“I’m Julian,” he muttered, then added as an afterthought, “nice to meet you.”
I laughed humorlessly. I was so sure.
“Ariel,” Addison gritted out between clenched teeth. I had a feeling he was fed up with asking me what the heck had happened and having me avoid answering him. I couldn’t honestly blame him for feeling this way.
“I need to get this blood off me and see to my wound,” I told him in a quiet voice I barely recognized as my own. He frowned at me.
I moved into the bathroom not bothering to close the door behind me. I stopped short as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My tan had been bleached out, replaced by a ghostly paleness not suited to my natural complexion. Half my face was coated in my own blood due to the gash at my temple. Thankfully, it had stopped bleeding. I simply needed to clean the blood off, slap on some Neosporin and cover it up with a bandage and I’d be good to go. Or so I hoped.
&
nbsp; I pulled the black t-shirt I had on up and off and threw it to the floor. It had a few small wet spots on it I assumed were blood. It must have dripped onto my shirt when I was running. I had a black tank top on underneath my t-shirt. I normally wasn’t so messy, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care about picking up a stupid t-shirt right now. A look in the mirror showed me all three of them watching me from the doorway. Two wore looks of concern, the other simply looked curious. Yes, I definitely had a headache coming on. Ignoring them, I went to the linen closet and pulled out a washcloth to clean the blood off my face with, peroxide to wash out the gash and the Neosporin. I didn’t see any bandages or I would have grabbed one of those for my face as well. I carried it all back to the sink where I unceremoniously dumped it all onto the counter. As I wet the washcloth there was movement behind me so I looked up into the mirror again. My mouth parted in surprise as I noticed Abel had joined the group.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked in surprise. Were we having a party in my bedroom I hadn’t been informed of?
“What the hell happened to your head?” He barked at me, completely ignoring my question.
“Did she let you in or did you just waltz in here on your own?” I was genuinely curious about his answer, at the same time I dreaded it.
“Is that drunk lady your mother?” He didn’t directly answer my question, but he answered it all the same. He’d met her. She’d let him inside. And he could tell she was drunk. Wonderful.
I closed my eyes in shame. Yes, that drunk lady was indeed my mother. It got worse, though, if you could imagine that.
“She patted me on my ass when I walked past her.” He told me proudly with a small smile on his face.
Addison snorted. “That’s bullshit, twin. I didn’t get a pat on my ass when I got here and I’m the better-looking brother. I’ve always been the better-looking brother.”
“The hell you say.”
“Guys,” Tyson butted into their bickering, sounding exasperated. “Do you think you might wanna argue about who is the better-looking brother when Ariel isn’t bleeding to death?”
“I’m not bleeding to death,” I told them as I wiped my face with the washcloth. “And I’m sorry my mother copped a feel of your ass. I’m so, so sorry about that. But, uh… if I were you and I planned on coming over again I’d probably try and get used to it happening on a regular basis.”
All three gaped at me.
I didn’t care, nor did I see the point in lying to them about her. The truth would come out eventually, why not now?
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked as I wiped off the last of the blood. The gash didn’t look so bad when it wasn’t gushing blood. It didn’t even look that big. Head wounds tended to bleed more.
“What happened to your head, Ariel?” Tyson asked instead of answering my question.
I sighed as I cleaned my wound and decided to answer them honestly. I don’t know why I did it, maybe because I was tired and over the whole day, maybe my head had been hit harder than I originally thought. Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. I was brutally honest with them just like I had been earlier at lunch. It’s like they brought something unexplainable out in me.
“My mother, for reasons that were entirely her own, decided to throw her glass full of vodka at my head. As you can see, she has excellent aim. She then chased me out of the house while swinging her bottle of Grey Goose at my head. She does this kind of thing from time to time.” I shrugged like it was no big deal to me. And it kind of wasn’t. She’d thrown plenty of things at me before, that’s why she had such remarkable aim.
“Why would she do such a horrible thing to her own daughter?” One of the twins asked quietly, I wasn’t sure which one.
“She got mad and jealous because Mr. Cole bought me a Range Rover.” I shrugged again. “It’s just who she is, who she’s always been.”
“That’s…” Tyson sputtered. “That… I don’t understand.” On some days I didn’t really understand either.
“It is what it is.” I threw the dirty washcloth down on top of my blood-stained t-shirt. “If you guys came over to make sure I’m alright you can go now. Clearly, I’m going to be just fine. I’m hungry, I’m tired and I have homework to do. I’m not trying to be rude, but you guys need to go. Besides, I don’t even know you, any of you, and now you’re here standing in my bedroom. It’s kind of making me uncomfortable.”
“Haven’t you ever had friends before?” Julian asked me. “It’s normal to have your friends in your bedroom.” Considering I’d met him for the first time in my life all of ten minutes ago, I thought he might be full of crap. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no, I hadn’t had friends before, and I still wasn’t sure I had any now.
I picked up everything I’d dumped on the counter and headed towards the linen closet to put it all back away now that I no longer needed it.
“Julian, shut up,” Tyson snapped. “You’re making her uncomfortable so you need to leave. Go next door. Twins, go downstairs and make her something to eat. Also, make sure her mother stays down there. If you can do that and avoid being molested, great. If not, jokes on you, you deserve it.”