I was in the backyard in my yellow bikini, resting on the day bed in fowler's position under the parasol by the elliptical poolside, another perk from the home renovation. I was quietly browsing through the books the teachers from my school had entrusted us to read before the end of summer break when the patio door opened. I didn't have to look to recognise those fake lilting voices with so much stress accommodating perfection.
It was Quinn and Suri, along with resonant voices that tell there were men in the building.
Lilith should deal with that.
Although it wasn't my lucky day, my inner words couldn't be heard, and my prayers for silence wasn't answered.
Quinn stupidly asked regardless of the patency of my position,
"What are you doing?" Her voice was stilted, I already knew, so when I looked up at her and found a smug on her features, it didn't faze me.
"Lilith is in her room," I informed her, sounding dismissive.
Her eyes rolled,
"Oh please," She sullenly dropped on the bed and gestured for someone to come over.
"The boys are hungry. I assume it is okay to use your food stocks and stove. They are boiling eggs." Suri casually announces, walking over with shopping bags in her hands, acting all superior in a house that isn't hers.
I turn my head, locks of hair slumping over my face; I peek through the opened door where from what I can count, three boys were freely cruising in their dirty boots around my kitchen, making whatever concoctions men can make.
As I turn over to the girls, they pack my books and set them aside.
"What are you doing?" I borrowed Quinn's line from earlier and attempted to reach for my belongings, but Quinn is fast to distance them from me.
Sternly, I snapped, "What again?"
My voice was edgy. I hate having to tolerate these girls.
"You are coming with us." Suri snapped her manicured fingers around and threw the bags with Prada logos over to me. "Go try this."
I cast a sceptical eye at the girls, and my vision narrowed to a pinprick,
"How much do I owe you for what I didn't ask for?"
"Fifteen hundred." Suri cheered with a mixture of a winsome and threatening smile, "Sent you my Venmo."
Of course, she will.
Since when is force shopping a thing in America, I thought it's all about freedom?
They kept their attentive eyes on me while I made the transaction, and in a few seconds, her phone buzzed.
"Great." Both girls unison in the most pretentious accent and pull me by the arms.
"I am not going. I am grounded." I protested and shrugged them off.
Quinn's face scrunched up in disbelief. Her squinted eyes raked my body as if I'd grown two heads. "Since when is that a problem?"
"Since it became none of your business." I fire back a cynical response and lay back in my former position. "Look, I've paid what I didn't ask for, so now let me have the alone time I deserve." I exhaustedly implore just as Suri's phone went off, and alarmed, she started scrolling through.
"Holly freaking molly." She screeched-a blood-curdling scream. I had to press my fingers into my ears to hold them together from cracking my brain.
"What?" Rather disgruntled, Quinn scowled at her friend.
"Before the fireworks, Kai Belcher will be fighting Tyron Bertram." Suri excitedly announces, not taking her eyes from her phone even for a second. "It's happening tonight. Tyron just got in town." She added.
"No way," Quinn exclaimed, gasping like a drowning person.
"Take it easy, don't die for unworthy things. It takes two days for the living to forget about the dead. For some is approximately an hour." I remarked and opened my history book just to get it snatched away from me.
I shoot Suri a glare, and she fires back a displeased smirk.
"Get dress Ava, and stop acting English wise." Quinn started unpacking the bags, revealing what they had shopped.
And before I could infer what was coming, they literally forced the outfits on me. I can't even begin to assume how they did it because I didn't just yield. I fought, wriggled and screamed, but they had me tog up anyway.
By the time I was garnished in a mini gown and overcoat and white trainers, I was breathing hard and fast from trying.
Would they always have to be rude and controlling?
"You only had to comply, but no, you always have to be a child," Quinn complained and the boys' snickers. The wankers had come out while I was violently getting some slutty dress over me.
"You know I don't understand why you are still obsessed with me? Or is this about Embry? The girl decided to leave, and you three still feel insecure?" I mocked, but my words didn't have the effect on them I intended for, or they were too good at concealing emotions because discomfort is a nonentity on their feature.
"Please bitch, a hundred Ava's can't replace Embry. In case your little brain is telling you otherwise, remind that." Suri articulated, with a know-it-all tone, while gently adjusting my hair and eyebrows with her fingers.
Fixing the lace of my comfy shoes, Quinn went on, "This is charity. We are trying to help you not ruin your life."
"What is happening here."
At the authoritative tone of Lilith, both girls, including me, had tilted in the direction her voice came from,
She was dressed in leather pants and some bizarre fur coat, hair organised neatly, and a layer of light make up adding a glowing bonus to her skin.
"Is this your way of coming back on me? It's weak."
If she thinks inviting her two dogs to fight for her is going to get to me, then she must be very stupid by now.
She shifts her glare to the girls when her edgy voice rattles through the air, "Told you to leave her alone."
"She is coming." Quinn held her glare, and I swear I saw some kind of shared understanding sparkle in their eyes as they taciturnly communicated. Seconds later, Quinn turned over to me with a friendly smile and lay her hand over my shoulders. "What else is she going to do here alone, other than committing mental suicide with ridiculous history books on summer break. You are too pretty to do that."
Okay, I smell something fishy. Highly stinky than the usual fishy they would smell.
They must be up to something. Calling me pretty isn't something enemies would enjoy unless there is a win for them, and their win had never been anything kind for me.
Lilith mumbled, "Whatever." from behind Quinn and hooked her arm around Clark, who had appeared amused, standing there in the middle of the other boys, shoving a whole egg into his deep shade of pink mouth.
At the front of the building, where Quinn's Car is parked, I began contemplating the choice I was taking. Of course, I wanted to leave this suffocating and psychotic twinging house. I needed to do something fun, but not with this kind of people, those willing to throw me under the bus any chance they get.
"You saw the text?" Jordan questioned, and Lilith mumbled an Mm-Hmm, eyes lost into her mobile phone screen.
"Can't believe baby Kai is battling Tyron. I can feel my body hurt for him already." Clark snorts as our garage door starts elevating.
"Saw it. That's a dumb idea." Lilith slid out her arms from her fuck buddy and headed towards the garage where our cars were parked.
I thought Christian forbade her to drive until he said so. Then again, he had forbidden her from hanging with friends so as to leave the house, but she had gone on with doing all those things nonchalantly.
"I know, right? It's enough trouble for the fireworks, now a fight? We did be lucky if we end up in a cell." She laughs while handing over her key to Clark, and like a trained chauffeur, he dashed towards the range rover.
"I can't go to jail. I have a life. I can't ruin my college records; that's Ava's place." The contempt in her tone was disgusting. It made me nervous.
My strength of resisting was wearing off; I wanted to blurt a lot of things, I wanted to hurt her too for maltreating me, for carelessly messing with my emotions.
"What does that mean?" My voice was almost a whisper, not very well as I should handle it.
"I am just saying you know there more than any of us, and I wouldn't like a tour."
I was getting emotional. I couldn't control it, but they weren't meant to see me that way.
"I can always stay." I suddenly changed my mind and turned back to the house, where I had absorbed my pain every day.
"God, finally, I can breathe." I heard Lilith mumble behind me.
I wondered for a brief second if whether her friends even knew of her sexuality and that she had been hitting on me for a while. But it is obvious she's trying so hard with Clark and Quincy to provide a shred of evidence because she isn't strong enough to come out.
The next thing I heard while I was distancing away from them was small whispers between their circle as the hypocrites they are; it had nausea rising from my stomach, my vision fogged, and my head spinning,
"Why did you ruin it?" Suri had whispered, but not so quiet enough, because I heard. "I thought we had it all planned, weren't we supposed to toss her out somewhere it will take her the whole night to walk back home."
Lilith wouldn't dare. My instinct had suggested, but she reacted with a kind of laugh a snitch would and said something like, "I hate the girl too much to survive in the space of a car for anything longer than half a minute."
Turning over wasn't worth it. I had long messed my face with pools of tears, so instead, I shoved the front door open and threw it closed behind me immediately I was in the safety of the building, sliding against the wall of the foyer and trying to catch my intense breathing, but it had already overwhelmed me. There was a harsh constricting feeling in my chest. It felt like my heart was being squeezed repeatedly. My hands rub that place to cease the agonising sting of sorrow, which wouldn't lessen a bit.
There were noises in my head that screamed of my loneliness. I couldn't shout, despite the desire of wanting to, but something thick had blocked my throat. It felt like desperation.
My windpipe and lungs had tightened. I was choking on tears, breathing rapidly and barely, so disorganised and challenging, just like every panic attack I had at night the past year.
I lost track of time, right there until there were no more tears to shed. Several times my phone had gone off, but I was too tired to care, and mostly my swollen eyes that felt shrunken also felt heavy. I pulled myself from the floor to the living room and curled up on the couch, leaving my absent eyes on the large telly, showing a golf tournament.
The time passed with me feeling the worst kind of sorrow. The pain had stamped itself inside of me, bringing up in my head the reminders of my mistakes, my regrets and all the devastations I couldn't deter.
"I am leaving." Announced a familiar voice that struck straight into my eat and down to rip into my heart, with instant abounding power, it spews more agony. I felt it everywhere in me. I had to force myself to focus on regulating my breathing.
Sometime earlier, I think I heard some noise from the foyer, but nothing matters anyway. I have tremendous wounds that transcend the fear of having an axed stranger in a hood in my home.
"Are you okay?" He asked when I didn't say anything or cared to flash him a glance.
The closer he advances towards me, the more brilliant he shines. It was like watching the sun rising in the sky, beautiful but searing.
"Ava?" Leigh called when he squatted before me, bringing along that good scent of his.
It was emotional punishment, ablaze in my head. His presence was clawing the scars of his love and desire, waking that wild and flaming lust I hold for him just as it revived the anger of the mistakes he had made, most of which I didn't hesitate to live through and forgive him because holding a grudge against him for a long time was impossible. But here I am, getting avoided without doing anything.
"You don't have to tell me. You leave and return anytime you please. It's your life; you do what you want with it." My flat voice was hoarse and dry from crying and muteness.
For a brief moment, he stares sightlessly into the surface of the couch between us with a deep frown chiselled into his features. He seems to be mulling over something.
His presence was too affecting and was stirring bitterness in my throat. I can finally feel tears forming in the back of my eyes.
"Please leave. Your friends are probably out there waiting for you."
"Have you been crying?" He examined my face with worried eyes.
Annoyed, he wasn't doing as I had asked, I sat up and straightened to my feet, intending to leave, but he rose with me, standing in my face, his broad figure blocking my way.
I huffed, my eyes rolled upward.
"Leigh, step away from me. Haven't you mess with my head enough? You and this fucking family." I shoved him with very little strength my weak body could generate. The attempt was ineffective; he didn't budge the slightest. His hands caught my wrists and stopped me from striking again, which I so badly want to.
How dare he walk in here with an act as though he gives a damn about my feeling? I didn't see him thinking twice when he walked out of the house every day since we came back here without looking my way. Since yesterday after he had closed the door behind him and left me with his horrible soul sister, I haven't set my eyes on him.
Even now, he has been in the house for a while; he didn't mind of my existence; he went on with what he came home for. He must have probably taken a shower and donned another pair of black clothing. It is clear he wouldn't care coming over to me if I had responded to his departing notice.
"Me? What about you? Are we going to forget that you started all of this?" He slipped on an icy sneered, and I winced at the harsh reminder. "We were safe and sound when you chose to drag us into this chaos."
"Don't blame me." I jerk my hands from his grip. It wasn't a firm clasp, so my struggle was effortless.
"Tsk Tsk." He shook his head, his face flushed with parallelled anger. "I blame you." He sternly retaliated, at equal volume as I had spoken. "I don't understand you. You are insatiable. Nothing I can do would please you. You push me away just when things are going well. You always have a reason to bring a pause in our progress, with calling us off or running over to someone to spend the night." When he was done, there was an angry vein that popped out in his neck, clenched solid jaw, and flaring eyes that had transformed from soulful green to an abyss of darkness.
Haven't I had enough for today? I just needed peace and quiet. Shouting and screaming hadn't been on my agenda, but he and his sister always have a way of having everything their way.
"It is not like I am the one who left to college, distorted into a college man who is ashamed of his poor little whatever I am to you, back here in high school."
"I changed?" Sarcasm overtook his face. He retreated a step and observed me closely with squinted eyes from over the top of an invisible eyeglass.
His brazen behaviour had me feeling vulnerable.
"Of course." I croak, batting away the tears.
"So weird to my ears." His face screws up with contempt. It was another foreign side of Leigh I'd never known. "You know, after coming back home to find out, that innocent girl I once knew is now indistinguishable from every other fake residence in Las Vegas. Rude, high, wild, always finding fault in their parents, I don't think you have the privilege to measure others behavior." It is after what he had said recognition dawned on his face, and he instantly looked like he had seen a ghost.
But it didn't matter. He had just pulled out the knife his words had been twisting in my chest. Now I was bleeding from his bold statement.