Spindle

Chapter 2: Walks With Jethro

It wasn't entirely Lully's fault that she hated Dolly so much. In the very beginning, when Dolly and her mother  had first moved in, it had been Lully's crack-smoking mother that had told her that Dolly was a stuck-up little spoiled brat. And so it was that, from the first day the new family was together, the two daughters became rivals.

Lully kicked a patch of grass off the sidewalk and scowled. She missed her mother, despite everything. Her father never let her go and visit, because he was afraid she'd be a bad influence on his already troubled daughter. But the now-seventeen-year-old was desperate for a mother she could trust -- even if that mother was addicted to cocaine and was living in a group home.

Pola Honing, Lully's mother, was once a beautiful woman. Her daughter kept a picture of her in her wallet, and now she pulled it out to look at. Her mother had a tiny frame, and perfectly manicured blond hair, and eyes as blue as a September sky. Lully had those eyes.

"Oi! Girly!"

She stopped. Took a deep breath in. Rolled her eyes. And then, she turned around to find Jethro Davies, the boy of her absolute dreams, running towards her.

She took a moment to take him in. Black hair and bright blue eyes and pale skin and everything so perfectly balanced. She didn't want to talk to him. She'd have to tell him that she hadn't delivered the note. And she didn't want to disappoint this tall, beautiful person.

"Didja give it to her?" Jethro asked as he caught up to his friend. He flung his coal locks out of his eyes and grinned a wicked grin at her.

Lully licked her lips, not quite sure what to say. "Yeah, I -- erm -- actually saw her this morning, and --"

Jeth sighed. "You didn't, did you?"

"Not yet."

When her best friend began to turn away, she lept in front of him, eager to please. "But I will! I will, Jeth, I promise, I've just been really busy and I keep forgetting."

The dark-haired boy with the bright eyes stared down at her. She was at least a foot shorter. "If you don't want to give it to her, you don't have to, mate."

Lully kicked a rock. "I'll give it to her," she said, not meeting his gaze.

"Good," Jeth said, grinning, " because otherwise, I'd have to kill you." Laughing, he picked her up (how easy was this, she was four times as small as him) and threw her over his shoulder, spinning in circles to make her dizzy -- because he knew that was her ultimate weakness.

Lully's voice let out a combination of yelps and laughs, happy for her flirtatious friend to show her the attention she longed for... but deep inside, an anger was brewing, hot as hell and twice as vicious. (How could she help it, he was teasing her, wasn't he, dangling himself in front of her only  to snatch himself away again.)

"Wanna go for a walk?" he asked, setting his friend back down on the ground (where she staggered around, dizzier than a drunken bullfrog).

The pair walked off down the street, not knowing that a tiny blond girl with large violet eyes watched them go, staring at them from her bedroom window. She opened it and leaned out to get a better view, the wind blowing her perfect blond bob around her pale face. She watched her step-sister and the boy called Jethro walk to the edge of the woods and disappear inside, wondering if he'd ever know who she was.