“Trinity? Oh she’s a lovely girl.” Mum sighs.
“No Aunt Bev,” Tori bursts out laughing again and my temper begins to boil. “Remmie’s crushing on Areyna, the cop’s kid.”
“She’s not their kid. She’s their roommate.” I’m not sure why that distinction is important to me, but it is. I don’t bother hanging around any longer, the two of them are now arguing over whether or not Areyna’s style of clothing is still fashionable.
I get to my room just as I see the lights go on in her window. With the curtains drawn I can’t see her very well, but it’s enough to have me relaxing. My mind starts picking over the reasoning behind her presence being relaxing to me and I soon find myself drifting off to sleep.
Eighteen
Areyna
I’m running, I’m not sure what from but I know I have to get away. My feet pound over the pavement as I try to go faster. Something bad is behind me, I can feel it. My heart starts to pound as my fangs drop through my gums. My entire body thrums with power as I leap over a fence that would normally be too high for me to even climb. I feel like I can fly but there’s no time to enjoy the sensation as I hear the monster chasing me. It sounds like it’s getting closer. “Eliza… You can’t run forever. I will find you!”
I wake covered in sweat, my heart practically pounding out of my chest. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I find myself slowly calming down, the details of the nightmare slipping through my fingers. After a few moments, all I can remember is that I was running from something or someone but that’s all.
A noise outside makes me leap from the bed. I’m across the room and peering out the curtains before I can consciously think to do so. In the yard below me is a stray dog, digging through the overturned garbage cans beside the back door. With a sigh, I hurry out of my room and downstairs. The dog runs off just as I’m opening the back door but the damage is done, scraps and torn shreds of paper litter the entire back yard.
“Need a hand cleaning that mess up?”
My hand shoots up to cover my pounding heart, “Shit Remmie, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” He bends over to pick up some of the mess, “Couldn’t sleep, heard the bins crash so thought I’d investigate.”
“It was just a dog.” I whisper back, shoving the rubbish back inside the can before setting it back in its usual place. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“I don’t know, I’ve always had trouble sleeping.”
“Bad dreams?” I’m curious if he’s got split personality, he seems so nice sometimes, yet stuck up at others.Maybe he’s just shy and awkward. That could explain the strangeness of his personality.
“No, I don’t dream.” He shrugs his shoulders as though its normal.
“Everyone dreams. Some people just don’t remember their dreams.”
“No, I don’t dream at all. I’d remember.”
“You’re really odd, you know that?” I smile to let him know I don’t mean anything bad by it, but the way his face falls leaves me feeling bad. “Re-.”
“I’ve been told how odd I am.” He says, speaking over me. He’s gone before I can say anything.
I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning in bed, stressing over my conversation with Remmie.
* * *
I wakeup to wet weather and Jase banging on my door. He just won’t stop and I only got a few hours of sleep. I’m in such a terrible state that I pull on the first thing I find in my closet, a pair of skinny jeans and a plain black top, wrench the door open and yell, “Fuck off!”
“Good morning to you too, Sunshine.” I can’t stay mad at him when he grins at me like that, asshole is far too cute, especially with his new haircut.Urgh why did they have to go undercover. It was easier to ignore my crush on the two of them before they looked their ages.
“Come on, don’t want to be late to school.”
“You’re enjoying this school crap far too much.”
“I missed out on a lot of this too, you know.” He pouts and my heart melts, it’s not fair that a guy as good looking as Jase is would have a killer pout.
Not fair at all.
He has a point though, the poor guy missed out on half the childhood milestones because his mother and father were pushers, you know the kind of parents I’m talking about, the ones who push their child to be great at everything. He graduated early, went through the police academy young and skipped over everything a normal teenager does.
The more I think about it, the more I feel sorry for him. I might not have lived through his past, but I’ve heard enough about it to know that despite his parents being really strict, he loved them and misses them dearly.