Annabel's POV
"Annabel."
I squirmed, feeling something stir me out of consciousness, cold air and a hushed voice.
"Annabel."
My eyes fluttered, something wet had fallen on my face. I blinked into reality. It was a tear.
"Annabel." Her voice was so quiet.
"What's going on?" I mumbled, trying to shrug off the haze of sleep. She smiled gently. Another tear on my cheek.
"Nothing Bells, nothing at all." Her eyes looked so big in the night, bright and blue and shining with something lost amongst a shattered soul.
"Jeremy won't like it if you wake him up." I rubbed my eyes, stifling a yawn.
"I know, so we have to be very quiet okay Bells?"
I frowned at the way she was talking to me, almost like a child. She had always talked to me like I was an adult. Besides, I was hardly a child at 13.
We were both silent for a moment or two. She stroked my hair. She had stopped crying. She wiped her face.
"Where is, where is he?" It was the first question always on our minds, and now that I was starting to wake up I had to ask it.
"He's outside. He's not coming in." She smiled softly again, but it wobbled and another tear fell. Her fingers trembled as they ran through a lock of my hair. I reached out and touched hers, silken and the colour of a raven's wing. It had been cut short a few weeks earlier. Her skin looked like ivory in the moonlight, the iridescent beams dancing across her strong cheekbones and sharp chin. I had always been jealous of her likeliness of him, and my likeliness of her. She had always been the beautiful one.
"Come on sweetheart." I felt a surge of panic twist in my guts at that voice somewhere outside the room, my body beginning to lurch up. She took my hands in hers, whispering "shh", and "it's okay Annabel he's not coming in he's not coming in..."
"I love you Bells. I love you." She kissed my forehead then, her slender hands engulfing my face. Then she disappeared back into the darkness around us, and I could hear her footsteps towards the door.
"Cassie?" I called into the blackness, but she was already gone.
.........
I woke with a start, and took a moment to adjust to my surroundings. I was in a car, it jolted and shook as it hit some gravelled pavement. I watched as we passed the state border, then turned to look into the review mirror. Mom was asleep in the passenger seat, brows furrowed and looking older than she ever had. I looked at Jeremy, he had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his forehead which reminded me of Billie, and how he looked on that night driving to the beach. He caught my eye. He was crying, and in that moment nothing in his eyes were cold or hard like metal, like they always were after it all. They shone of pity, or guilt, or shame. Guilt and shame which was his, and also someone else's.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Annabel."
And I knew that in that moment he was.
A/N hello! sorry this was very heavy but you know have to develop plot and all that. thanks for reading!
