I felt it was necessary to hide it from him, I just did.
“No, sorry, haven’t seen it,” I called back, and Jasper growled in anger before thudding back up the hallway. When I felt the coast was clear, I snaked my hand back under my bed and fished out the wallet, before quickly popping open the button and leafing through the contents. A library card, some receipts, and a small plastic package of grass-like green …marijuana?
I threw the wallet back under the bed in a panic, before frantically dusting my fingers off on my pyjama top to get any trace of drugs off them. Eli had taught us about drugs in health class, at least marijuana was one of the more innocent drugs. He'd even, believe it or not, recommended we try it sometime, and said we’ll all probably have done it at least once by the time we’re thirty. Controversial health teacher much? So anyway, Jasper may have been slightly badass and had a stash of wacky tobacky, not so bad, right? I threw a sweater over the wallet to keep it safely hidden, before putting on my poker face and wandering out to the living room.
Jasper was combing through the kitchen, flinging open cupboards and digging through drawers.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen my wallet?” He asked again, anxiously grabbing fistfuls of his hair. I shook my head.
“No haven’t seen it anywhere.” I took a seat at the kitchen table, “Did you have it lasnight? Maybe you left it at the Purple Palace?”
Jasper shot me a look of worry, which soon transformed into a dorky smirk.
“The Purple Palace,” he began, “rang this morning. We’ve sort of been banned for trespassing. The guy sounded pretty pissed. If he sees us anywhere near that place we’ll probably end up getting arrested.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I mean I felt horrible for breaking the law and everything, but after breaking in and flooding the entire building and pretty much getting away with it, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh of relief.
“So I guess you’re fired?” I asked, and Jasper nodded, “what about the ice cream place?”
“Still working there,” he answered, before looking up at the clock, “I’m supposed to be there in about… half an hour ago.” And with that he darted through the living room and skidded out the apartment door. As I stood up, I noticed an accumulating pile of dirty dishes sitting on the kitchen bench. So I moseyed on over and began filling the sink with steamy hot water and a squirt of dishwashing liquid. As I scrubbed at the grime and food residue that had fused to the dishes, I began thinking about why I actually came here in the first place. I said I’d come to clean, but that wasn’t it at all. I’d also come because I wanted to disguise my wealth and not have people judge me for the amount of money I had. But my ‘poor, helpless teenage droupout’ persona was shattered when Jasper found a large wad of cash in my wallet and a Gucci membership club card. It could have been that I wanted an escape, a holiday. But I was in Flipswick, and so far every ‘fun place’ Jasper had taken me to ended up in violence or running away. So why was I still here?
“Morning,” Jaimie said, grabbing a mug from the cupboard with a clink. She tipped in a spoonful of coffee with a yawn.
“Morning,” I replied, rinsing the bubbles from a dinner plate.
“Sorry if Jasper woke you up this morning, he lost his wallet, the dork.” I bit my lip as I began stacking the now gleaming dishes in the dish rack.
“I know,” I said quietly, “bummer.”
“Not really,” Jaimie replied, filling her mug with boiling water and carrying it over to the table where a blue notebook was waiting “he deserves it.” She picked up a pen and started scribbling words on one of the pages.
“What do you mean?” I asked, draining the sink and watching the bubbles glugging down the plug. Jaimie stopped scribbling and tapped her pen on the table.
“I mean,” she began, before changing her mind and letting her words trail of into a wuiet mumble, “nothing. Doesn’t matter.” She shook her head and returned to her book. I was about to ask her to tell me, but decided not to push it any further. She obviously knew something about Jasper, but I assumed that if it was something I needed to know she’d tell me, so it can’t have been that important. I shrugged and left her to continue with whatever it was she was writing. I began walking back to my room, picking up various items of Jaspers clothing on the way. I was almost out of Jaimie’s sight when she added; “You’ll find out eventually.” I stopped in my tracks, hugging Jasper’s clothes to my chest.
“Find out what?” I asked curiously, spinning around. Jaimie looked around the room worriedly as she thought of an answer. Annoyingly, she settled again for a “nothing, doesn’t matter.” But this time I was determined to find out what was sitting on the tip of her tongue. She was making it blatantly obvious she wanted to tell me something she wasn’t supposed to.
“What do you mean Jasper deserves to lose his wallet? What did he do? What aren’t you telling me?” Jaimie sucked in a breath,
“It’s not what I’m not telling you, it’s what you’re not figuring out.”
I just about screamed. I was sick to death of everyone being so cryptic and secretive about everything. Why can’t the world just be straight up and honest? Or just not say anything at all? It would make things so much easier. For example, Eli and his stupid numerically coded post-it notes.
“What am I supposed to figure out?” I asked, growing angry “Can you give me a clue?” Jaimie winced as my voice went from curious to on the brink of rage.
“I’m not supposed to tell or I break my end of the promise. I never break promises.”
I slid into the seat opposite her.
"Okay, then give me a really obvious clue, so obvious you’re basically telling me but not fully. That way you can keep your promise and I get to know what’s up with Jasper.”
Jaimie began tapping her fingernails on the table.
“Sorry Candace,” she said, “I think you’ve had enough clues sitting right in front of you the entire time.”
“My name isn’t Candace,” I said quickly, as Jaimie stood up and carried her empty coffee mug over to the bench, “It’s Grace. I lied.”
Jaimie spun around and looked me up and down.
“How ironic,” she said disappointedly, before walking swiftly to her room. I winced as she slammed the door behind her.
Ironic? I thought, falling into the cloud-like cushions of the couch, how is me lying about my name ironic? I plucked a pillow from the end of the couch and hugged it tightly, beginning to reflect on everything that had happened to be over the past few weeks. About a million questions began circling my mind;
Should I be worried about Jasper?
Should I trust Jaimie?
Should I quit this job as a cleaner girl and get back to my regular life?
What about Eli, what happened to him?
What the heck is written on that gosh darn post-it note?!
My thoughts were interrupted as my phone began bleeping from where it was sitting on the kitchen bench. I could have sworn I left it in my room. I cringed when I saw Jeddah’s name glowing on the screen, but answered anyway.
“Hello?” I said monotonously, holding the phone to my ear.
“Grace!” She pretty much screamed, “I know you hate me right now, but I have some news.”
“Okay…”
“Meet me at Speckle park in five?”
I blinked, frozen for a moment.
“Uhh,” was all I could manage to utter.
“Okay, cool, see you then.” She hung up and I put the phone down, before sauntering back to the living room and throwing myself at the couch. While staring at a fly who’d chosen to sit upside down at the bottom of a light bulb, I contemplated whether or not to go meet Jeddah at the park. I was over her Eli crap and didn’t really want to hear any more about the notes, but I’d come to realise that holding grudges against someone who was once your best friend isn’t fun. Jeddah was only a cow to me because of Eli, and I didn’t want to let him and his stupid sexiness destroy my friendship.
Little did I know, over the next 48 hours my 'friendship' wasn't the only thing Eli was goingto destroy.