Perfect (Rewrite)

Chapter Eight

Chloe jolted awake, pulling away from the embrace she was trapped in. Something beside her moved, so she jumped up and a cry of distress escaped her throat before she peered at the culprit. Jacob. She had forgotten about him showing up last night, in fact, she had forgotten about all of it, until now. Now everything was coming back to her. Her family was in just as much danger as she was, possibly already being prepared for their graves. Jacob shuffled around on the couch but his eyes didn't open, at least she hadn't woken him up with her underly thought action. Another creak filled the room and she looked up just as Rachel finished her descent on the stairs, rubbing her eyes with one hand and scratching the back of her, messed up hair, head with the other. She glanced at Chloe and then at Jacob and then rolled her eyes, approached the fridge, dug through the contents for whatever could fill her appetite. Food or juice? It was hard to tell from where Chloe was sitting.

A strange feeling crept through Chloe, a feeling that Rachel wasn't a big fan of her, even though she couldn't have possibly had a good reason for feeling that way, at least not yet. She didn't even know her, in fact, they were complete strangers to one another. Maybe that's what it was. Rachel just needed to get to know Chloe on a more personal level and maybe, even one day, become friends with one another. They seemed pretty similar in ways.

Chloe entered the kitchen and sat at the table where she had the night before. Rachel sat in the spot next to her just like she had the night before, and the feeling of Rachel disliking her slipped away into nothingness. It had been a crazy assumption in the first place. While Rachel ate a bowl of cereal, Chloe sat there, staring down at the table, tracing the pattern on the wood. Neither one of them said a single word to the other; the feeling had crawled back into Chloe. Surely someone who liked her would've said something by now, if only a brief salutation, but then again Rachel still didn't know anything about her. They were still complete strangers.

Chloe decided it was time to shed some light on the situation, "My name is Chloe Provan. I had a brother and a sister with two lov-, I had two parents. We lived in Kansas City, Kansas." Then she stopped; she couldn't remember anything else. Well, Chloe knew she had a best friend, but she couldn't even remember her name, besides, everyone had a best friend so it wasn't an important detail to mention. And was there possibly a dog in her household? A faint memory of buying dog food surfaced in her mind, but she couldn't remember how long ago that had been or if it was even real or not.

"The only part of that that's news to me is the fact that you lived in Kansas City, Kansas," Rachel retorted quickly without even glancing in Chloe's direction. After Rachel finished, she took another bite of her cereal and slurped a spoonful of milk.

"How is that even possible?" Chloe asked. "We've never really talked."

"We received a summary of you two days ago," Rachel said and this time she did make eye contact with Chloe, but she wasn't smiling as usual. Maybe she thought it wasn't necessary, or maybe she just couldn't conjure one up at the moment. "The day you were supposed to be here, yet you never got a strike." Then Rachel glanced down at Chloe's wrist and groaned. "I don't get what he sees in you. You don't seem very special to me."

Chloe opened her mouth to say something, but the sudden appearance of Margaret and David stopped her from speaking her mind. It wouldn't be good to start a fight, in fact, it was probably the worst thing possible, turning against each other would've only caused more problems. Whoever was watching them and telling them what to do probably didn't want either of them to feel pain whether it was physical or emotional, at least that's what Chloe was hoping for. She hoped he wanted what was best for them, that he would take care of them with caution.

"What's Jacob doing on the couch?" David asked as he made his way back into the living room. He stopped in front of the couch and scratched his head as he awaited an answer, staring down at the sleeping body which had recently spread itself over the entire length of the sofa.