The Ways We Become Undone [ON HOLD]

Chapter Eleven

Dedicated to Kieta_Hexter for liking the book so much and strongly encouraging (hassling) me to write this chapter! ;)

IT TOOK me some time to realize it, but the house was like Sebastian’s. The dreariness of it resembled the one I felt whenever I had gone over to Sebastian’s house, where we always entered through the back door and spread the Chemistry lab papers all over the circular kitchen table. We had always worked like that—in the dingy kitchen with the ugly tiled floor and the too bright lights that made me think of a hospital room. I never felt comfortable there and I thought it was because that was how it was. There are places where you just can’t feel relaxed, like in the waiting room of the doctor’s office or a funeral home, or maybe even that one relative’s house that no one likes to go to during the holidays.

That was how I felt when I entered the Rivers house again after my conversation with Peter on the beach the other day. However, that’s how I felt the first time I entered the house too. But first times are always doubtful—you’re not sure about everything and sometimes first impressions aren’t always right. It’s like when you first meet someone that might look like the most interesting person in the world and then they turn out to be a total bore.

    

Or even worse, they might try to kill you.

    

But there were no deceptions here. My feelings from before, my first impressions, were real.

    

And I finally knew why.

    

I walked down the hallway that led into the living area where I first met Irene’s mother, but this time there was no one to greet me. A servant dressed in all grey like the rest of them passed by me, his melancholic eyes bearing into mine. It was as if his eyes were telling me I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was crossing over dangerous territory.

    

But did he know I was doing it willingly?

    

“When did you get here?”

    

The voice made me jump and turn around. Irene was standing at the bottom step of the stairs. I didn’t even hear her come down. She was wearing sweatpants and a sweater that had the words Bethelon Academy stenciled on the front and the school’s motto, “Live to be great” on the sweater’s arm.

    

“Just…Now.” I didn’t realize how heavily I was breathing until I realized how hard it was to speak.

      

“Are you okay? Looks like you just walked into a haunted house.” Irene looked worried but it quickly changed as a small smile etched on her lips. “Not that this place is anything short of being haunted.” The way she said it, I knew she was trying to be funny and lighthearted but at the same time, there was something morbid about her words.

    

“I feel suffocated,” I blurted out. I wasn’t supposed to say that, but I couldn’t help it. Some things just spill out of you easier than others.

    

An eerie silence filled the room. Irene stared at me and I tried to read her face, but I couldn’t because she was neither smiling nor frowning. She looked indifferent or was it silent rage?

    

What did she think of me?