02 November 2015

Monday

08:15 a.m 

"I'm telling you, the gloss accentuates your hair", Emilia pursed her lips and placed her hand on her hips, "go for it." She flashed Rosé an encouraging thumbs up and smoothed the nonexistent creases on her tennis skirt; something she'd do when she was nervous. 

"Why're you so uppity?" Rosé tossed the tube in her dresser and faced her best friend. Emilia loudly exhaled, "promise you won't freak out!" Rosé skeptically nodded, a series of morbid scenarios running through her head starting with the text message she'd received the previous night. She didn't follow the instructions and deemed it a hoax but what if it was true? What if Charlie and El were hooking up? What if they were in l- 

"Lucas is back", Rosé squealed in horror and Emilia flinched in response positive her eardrums were no longer intact. "Yeah...You promised not to freak out." Rosé slammed her palm on her mouth, wide-eyed, "my bad."

"Yeah, well, I saw him at the bookstore yesterday", Emilia paced around the bedroom frantically, worry marred her face, and Rosé sighed. It was high time Emilia shoved her feelings in the gutter and moved on. Her mixed emotions combined with Elowen's betrayal had messed up her mind. "There's a very high chance he doesn't go here", Rosé chimed trying to brighten the mood, "you know how much he hates rich snobs."

Emilia rolled her eyes, reapplying her cinnamon-flavored lipgloss, "he's the rich snob with a millionaire mom and music producer of a dad." To say Lucas was loaded was an understatement. His mother was the heiress to a multimillion-dollar company but married his dad; the town sheriff to protect her sanity. Rifts and differences came in between their profound cliché love and tore them apart, yet they kept touch. Ironic. 

His mom met with a fancy record producer, they fell in love and he treated Lucas like his own flesh and blood, cue his infertility, and invited him to live with them in New York seeing as the sheriff was always consumed with work to pay his son any attention. 

Amazing timing, he burnt down a couple hundred bridges, namely with Em, El, Rosé, Clare, and Astrid. "Fretting will make things more horrid than they already are. How about we relax and when you see him in the hallways A-V-O-I-D." 

Emilia sighed then practiced her breathing, "fine." She slipped into her sneakers, adjusted her sweater vest, and then grabbed her backpack. She was going to face Lucas. She was going to destroy her demons and she was going to hurt Lucas, just as much as he'd hurt her. 

They were no longer 5. 

They were no longer Lu and Lia. 

They were no longer friends. 

They were 16.

They were Lucas and Emilia. 

They were strangers. 

The hallways were bustling with over-energetic students. People dashing to their lockers, fraternizing with their cliques. Then like a cliché 2000s movie, Em, Rosé, Clare, and Astrid strode in, missing their leader but gorgeous and confident nonetheless. Pin drop silence, mummers, and compliments followed them until they halted at their lockers, grabbed their books, and waved their hands dismissively urging everyone to go back to whatever they were doing. 

Cringe much. 

Another day, another celebrity-like reaction from their classmates who'd decided to place them on a diamond-encrusted pedestal. Elowen enjoyed the spotlight, the glimmer, the money, the fame but the others were desperate for some normalcy in their exaggerated and public lives. 

"Biology", Clarence mumbled, Elowen had switched their schedules to they'd all have identical ones. Bitch messed with their electives and controlled their lives like they were puppets. Clarence rubbed her temples, "fucking hate this", she cursed under her breath. 

A shrill shriek silenced the hallway as a brunette staggered out of the biology room. Her mouth cupped in mortification and terror marred her face like an ugly scrawl on a beautiful painting. Her shaky legs gave out and she stumbled to the floor, still clutching her mouth before giving up and spewing the contents of her breakfast on the floor. 

A few people rushed to her aid and handed her tissues whilst others peered curiously. "I-i-i-ins-ins-inside", she stammers, pointing to the half-open door. Rosé crouched down to her level and reassuringly patted her back, "it's fine Candice, it can't be that bad."

"E-e-e-elowen", she choked out from in between tears and sobs. Rosé slowly pushed the door open and was greeted by an acrid stench. She covered her nose with the sleeve of her jacket before coming face to face with a limp body. Her breathing halted, her body stilled and her heart stopped beating as her eyes landed on the familiar shirt. Her voice abandoned her when she parted her mouth to scream. Time stilled so did her body and the only thing reminding her that she was still alive was the feeling of hot tears cascading down her cheeks. 

And when she finally found her voice, her body slumped onto the floor and she cried, choked over her spit, and howled. Not caring who was listening to the fact that she was sitting in a dead person's blood. She pressed her hands against their one too many wounds in hopes of stopping the blood, but they were dead. "NO!" She wailed, checking their pulse before applying even more pressure to their wounds. 

"PLEASE! I FUCKING LOVE YOU! WAKE UP", she shook the corpse and broke down, her tears merging with his blood until a pale stricken Emilia pulled her away. "NO!" She yelled. She had lost too many people in her entire life, too many were gone and now her only solace had disappeared too? 

Why was god so awful?

Why did he have to take away everything that mattered?

Why did he hurt people?

We didn't do shit to him. 

"CHARLIE!" She yelled, thrashing her limbs to free herself from Emilia's grip but another person grabbed and wrapped their arms around her abdomen, "calm down, Rosie" Lucas whispered. 

"Let go of me, you bastard!" Rosé exclaimed, shoving her elbow into his jut but he didn't budge, tightening his grip on her ever so slightly. "Wheres Dean Olivia?"

Emilia ignored him too preoccupied with drinking in the sight in front of her. An image her brain would never forget, a memory etched so hard into her heart it hurts. She furiously wiped away the tears cascading down her cheeks, leaving behind a horrible streak of mascara in their wake. 

Charlie's bloody corpse lay in front of them. Multiple stab wounds decorated his body. His once smirking lips were white, his previously beaming face pale and lifeless not to mention the one person who brought Rosé happiness was dead. 

Gone. 

Never coming back. 

Emilia bit her lip in a furious attempt to stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. She pulled off her vest and draped it across Charlie's face. She had to be strong for Rosé. Slowly she stepped over the dead body and walked over to the curtain. The looming silhouette, pool of blood, and Loubatines made it obvious who it was. Emilia desperately prayed this was a nightmare as she garnered enough courage to push the curtain open and revealed a bloody mangled body. 

A scream ripped through her throat as she stared mortified at the sight in front of her. Elowen's body sat in the center of a pool of blood. Her body hung from a rope tied to the ceiling and her organs were painfully ripped out and placed on the window sill beside her. Her face was contorted into a painful expression and Emilia could feel the pain radiating from her. Elowen was brutally murdered, mangled, and tossed away. 

Her death was identical to Marigolds. A shudder ran through her and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up at the thought of Elowen'ss murderer lurking around when she narrated the story. The sight of blood trailing down the wall caused her to push the curtain aside and she gasped. Her bloody hands cupped her mouth in astonishment as she staggered away. 

Blood dripped down the wall as it was used as ink to write the words:

You lie. You die.

across the wall, like a sick sign. Her breath hitched in her throat as she studied the words on the wall. Her breathing became ragged and all she could focus on was the spinning room before everything went black for somewhere inside her, a little part of her believed that Elowen did deserve to be brutally murdered as a payment for all her sins. 

Hell just wasn't enough for some people.