Beaten By Love

Chapter 6

I scrambled around my room, knocking bits and pieces over, but I didn't feel I could take my sweet time. What the hell was going on? Was I really about to go and stay overnight in Jace's house? I barely knew him! Yet here I was packing my bag with clothes and blue underwear with red trucks on them...wait what? Oh...Oscar.

I smacked my palm to my forehead. I must have gotten the washing mixed up again. Good job, Shay.

I had already spoken to Ms Thatcher, who hurriedly accepted my request and flapped away at me to get on with whatever it was I needed to do and that I "ought' not to worry at all, not one bit", as put in her own words.

I sighed as I zipped up my bag. I'd packed as much school books as I could from what I needed for tomorrow and maybe the next – I didn't know what might happen.

Switching the lights off as I walked back out of the apartment, I locked the door behind me and jogged steadily back down the stairs and out to where Jace waited in his Jeep Wrangler. I opened the door and got back into the passenger seat, belting myself in.

He swiftly started the engine, and backed out of the car park, before heading through the streets towards his house. Wherever that might be...

***

Jace rolled to a stop, outside another apartment building, but this made my block look like a shack in comparison. It was a glass building. A building made out of glass. Or at least, the outside of it was. I hoped. The building seemed to never end – there must have been a hundred stories.

We were in a higher class estate, with apartments far beyond my financial reach. Every block surrounding was almost identical, with a small individual differences such as the shade of the building, or the types and sizes of the balconies.

Jace got out the car and walked up to the main door just a few feet away from the car. I grabbed my bag and got out the car, slamming the door behind me, harder than I meant to so that Jace's head snapped back around and gave me an angry glare. Ah, he was one of those types, with the precious cars...

I followed him to the lobby – wow, there was a lobby – where he collected his keys from a beautiful blonde woman in a pressed suit stood behind the reception desk. It was half 11 in the evening – how did she manage to still look as good as that at the end of the day? Nothing I'd have the energy or motivation to do so no point asking, really.

Next, Jace led e around the corner where the elevators were, before pressing the button and an elevator door instantly opened. How did he do that? Who are these people?

The ride up the building was silent, besides the dreary classical music, and painstakingly awkward. His apartment was on the 45th floor. We were just passing the tenth. Brilliant. I cleared my throat.

"Um...so do you live here with your parents?"

13.

"Ha – no. No I live here alone, actually"

15.

"Oh. I didn't know. I'm sorry"

16

He looked over at me.

"Why would you have known? We never spoke. And what are you sorry for?"

18.

"I assumed something had happened to them. You're so young, I'd find it strange if that wasn't the case"

19

He shook his head. "God you're just like the rest of them. Actually, I left."

20

Oh.

21

Oh my god this elevator is taking forever.

23

"I'm sorry for assuming what I did. I just thought...you being so young, and this place..."

25

26

"Whatever"

That was all he responded. And no one said anything for the rest of the way up.

***

If I thought the building was impressive from the outside – I was blown away by the inside. The apartment took up the whole of one side of the building. I entered into a living room...except it didn't really feel like a room because the walls weren't exactly...defining. The apartment looked out onto the city, the windows were floor to floor and spread right along the length of the apartment. The living room led on to the kitchen, which was just as open and spaced out, and it was clean. The whole place was clean. And plain.

From what I'd seen – it was what it was. An apartment, but it was not a place I'd ever call home.

Jace headed down a hallway to the left, not waiting to see if I had followed.

"This way", he said, without glancing back.

Well then.

I sighed, and hurried after him. He stood outside a door on the right of the hallway, opposite another. A third door at the very end.

He indicated to the door at the end with his head. "That's the bathroom. Feel free to use it as and when you need it."

He then gestured to the door he was stood next to. "You can stay in here. I'm just across the hallway in there," He nodded his head towards the other door. "So you don't need to worry."

Just as I opened my mouth to speak, he opened the door to his room and shut it behind him. And that was that.

I opened the door into the room I was staying and gasped. It too had floor to floor windows, covering the whole of the fourth wall on the opposite side of the room. The lights in the living room had reflected the windows before, masking the scene of city lights spreading for miles upon miles into the distance which I could now see clearly from the darkness of the room.

Not wanting to lose the spectacular view in front of me, I left the light off, and walked into the room, shutting the door behind me. The room itself again was pretty spacious. A double bed to the right of the doorway, a wardrobe and desk on the opposite wall.

I quickly changed into pyjamas and got into the bed. I sent Taylor a quick text that I wouldn't need picking up tomorrow and not to worry. I didn't expect her to worry anyway.

I lay on my side, looking out at the scene that was before me, and it was the last thing I saw before drifting warily to sleep.

Before waking up to the sound of smashing glass.