Blame Me

Chapter 8

　　Chapter 8 

　　Jace

　　

　　The cold air nipped at the face as we walked down the broken and dirty streets of downtown. Compared to a few hours ago, there weren’t as many people here crowding the streets, rushing to go where ever they needed to. The streets seemed to be filled with light, the street lamps loomed over us as we walked underneath them, and almost every building we passed had their lights on. The darkness seemed far away in this part of town, noise filling up the air and the smell of a thousand different aromas reached my nostrils. I wonder how it would be like to live here, to always have this rush around you. 

　　I walked in silence behind Elise and Jack, watching as they energetically chatted with each other, laughing now and then about something the other one said. Jack seemed happy to be here, to be talking to Elise, and if it weren’t for that sole reason, I would have automatically said no to his request to go to Elise’s home. Even though we were on better terms with each other, I still felt awkward around her, I just didn’t know how we were supposed to act around each other. 

　　Lexi had called me earlier when Jack and Elise were talking. I could here the yelling across the phone when she was talking, trying to explain the war that was going down in our home. It was no place for two tweens to witness let alone live in, hence the reason she called to tell me not to come home, instead saying she would text me when everything died down. She had went to our home after Milly called her, crying about harshness of some of the words being thrown around. I couldn’t bring Jack home to that, I couldn’t have him end up like me. Hating everything to do with the prestigious poeple that thought they were better than everyone else. They were the ones that made our home fall apart, made everything feel so void of emotion that it would be the last place you would call home. 

　　Dani walked a little bit to the side of me, lost in her own world, looking around the downtown area with a careful eye, much like I was. I wondered how far their car was from here, they couldn’t have walked from their home here. All the more expensive and bigger houses were a while away from downtown, it took at least half an hour of walking with short cuts for us to get here.

　　“Hey, Elise!” A man called out from the edge of his balcony about two stories up a building.

　　“Hey!” Elise called back waving her hand while gripping four bags in her fingers. 

　　If I were still assuming things that would be another reason to not like her, she had easily more than forty items in the bags that she was holding. I would have assumed that she didn’t even look at the price tags and instead threw away her money like it was nothing. But I was trying my best to not make assumptions, and I didn’t know if that was true. Elise was already starting to have a ways of surprising me.

　　Jack and I walked further on, away from the building, while Dani and Elise stood back talking to the man on the balcony. 

　　“Hey, where are you going?” Elise called out to us after a few minutes. We had walked about half a block away from where they were before turning back to see them standing a bit closer to the building’s gate entrance. 

　　“To your car?” Jack replied in a questioning tone. 

　　“Why would we need a car?” Dani asked, “We’re home,” she motioned towards the building. 

　　I looked over at the two of the with shock. They lived there? I was not expecting that at all. The building looked ancient and in a desperate need of a make over. The outside had cracks lining the walls and the dark red paint covering the front door was peeling. But the more closer I looked I could see a charm to the building. The garden in the courtyard was kept almost to perfection and almost every window was lit show casing a variety of people living in the apartments.