Genevieve
LEOPARDS NEVER CHANGE THEIR SPOTS.
Can people change? Can they truly modify that setting within them to start anew and never relapse to their old self? Do cheaters never slip back into that deceitful life? Do liars vow to always tell the truth afterwards and never ever utter another little white lie?
I sigh, casting my gaze to my floor-length window. The view is mainly obscured from the darkness that's settling over Westville. Ford's parents' house is almost entirely plunged into blackness, but it must mirror my house. Both my parents are out for the evening with some professors for dinner my dad's obligated to attend with my mom on his arm.
Ford's boxing fight should be starting around now, but I have no intention of attending.
By attending it means I'm traversing the road of forgiveness for him and I'm not there. I'm nowhere near there because of what he did to me. While my heart and my body aches to be near him again—to feel him against me in every sense of the word—my head's telling me I'm better than that and I deserve a shitload more respect.
Our hearts and feelings are essential and beautiful in their own right, but they elicit pain and suffering. I can't cease the longing I have for Ford, no matter how many lectures I receive from my best friends. My parents don't ever mention Ford because I know they don't want to hurt me, so they skirt around the topic, but I know they'd be disappointed in me for these perplexing feelings.
My phone bleats from my bed.
As I glance at it, I feel that familiar tug at my heart. I expect the message to be from Ford querying my absence from the audience and it's been sent at the last moment before he has to be gloved for his walkout.
With another sigh, I'm bridging the distance and retrieving my phone. Where I expect to see Ford's name, I find an unknown number. As cold dread settles in my gut, I open the message. It's sent by the same person who sent me Hudson Bray's address. Jeanette Somerby.
Unknown: Follow my instructions. Go to this address
My phone vibrates in my hand twice in quick succession. The first message is of an address I don't recognise, and the third message is a photo. The contents make my blood run cold.
The quality is crisp and distinct. My parents are seated at a table beside one another with glasses of champagne in their hands, surrounded by more of my dad's colleagues. All of them appear animated as they engage in riveting discussions, all dressed to the nines. None of them notice the phone angled in their direction to snap the sly shot.
That's when the final message comes through.
Unknown: Got a clean sight on them. You wouldn't want anything to happen to them, would you? Go to the address, Genevieve
My eyes latch onto the photo for several more beats. I can feel my heartbeat accelerate in my chest and I have to remind myself to remain calm and stick to deep breaths. After my previous cardiac arrest following Bullet, I'm irritatingly clueless if there's anything else that can trigger another cardiac arrest or if I'm even prone to them without Bullet spicing my body. All I know is that I don't want to be taking chances when it's only been like a week since I felt as though I was on death's door.
Impulsively, I reach out to snag my car keys from my desk, dropping my phone in the pocket of my jeans. There's no doubt about what I need to do, despite the unknown beckoning me. There's no way I'm licensing my parents to be scooted to the middle of the crossfire. They're innocent people in all of this.
The drive takes longer than I would like. My nerves are on edge and I'm jitty and anxious. The darkness that's settling over Westville only feeds my nervousness knowing one of my senses is going to be impeded. And once I sail past the Westville border, I become more hesitant, second guessing myself. I wonder, despite the lethal proximity to my parents, if the threat was just empty words and nothing would happen to them in such a public and bustling restaurant.
