The Patron Saint of Monsters

Chapter Nine Part Three

Oleander sat silently on her bed, she gazed at the clock on her dresser. She gasped when she realized what time it was, she was shocked to learn that her friends were still in class. It had felt like months had passed while she had helped dispose of a body. Time felt different, she remembered when her grandmother told her that age slows time down. Time now felt like cold honey leaking out of a bottle, sticky and thick, but not sweet. The last time she could recall ever feeling even remotely like this was when she and Rebecca had smoked dabs behind the cinema. Thoughts smeared with Rebecca just made her even more nauseated. She took slow breaths and laid back onto her cold silky sheets and tried not to cry while she awaited Trent’s return.

Trent returned to Oleander as quickly as possible. He stormed up the flights of stairs and burst into her room. The sight of her sickened him, this was never the outcome he had wanted. He merely wanted Rebecca to kill herself. Trent knew that Oleander had a darkness inside of her, she was not like the normal girls he had attend school along with. Oleander was a breed of her own, unique in a way that mirrored everything he had ever aspired to find within himself and all of the secrets he had hid from the world. She was everything that he had ever wanted to find in the world. He hated seeing her so close to broken. He refused to let her break.

“I’m sorry.” He told her with tears in his eyes.

“Why?” She asked monotonically, “You did nothing wrong, Rebecca killed Izzy. We just disposed of Izzy. You were helping me and I was helping a friend. A friend who killed her step-mother.”

“You’re scaring me.” He confessed sadly.

“Ha!” She barked sarcastically, “I think that I am allowed to frighten you a little, considering.”

“Let me fix it?” He pleaded with her.

“How could you?” She asked hopeless.

Trent walked up to Oleander’s bed and crawled into it, wrapping his strong arms around her. “I’m here.” He said soothingly.

Tears filled behind her eyes and she rolled over to rest her head on his chest, but he swiftly intercepted her face and gently kissed her on her lips. She gasped once more and then kissed him back.