Nora has been tormented by haunting nightmares for months, yet amidst the darkness, she begins to encounter a captivating girl whose presence mesmerises her. The girl's beauty is so striking that Nora finds herself longing to see her again in her dr...
❛ Page of Swords Reversed Deception / Manipulation/ All Talk ❜
Nora
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THE STREETS ARE QUIET AND EERILY DARK tonight, an unusual sight for a Thursday evening. Most Thursdays often come with the sight of young adults in their huddles, sauntering about town after school, and couples taking brisk walks around the neighbourhood, some walking their dogs or even the occasional jogger.
But tonight, it's different.
As my dad drives down Houston Avenue, the street lamp flickers above us as we pass by, adding to the Halloween-esque ambiance. But it's not Halloween. It's not even October. It's the middle of July.
It feels like a ghost town, and every bone in my body feels rigid as we continue to drive by, the familiar melody of Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' doing nothing to shake the nerves that begin to creep down my skin the longer I stay in this car with my dad.
"Absolute rubbish!" he scowls beside me, his hand rushing to turn the radio off, leaving us in silence.
His face is flushed red and his eyes bloodshot. The usual. I knew it was wrong to get into the car with him, and the longer I am, the more I hear my mother's voice echo through my head like a broken record saying, 'call me when you get home', because she doesn't trust him, and neither do I. But tonight, I had no choice.
My hands are sitting on my lap, my phone tucked away safely in my jacket pocket, and my lips pursed. The last thing I want to do is speak. It's the one thing I wouldn't dare do around him. The rule is to not speak unless I'm asked. Like right now, for example.
"Why didn't you come home?" my dad questions.
He asked me this question the second I opened the car door outside my school campus, and again after we'd been driving for five minutes. I suppose that the third time's the charm, after all. Surely, it will do the trick—that is what they say, at least.
"I was finishing a project with my friends," I explain in a sweet and gentle tone. That's what I am to him, or what he assumes I am: some soft-spoken girl that obeys her father. A good girl. "We have a deadline coming up, so we decided to stay back to get it out of the way."
I know that he doesn't care about school or what I do, but he will do what he does best: pry. Uninterested in what I just said, he lets out a grunt and continues to drive us down the route that will take us back home.
"And your grades, what are they looking like this semester? You should show me when we get home."
"The usual," is what I start with, but I know that won't cut it. He will want more. "I don't get anything less than a high distinction, but I guess there are times where I don't quite make it, so I get a distinction every once in a while," I explain.
