I knocked on my cupboard door at 8 o'clock on Monday morning. "I'm leaving for school," I announced. There was no response. Apparently, life on the streets had gifted Knight with a non-existent sleep schedule. Or maybe he just hadn't slept well in months and needed the rest. Either way, he was soundly asleep.
I hiked my backpack further up my back and walked over to my desk. If there was one thing in the world I loved more than my mother, it was stationary. I was the pastel highlighter kind of bitch. I was dedicated in pursuit of being the most basic white bitch going 'round.
I scribbled out a note for Knight. Off to school. I'll be home at 4. I'll stop off at shops to buy you some clothes. He was currently dressing in one of my oversized tops, but it said HOT MAMA on the front; while that was hilarious, I was willing to buy him a larger collection of clothes.
I shoved it under my cupboard door. Thank God for a walk-in robe; the only way anyone could possibly find Knight was if Liv tried to steal my clothes, but it locked from the inside. Whenever Knight was sleeping, he would lock the door.
Liv would be baffled, but nothing else would come of it. She'd probably think it was a new ingenious safeguard against her thievery.
I didn't really know why I was so desperate to keep it hidden from my family. Mum and Dad would let Knight stay, I knew that. They would feel sorry for him. But I also knew they'd try to remedy things with his parents, try to get him home. Knight was firmly opposed to that.
"Oi, Lena, hurry up!" Mum called from downstairs. "Liv is going to drive you to the station, and she won't wait."
We were probably only a fifteen or twenty minute walk from the station, but it was far enough to be a hassle. Liv drove us most mornings, since she was an early bird and voluntarily got up at 7.
I shut the door to my room, praying that Knight would finally recognise hospitality and personal boundaries and therefore not rifle through my things, but I doubted it.
It was then that I remembered; I was going to have to face Jace again today. Face the Jace who had told me I couldn't keep up, who had asked me to prove myself, like I hadn't over and over for fifteen years as I claimed victory of him for over a decade. Clearly, I needed to prove myself again.
"Ugh," I muttered. "Awkward."
I padded down the stairs, my school shoes clunking against the marble. I always held onto the railing when I went up and down the staircase; I watched a movie once when the chandelier had hung loose and fallen on someone's head, killing them immediately. I no longer lived in terror of a similar incident, but I still did not trust it, and kept as far over to the side as I could. Tempting fate? Not today.
Liv was waiting for me at the bottom. "You were loud the other night, and last night," she said. "And up late."
I shrugged and blinked my eyes, as if that would help me seem less tired. "Since I was banned from partying, I decided to do it alone. In my bedroom. For, like, a week. Like a sad person who has been placed under house arrest."
As it turned out, Knight and I were chatty, loud and obsessed with all of the same TV shows. I reminded myself to shut up the next time we had a late night movie night and laughed uproariously at the latest Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode.
Liv ruffled my hair. "Aw, that's so cute and depressing."
I slapped her hand away. "I hope you fall in a slightly large hole."
"Yeah, okay, get in the car."
I saluted mockingly. "Aye, aye."
When I got to the car, Austin had already claimed the front seat. He grinned at me. "This is what happens when you're slow."
I claimed the seat directly behind him and pinched the skin on the back of his neck. "This is the other thing that happens."
Austin seemed cheerful. "Don't be pissy because you lost."
Liv climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted her mirror. She was a little bouncy today, with excitement. She was heading off to Casserine today, after dropping us at school; Casserine was where our older cousin Elena lived, and Liv and Alec went up there often. The three of them had always been a sort of golden trio, though Kaelin and I were sort of inducted into their circle. But, being younger, we'd also missed out a little bit.
Liv pulled carefully out of the driveway and onto the street. As she began to drive slowly through the neighbourhood, I thought briefly about Cole, locked up in my bedroom. His parents had stopped paying his phone plan; I was going to have to get him one of those. And clothes, some extra food, toiletries, ect ect. It really was as if I was a mother, as he had joked last night. I had a child now; an immature, selfish child who was actually kind of an adult.
The drive was quick, and within minutes Liv was pulling into a car park at Toorak station.
Through the adjusted mirror, Liv made eyes at me. "Now, Lena. Just before you go. I need you to do something for me."
"Yeah?"
"Don't dry hump Hartley again on the school grounds." I whacked her over the head with a t-shirt Austin had left in the car as she giggled at herself. "And..." she said through the laughter. "I need you to resist the passion of your love for him..." snort "...because I don't want to have to pick you up from school early... for fornicating in the library."
I hit her over the head again. "I don't even like Jace."
"Since when did that matter?" asked Austin.
"Fine, I loathe him," I said.
"Since when did that matter?" Liv echoed.
"I do not want to engage in any hanky-panky with Jace Hartley unless it is of the violent variety."
"Kinky," Austin said.
I threw my hands in the air in defeat as Liv and Austin high-fived. The thing was, they were wrong. I didn't want to jump Hartley's bones, as they so kindly had put it last night, about fifteen times. I didn't like him; his arrogance, his smirking, his ridiculous know-it-all nature. He was the antithesis of all my favourite people. I'd jump Daria's bones a thousand times before Hartley's. At least she'd be polite about it.
"Now get out of my car, you nerds, and go get educated," said Liv.
As Austin and I scrambled out of the car, I did contemplate the events of the day before. I was going to have to face him today. I didn't really know what I would say. Well, other than scathing insults.
Perhaps I could just avoid him. That kind of thinking was wishful, I knew. I'd hoped for Hartley free days since kindergarten. His smug face still showed up, far too often for comfort.
Austin bumped my shoulder with his. "Watcha thinkin' about?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, so Jace."
"No."
Austin grinned knowingly.
I acquiesced. "Fine. But only violently."
"Sure," he said.
Liv had dropped us off at the local station, which was in the absent sector of the suburb. I guess rich people thought stations were ugly. But it was gorgeous, I thought; old, pretty architecture, in a leafy area. If you didn't know the area, you wouldn't think it was the suburb of the wealthy.
"I don't know why you hate him so much," said Austin, after a pause. "He's a really nice guy, actually. Everyone thinks so. I'm not even in his year level, but everyone knows Jace. Because he's decent, and obviously a great athlete, and everyone knows Daria. But he is a nice guy, and you're the only one who thinks otherwise."
"The Devil was nice, once."
He shook his head, exasperated. "Hartley doesn't even hate you. You know that right?"
I laughed. "He's been mean to me since we were six."
"What was he supposed to do? Let you walk all over him and make him feel bad about himself?"
"That's not what happened," I said, definitively. "We started this thing together. I wasn't bullying him."
"I know," said Austin. "I just think the intentions, even back then, for the fighting, were completely different." I opened my mouth, baffled, but he cut me off. "I'm not saying anything more, just so you know. This is all between the two of you."
"If by this you mean hatred, then you're absolutely right."
"You are insufferable."
I threw an arm over his shoulders as he tapped his Myki card on the scanner to register his trip. "I know. It's part of my charm."
"What charm?"
"Funny."
The train pulled in a minute later, and Austin and I stepped on to take our seats. The train was relatively quiet this time of day; since we went to school further away from the city than where we lived, we would watch trains heading the other way packed full of people, lined up like sardines. But our direction was fairly dead.
We grabbed a four seater train booth with minimal suspicious stains and threw our bags on the seat next to us, settling in.
Austin didn't say anything for a second, which was rare; he was a chatterbox. Then he ruined it. "Look, Lena, about Jace."
I banged my head dramatically back against my seat. "That name gives me a migraine."
"That could also be the bashing your head against metal," said Austin. "Or, like, the number of times you were clearly dropped on your head as a baby."
I smiled with saccharine sweetness. "You're so kind."
"Anyway, what I was saying. Just give him a shot."
"What?"
Austin looked smug, leaning back in his chair. "For one whole day, you're going to be nice to Hartley. You're going to be sweet, caring, compassionate. There's going to be no sarcasm. No fighting. You will not rise to anything he says."
I laughed at him. "Okay, Austin, sure."
Austin raised his eyebrows. "And you're going to do it today, or I will tell Mum and Dad that you are sequestering a boy in your bedroom."