Fever Dream Red

54

"You told Nick that Danny was escaping?"

Fae's eyebrows momentarily furrowed in confusion, and then the sprouted up in realisation and then they ran out of my gaze as Fae lowered her face in apparent shame.

She was right to be ashamed.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Fae murmered.
"Yeah, and Doug's straight. You're a really terrible liar. You do know that, don't you?"

I crossed my arms and plastered an irritated look on my face for when Fae resurfaced.

When she did she looked at me with her eyes narrowed like a teenager that had been caught in a web of lies by her parents.

"I had to." Fae shrugged.
"Did you?"
"Nick forced me to feed him information. I've been in this thing for ages. Don't you think I hate doing it?"
"Yeah, but you didn't have to tell him Danny was escaping. You could've just looked the other way."

Fae swallowed pitifully and focused on the ground.

"What does he do if you don't give him information?"
Fae shrugged. "Nothing. It is- it was, my mother who I got bad from."
"Okay?"
Fae sighed irritably.

"You wouldn't understand. I get that all the time- bad from my family, I mean. If I could get the smallest scrap of recognition, of joy, of care from my family, I would do it. You wouldn't understand." Fae looked at me with that annoyed face again. "Danny and Inez are always supportive to you. My family are too obsessive with each other to care about me."

I stayed quiet at that. Fae had always been an ignored and unregistered part of the group. No wonder it had taken its toll.

Neither had Aggie or Lily. They had stayed behind, either knitting or drinking wine. Nobody had looked at them.

Maybe that's why they were so good at their job.

I got up and left.

"Finny!" Fae called after me, standing up hurriedly.

I turned around. I wished I hadn't.

"You haven't told anyone else, have you?"

I debated telling her the truth. I debated telling her who had really killed her mother, but I didn't think she would've cared that much. I think now that that was a stupid position to take.

So I didn't. I lied.

"No." I swallowed. The lie came out uneasy but it rang true for Fae. Maybe she was so delusional that she would take any truth she was given.

Fae gave me a thankful nod. It was then the guilt seeped into my veins like the parasite I had so luckily dodged. Thankfully this plague was invisible, but it still seemed to travel between us all the same.

I walked back to the gardens and went back up to my room. I had only been back to drop my bag off sadly.

Nothing had changed. Everything was the same. I sighed sadly.

Would this really be the rest of my life?

I feared the whole cycle had started again. Maybe soon I would escape just to be convinced to come back.

Maybe it would repeat until I died.

I was sat on my bed, debating the decisions others had made that had led me to this unfortunate moment, when Inez brust in.

"You need to get ready."
"Why?"
"There's going to be a dinner."

Is sighed haughtily and rolled my eyes, to which Inez mimicked my expression.

"Come on." She motioned for me to go to her bathroom, whilst she began rifling through my wardrobe.

I sat there in front of the mirror and again examined my expression.

Whenever there was a mirror around, I always peered at myself in it. I couldn't help it; I was self obsessed teenager.

Sometimes I hated myself in them. I looked like a pretender, someone who had attempted to look like me and had in many ways had success. They just looked a little...off. That couldn't be helped my them.

Sometimes I loved my reflection. I would peer at it from every angle, revelling in my obvious beauty and wondering why no one had ever given me that kind of attention.

I then looked at everyone around me and the reasons for that became evidently clear.

Everyone just looked so much better than I did.

Any pictures of my looked atrocious. That was when the pretender was at her peak.

My expressions were always awful and one of my eyes was always lower down than the other, like a cake which had melted icing on it.

I felt then very much like a caricature, and wondered how I could ever wonder around with that face and not be constantly humiliated.

Humiliation was a regular occurence at that point. I became determined to revel in it and laugh at myself like I was the star of my own comedy show rather than wallow in self pity. It was more fun, even if it was cruel.

So I sat there in that chair, and determined that my reflection was not winning. Everything was wrong. My hair was too frizzy. My skin was too poxy. It had too many pores. It was disgusting. My eyes were framed by my dark circles. My nose...was okay, actually.

Not much can be wrong with a nose.

My lips were okay, but my teeth were horrendously yellow.

I wrinkled my face in disgust.

Inez hurried in, disrupting my hatred and forcing me into a pretty dress.

I put it on. This one was simple and short, made from silk. It was also red, of course. A luscious scarlet.

Then Inez set about doing my makeup. An artist waist deep in her craft, she then started asking my about other things.

"Tell me the gossip then."
"About what?"
"When you were away. What happened?"
"Haven't I already told you this?" I groaned.
"Of course, dummy. I wanna know the actual fun bits, not just the facts."
"Well, Alfie and Doug had some major PDA going on."

Inez stood back in shock.

"Stop it!"