A strong emotion that I couldn't put my finger on crawled its way from the pits of my stomach and up my throat, choking me. Just the sight of Charlie's large home split my mind open, letting the taunting memories of Kingsley's dead body ooze through and blur my vision. Luckily I had stopped the car or I was afraid I might've carried going within my daze and crashed it somewhere.
"You should walk him in," Arlo advised as Charlie's blatant intoxication seemed almost dangerous.
With a deep sigh, I obliged. We got out of the car at the same time, night had fully taken over by now. The confident moon cast dark shadows over us and Charlie threw me a grin while we walked to his house.
"Thanks for driving me home, by the way. And now walking me to the doorstep, you're such a gentleman, Bambi. How can I ever repay you? My very own Prince Charming," he sang out.
"Shut up," I muttered and rolled my eyes, suppressing a smile. We neared the doorstep and flashes of the police carrying a body bag through this very same front door barreled towards me. My amusement sobered.
Charlie turned his back to the door and gave me a soft smile. As if he could feel the thick emotions as they peeled from my body, he enveloped me in a hug. It wasn't the same sort of silly hugs that he used to give me where he'd squeeze too tightly to annoy me. It was identical to the hug he gave on the night I found Kingsley. With his hand at the back of my head, it felt as though the two of us were clinging to hope. After a moment, Charlie pulled away and turned to the door. Before he could open, it was pulled forcefully from the other side to reveal Mr Hawthorne. Charlie's dad.
"Charles," his deep voice echoed.
I visited the Hawthorne's house a lot when I was younger but I never got used to seeing Mr Hawthorne. He was a tall and burly man with a dark brown beard and matching hair. Normally, he wore tailored suits but tonight he showed off his custom velvet robe.
"Quincy Sinclair?" He sneered, looking down his long nose at me. The dark circles under his eyes were prominent and I was glad he had lost sleep over Charlie's adventures. "Jesus, you two. Stand apart for Christ's sake, you look like lovers or something."
The bitterness in his voice, I assumed, was directed towards me. It was probably because I was poor, far from perfect for his little boy. If I thought Easton boys were all the same, their parents were even worse. Mr Hawthorne had always been a grumpy bastard.
"Get inside now. You better be quiet, I'm warning you. If you wake your mother up, I swear to God, Charles. You hear me, boy? We'll talk about this later," the big man hissed through clenched teeth. He placed a strong hand onto Charlie's shoulder and with a swift push, he rushed his son into their home.
Mr Hawthorne and I watched Charlie's retreating figure as he travelled deeper and deeper into their house. Only when he was truly out of sight did the man turn to me. His eyes gave me a once over, hiding his emotions behind the hard expression.
"I know you mean well, Quincy, but stop following him around. Charlie's a fragile boy, he gets attached easily and I can see it in the way you stand, you're just like Amélie. When you leave, it'll cause more damage than necessary. I hope you'll be wise about it," he suggested. His voice was deathly monotone and scarily controlled but my anger boiled. How dare he speak to me like that. I wasn't going to leave as Mum had. I could never be like her in that aspect.
But, I didn't argue. Instead, I turned around silently and retreated to the car knowing that that had been the second time in one day I'd been compared to my mother.
I fell deflated into the vehicle. Arlo had already fallen asleep by then. With her mouth agape, she rested her head against the glass of the window as soft snores escaped from her lips. I turned the music down slightly and made sure it wasn't too heavy metal as not to wake her up. She'd had a rough day and deserved to sleep for a bit.
I could feel Kingsley behind me strongly. It felt like heat from a fire and it hit me in the back as I drove. Try as I might but I couldn't concentrate on what was going on in front of me, my body was hyper-aware of him behind and it turned my cheeks a light shade of scarlet. I could practically feel his deep breaths on the back of my neck that bred the earthquake of goosebumps.
I ignored it, though. I didn't talk to the boy or feed into this paranormal reality I thought impossible just three days ago.
I shook Arlo awake when we arrived home and by now I was wide-awake. She, however, was the opposite. I had to lug her to the front door and while fishing the keys out of my pocket, Arlo groaned and mumbled inaudible nonsense in my ear.
Half-awake, I dragged her up the stairs quietly and made sure she to take off her makeup. As the designated best friend, it was my job. I gave her some pyjamas and discarded of the weed smelling dress into my washing basket. Making sure she'd drunk some water and taken a tablet, I settled her into the other side of my bed. Arlo crumpled up into a ball and fell straight to sleep again. If her mother could've seen her, Mrs Han would have freaked out. I just hoped her hangover wouldn't be too extreme. She was a lightweight and usually, after a night out she looked to be on her death bed the next morning.
My mouth had been shut since arriving home but my mind was wide awake, crawling and desperate for answers. About Kingsley, Hadiyah, Taron. Anything.
I turned off the lights and fell into the place beside my best friend, releasing a breath. Her snores filled the silence and the stream of light from the street lights outside highlighted my fingers as I lifted them into the air.
"Kingsley?" I called knowing he was there somewhere.
A hum buzzed through the silence in response, coming from the ground below. Carefully, as not to wake Arlo, I turned on my stomach to look down at Kingsley on the floor beside my bed. He rested comfortably with his hands behind his head and eyes clamped shut.
"Hadiyah wasn't exactly bothered by the fact that you'd died," I commented.
His eyes opened lazily where he lifted a brow for me to continue.
"I mean, something must have happened, right? Taron said you said stuff about her, it clearly still haunts her. So what did you say to her that stung enough to not mind you dying to get rid of it? What did you do to Felix too? What happened that would lead to your best friend saying something so horrible?" I said barely above a whisper. My voice carried carefully to him on the floor and his lips pulled down into a frown.
"Some people just aren't on your side to begin with. I think she would've been grateful for my death regardless of what I had said."
"But what did you say?"
He sighed. His eyes swirled with a blazing emotion. It could've been sadness, regret or surprise, I wasn't sure. Each one clouded over the other until all I could see was the warm honey-brown colour.
"For us in Easton, money means nothing. We've all got too much of it to make a difference. Our currency is secrets and, believe me, that girl had a lot of them. She was drowning in them. She told me anything and everything." He lifted himself into a seating position. Crossing his legs, he leant against my wall and began clicking his fingers into place.
"When we broke up, I was bitter. I'm usually pretty laid back but she does something to me. She drives me crazy and not in a good way. Every time I pull away, she comes right after me all over again and I don't have the heart to say no. It's a bad habit. After cheating on me with my best friend, I went over the edge. I had to make sure she wouldn't come back this time because I couldn't trust myself to say no. So, I spilt some of her secrets. They were only innocent ones, I just wanted to scare her. I needed her to understand that if I felt like it, I could've exposed them all without hesitation. I needed that fear to play on her mind, I wanted her to know that I could ruin her life."
Kingsley cowered in the shadows with his head in his hands as he rubbed away the guilt. I had to squint past the darkness to assess his every move. I needed to know how he genuinely felt about the situation. Did he truly care about the amount of distress he had caused Hadiyah? Would he have released all her secrets if he was still alive and allowed to?
"I knew for a fact that Hadiyah and Felix had slept with each other because he was just as nervous as she was. He knew all the little secrets before I'd even said them aloud. While Hadiyah became quiet upon the release of her personal details, Felix was much the opposite. He came up to me, threatened me, pushed me. The Felix I saw that day was not my best friend. He was something else. Some white knight complex had taken over him, just another white boy trying to show off his new plaything. If he thought I'd do that to Hadiyah, he couldn't have known me all that well. I was ju-"
He cut himself off and lunged towards me before I could react. His hands found my cheeks where he cupped them roughly and my face was trapped in his grasp. His icy touch knocked the breath from my lungs and it felt as though I'd been knocked over by a car. My vision glazed over and all I could see were Kingsley's hard eyes. Every muscle in my body tensed and my hazel eyes involuntarily rolled to the back of my head.
It was as if I was falling back, flipping through a haze of memories. My head throbbed as I descended down and down until there was nothing. Only an insufferable silence was left as it swallowed me whole.
I fell back into a chair. I wasn't in my room anymore but instead an empty canteen where the noise was loud enough that I struggled to think. Slowly, the owners of the voices blurred into the many seats around the large hall.
I was sitting at the head of a long table, like a king. Every seat around the table was occupied by various boys who hadn't noticed me yet. It didn't feel like I was truly there, it felt as though I was peering through a window. My eyes trailed to my wrist that was clear of any sorts of writing. Instead, I count my fingers. One...two...three, too many. Dream.
"Ah, shit. Don't look now, Kings," Taron, who sat the closest to me, whispered. "But shitface is on his way to us now and looks pissed."
I turned behind me to see a boy with wavy, blonde hair as he marched to our table. I knew his face. He swung his arms back and forth, full of bubbling purpose. His large glasses hung low on his roman nose while his cheeks blazed a fit of red hot anger. The boy's dark blue eyes doubled down in my direction but it felt like he was looking straight through me. It couldn't have been me - Quincy - that he saw.
My theory was confirmed when Kingsley stood from my seat as if stepping out of my body where I had been seeing through his eyes. Just as Kingsley was a ghost in my life, I was one in his now.
Kingsley crossed his arms threateningly, towering over the blonde.
"Alfred," he spat.
"Felix," Kingsley barked back. So, this was the famous Felix Montgomery, ex-best friend.
"I won't be staying long, I just need to let you know this." Felix's voice was dangerously low and though he was shorter than Kingsley, the pride he held stacked up to make up for the loss of height. He pointed a finger at Kingsley and jabbed it harshly into his chest. "Leave Hadiyah alone. If none of your dickface friends are gonna tell you, then I will. You're being a twat."
This wasn't like a scene out of a movie. The only people who noticed the imminent fight were Felix, Kingsley and the people at the table I sat at. Everyone else carried on with their conversations, yelling loud and laughing boisterously.
Kingsley let out a ragged breath and stepped forward, with it the dream rippled slightly. Felix held his ground though and simply craned his neck slightly to keep eye contact.
"You don't know anything, Montgomery. You think you do just because you shagged my girlfriend but the truth is, you have no clue. You have no clue about who I am, who she is and what the fuck is going on. I'd suggest you keep your head out of my business, mate," Kingsley threatened and captured Felix's wrist and threw it away from his chest.
I watched as Felix's fist clenched and his eyes bulged with the fury that he failed to keep under wraps. You could tell he was used to burying his emotions, countless business meetings that you attended with your rich parents would do that to a person. I watched carefully as the two stared at each other and the thick tension blanketed the dream.
Carefully, I stood as the world began to slow. I tip-toed up to Felix and stared at his enraged face. I felt the deep passion of anger that had piled up for a while before this as it radiated from the boy like a bad smell. He felt broken and bruised and undeniably too far to reach. Not that I'd want to touch him.
"You are such a pretentious little prick, Kingsley. I know plenty and just because you're pissed that your girlfriend preferred me-"
"I'm not pissed at all," Kingsley shot in return, his voice deadly calm. "You can have her for all I care. You always were one for my sloppy seconds."
Then the word slipped from Felix's tongue so naturally that I wondered how long he'd kept it back. I wondered how long Kingsley's best friend had secretly detested him for merely the colour of his skin. Or if perhaps it was the first word he could think of while in the fit of rage. Either way, I felt sick.
Regardless, I saw Kinsgley's face as it fell. The way the colour fled from his face and his eyebrows dropped, his eyes deflated and his whole demeanour sort of sagged. I saw the betrayal flash through his honey brown eyes that looked more black in the light of the fading dream that had started to disappear the way raindrops ran down a glass window. The world began to close in on me and the last thing I saw was Kingsley turning his back on what once was his best friend.
I gasped back to reality, plummeting from the dream world and returning to my body. Within my hysteria, I fell off the bed and landed in a pile on the floor where Kingsley once rested. Where was he? What was that?
"Now you know why I hate Felix," Kingsley admitted. I saw that he was sitting on the edge of my bed, a longing look plastered to his face as he looked down on me but I knew he was thinking about his ex-best friend.
Both of my wrists each had the name, Quincy Sinclair written on it. Perfectly centred and readable, not dreaming.
"I need to talk to him then," I stated. Felix had an obvious dislike towards Kingsley, a dislike I needed to explore.
"I'm not letting you talk to him when he could potentially be my killer."
"You really think he could have killed you?" I queried while sitting up and leaning against the cool wall. The back of my neck prickled with sweat from the dream and my breaths escaped raggedly.
"Yes. Yes, I do."