Timeless

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

            December is the month of semi-eternal snow in Colorado. I’ve always liked the snow. Starburst on the other hand, dreads it. She’s a summer kind of girl.

            Starburst has been quiet lately. When I come home from school, it seems like I’m the only one home even though Starburst gets out an hour earlier. There’s a lingering, haunting silence throughout the walls of our home that I find entirely unsettling. Ethan hasn’t been over much either, and that worries me. If Ethan hasn’t been hurting Starburst at home, it means he’s just hurting her more somewhere else. Starburst covers up the bruises better than most people would be able to, but her body language still showed the severity of her wounds.

            I don’t really know what to do at times like these. If I talk to Starburst about anything, she turns into that typical monster-older-sister that most younger siblings fear and hate. But leaving it alone has become increasingly harder and harder as Starburst becomes more and more....unStarbursty. Every time I try to invite her to hang with London and her friends again, she tenses up and confirms my suspicions with a violent shake of her head.

            Ethan found out about Mason.

            I know it’ll get to the point of complete dominance for my sister’s relationship, and at that point, it’s Ethan’s way or the grave. But I see the way Starburst grips her pencil too tightly after seeing Ethan, and how she slams the fridge shut a little too aggressively. She was gonna rebel. Sometime, I don’t know when, but I knew Starburst’s willpower, and if Ethan didn’t kill her first, she would kill him.

***

            “No.”

            “Yes.”

            “No!”

            “Yes.”

            “No!”

            “Yes.”

            “No!”

            “Yes.”

            “No!”

            “Pixie, I have six older brothers, three older sisters, two younger sisters and a small, blonde friend that reminds you of a monkey on drugs: I will kill you in this game.” Elliot said coolly. Pixie, Elliot and I were crammed together in the never-ending sea of seventh graders at Lucile Erwin Middle School. Pixie turned back to her locker irritated, pushing aside some cigarettes and grabbing a few sad notebooks.

            “Well, I have an older sister named Amanda who is turning twenty-one in two weeks, and that itself is going to make your twelve siblings and junkie friend look like cupcakes.”

            “Compared to?” I asked.

            “Compared to my gorilla sister that’s finally gonna be able to legally drink!” Pixie yelled huffily. The students were starting to thin out around us, dissipating into their appropriate classrooms until it was just the three of us and a group of boys next to room 225 who were quickly ushered to class by a pudgy man with glasses and a too-big shirt with purple stains around the shoulder. He made his way over to us, and I got a little nervous as he neared us.

            I wasn’t a trouble-maker. At all. In fact, I can’t ever recall getting a detention or getting in trouble in all my years at school, and I wasn’t supposed to be here today. London had insisted that I play hookie with her today to visit her friends, but she had run off to Brendon’s classroom. It seemed like London had this secret pact with the teachers of Colorado, for when we walked in the front doors, the receptionist gave her the same sad look and nod as the lady at Turner Middle School, not even acknowledging my presence. From there, London had handed me Pixie’s, Auburn’s, Elliot’s and Brendon’s schedule, gave me a quick and rushed tour and ran off to find Brendon, leaving me to wander alone.