A Rose as Black as your Heart

(40) The Best Day

Thank you to the amazing Silently_Surrender for making the beautiful new cover!! It was so sweet of you hon!! :) Love it Xxx

BTW, I chose this song cos I love it. Not for any other reason :)

Chapter 40

I stayed with Daniel the whole day. When we got hungry, we drove to a drive-thru Burger King (“Hey, look, it’s your future work place!”) and after we’d eaten, we walked along by the river to throw the left over chips to the ducks (or in Daniel’s case, at the ducks, with the force of gunfire).

“You’re like my brother when he was ten,” I said, watching him hurl a leftover chicken nugget at a gaggle of ducks, yelling “Die, bitches!” The ducks scattered with a flurry of feathers and squawking, flapping their wings indignantly.

“He abused ducks, too?”

“No, he was just generally a pain and really weird.” The ducks had regained their confidence, and were starting to paddle back over. “What’s so great about throwing stuff at them?”

“Their reaction,” Daniel snickered. I rolled my eyes.

Daniel dropped me off home, but then decided to play Xbox before Matt got home. This time, we played one of Matt’s war games, with pretty terrifying graphics. Daniel kicked my ass, obviously.

While we were laughing at my epic fail, Matt arrived. I didn’t hear the door unlock, but then he uncertainly called out, “Alexis?” and we shut up.

“Shit,” Daniel hissed. “Is it that late already? Dad’s gonna freak.”

“Matt’s home early,” I assured him, then called out: “Yeah, I’m in here!”

Matt appeared at the door, and his eyes narrowed at the sight of me and Daniel, despite the fact there was at least half a foot of space between us. “What’re you doing?”

“Video games?” I gestured to the controller in my hand.

Matt’s gaze roamed over the both of us mistrustfully. “What’re you two doing home this early, anyway?”

I shrugged and lied easily. “Sport this afternoon. They let us off earlier because of...” I gestured to the hammering rain outside. Matt swallowed my lie, which made me feel a flash of guilt; lying was fun, but lying to Matt felt wrong.

“Huh.” Matt hovered at the door, torn between playing nice to Daniel and showing his obvious dislike. Eventually, he simply turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

When he’d gone, I leant against Daniel’s warm side, and he put an arm around me. I never thought I’d find it so comforting to have someone hold me like that. Daniel’s hand lightly rubbed my arm, his knee brushing mine.

“D’you think anyone noticed we weren’t in school today?”

I felt rather than saw Daniel nod; he leant his cheek against my hair. “I’d bet on it. You’re the craziest person in school; everyone would’ve noticed you were gone.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you’re one of the A-listers; everyone would’ve cared that you were gone.”

“People care when you’re not there,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “They respect you.”

“Me?” I said incredulously. “That’s just weird. Name one person who respects me.”

“I can think of loads. Rose, for a start. Dom, Harrison, Travis.”

I sucked in a breath, and a wave of guilt whooshed over me, threatening to drown me. I hadn’t even thought about Travis all day. “Not sure about that last one.”