{4}
By the time I made it home, the sun was setting. It was that time of year when by five o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was slowly going down. I didn’t really like this time of year, but I had gotten used to it so it didn’t bother me as much anymore.
Parking next to my sister’s white BMW, I slid out of my black Range Rover and slammed the door shut. Behind me the car honked two times letting me know it was locked as I took the long path leading up towards the my front door.
All the lights were off inside- a sign that I was the first one home. Ever since Mia’s death, my father had been working none-stop trying to solve her case. With no leads on further investigation or suspects, Mia’s murder looked like a cold case as each day passed.
I wanted nothing more than to solve her murder just as much as my father did, but as selfish as it sounded, I just wanted them to stop looking. No one saw or heard anything that night. One minute she was dancing out on the lake bank, and the next morning she was found dead. They had no suspects, no leads, nothing that could help out her case.
Yet, the news media kept bringing up the murder of Mia Hart. Kids at school kept whispering about her, coming up with different reasons why someone would want to kill her. People in town would stop me or my father whenever they could to give their respects. It was a never ending thing.
My twin was getting so much attention she was probably smiling in her grave.
Mia loved attention. She loved to be hated and she loved to be loved. That was just how she had always been, even as a kid.
She would do anything if it meant getting noticed.
And something told me this time around she went a little too far.
++
“How was school?” my father asked as he took a seat at the dinner table. He had changed out of his uniform and into a pair of sweats and left on the plain white T-Shirt he wore under his uniform shirt. The clock on the wall behind him read close to ten and the plate of food before him was heated up for the second time today.
“School was school.” I replied as I brought my right knee up to my chest and wrapped my arms around it. “How was work?”
“Work was work,” my father replied as he cut into his steak and began eating.
Silence lapsed between us then, but it wasn’t unusual for the two of us. Before Mia’s death, she had been the one to fill in the silence with gossip and useless chatter. She believed in talking at the dinner table while my father and I preferred to eat in silence.
Ever since her death, the house remained quiet. I hardly watched TV and when I listened to music I usually had my earphones in. So with my father at work majority of the day, I hardly ever made any noise. The silence didn’t bother me. It freaked Mia out so she always had the TV on or her music blasting.
Once my father was finished with his food, he pushed his chair back and picked up his plate. I watched as he moved out of the dining room and into the kitchen, disappearing behind the wall that separated the two rooms.
And as the kitchen sink tap began to run, I pushed my own chair back and took the stairs up to my room. With my room at the end of the hall, I had to pass Mia’s room. Her door was left wide open and the inside her room was left exactly the way she had left it the night before we had left for the lake.
Downstairs, the kitchen tap turned off and the door to my father’s study slammed shut. Even though he was home from work, he stayed up into early morning working on Mia’s case further. He wasn’t going to stop until he found something to give him a jump on her case.
++
Since I had skipped my afternoon classes the day before, it was a surprise to walk in and see that not only did I have both Stephanie and David in my second to last period class but Bay and Conrad as well.
I had shown up five minutes late due to my locker being on the other side of the school and was forced to take the last seat in the entire class. To my utter luck, the only seat available was right in front of Conrad. The gorgeous, yet slightly unnerving crystal blue eyed boy.
“So nice of you to join us Ms. Hart,” Mr. Garrett sighed as I took my seat. “Next time, I would appreciate it if you came to class on time.”
Ducking my head, I slipped my journal and book out of my bag and ignored Mr. Garrett’s snarky attitude. He was an elderly man in his late fifties, with a beer belly and a bald head. He was rude and at times sort of funny, but most of the time he was a bitter man with a sour attitude ever since his wife left him for a younger man.
“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, if you would turn to page fifty eight in your text book I would like you to read the passage and pair up with the person sitting behind you then answer the questions on page sixty.”
Hoping that the girl in front of me would turn around and state that we would be partners, I was a bit annoyed to find out that the guy in front of her turned around and claimed her as his partner. Leaving me no choice, I slow turned around and faced Conrad.
Leaning in his seat, Conrad took one look at me before he ripped a page out of his notebook and passed it over to me.
As I turned in my seat to face the front, I glanced over my shoulder to see Bay already looking at me with raised eyebrows. Shrugging, I turned the page over and looked down.
Written in black ink were what looked like the answers to the questions on page sixty of our textbook; at the bottom was a note.
The assignment is done. Just copy the answers and throw away this copy after you’re done.
Glancing over my shoulder, I took in his relaxed figure and raised the page in a figure of asking how he had managed to answer the questions so quickly. Conrad simply shrugged before he plugged his black earphones into his ears and looked down to his notebook and continued to draw.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Stephanie and David looking my way. David had his hands wrapped around the edge of his desk, while Stephanie smirked with judgmental eyes.
I sighed before I folded the page and stuffed it into a random spot in my textbook. I could already tell I was going to dread coming to this class.
