The Last 24 Hours

Chapter 2

3 hours before lock in…

Cleo
    “ Are you ready yet? We’ve been here for an hour and a half already!” Ember was getting impatient, but how was I supposed to know that my younger sister was going to raid my closet, taking the one thing that I wanted to wear? Ugh, siblings.
    “ Give me ten more minutes!” I took another look at myself in the mirror, I put my hair in a fishtail braid, letting it fall over my shoulder, and reapplied some black eyeliner since it was starting to fade. I put on my favorite ivory top, with a pair of green shorts and some brown sandals.
    As I was walking out of my bedroom I passed a picture of Mom and I hanging on my wall, we were sitting on the beach together laughing over something Dad had said since he was the one taking the picture, that was before her accident, before her and dad had gotten into the argument, when we were all together. I hesitated for a moment, staring at the picture, before walking out of the room and down to the living room where Ember was waiting for me, on her phone.
    “ Oh, sorry, I have to go, but I’ll see you later yeah? Great, bye.” She hung up and looked up at me with a grin. “ You look nice, definitely don’t need my help as much as I need yours.” We shared a laugh as I went to sit next to her on the couch.
“ Who were you on the phone with?”
“ Oh, just now? I was on the phone with Audrey, she said Simon was giving her a ride so she's definitely coming tonight.” I rolled my eyes. Ever since her and Tristan broke it off last year, she has managed to get on my bad side, she has also been spending quite a lot of time with Simon lately, not that I don’t trust him, I just don’t trust her. If Simon is giving her a ride tonight, that means that Tristan has to deal with her too. I offered him a ride yesterday, but he said he didn’t want to inconvenience me, that he would just ask Simon since he lived across the street from him and I lived closer to Ember’s house. He’s in for one hell of a car ride. 

Ember
    Okay, so I might of lied to Cleo, kinda. I had spoken to Audrey, but it wasn’t when she came downstairs.  If Cleo knew who I was really talking to, she would start asking way too many questions, and I don’t feel like explaining at the moment, but she will find out later, I mean Jeremy is going to be a surprise guest tonight, I just hope that my friends are tolerant about it. After all, you can’t help who you fall in love with.
    “ You ready to go?” Cleo asked, breaking my train of thought, I looked up at her and nodded.
    “ Where to next?”
    “ To Target of course.” We shared a laugh before walking out the door.

Simon
    I decided to pick Audrey up first, even though she wasn’t closer, she didn’t know that Tristan was riding with us. I didn’t want to risk her not wanting the ride because of it. The two don’t get along, and I don’t blame them, their breakup was hard. Audrey and I grew closer after it happened, Cleo and Ember turned their backs on her, moreso Cleo because of how close she is with Tristan. Audrey had no one else to turn to but me, and at first, I didn’t want to hear about it, what she did to Tristan was wrong, and it killed me, all of us really to see him in pain, but I felt bad for her.
    When I pulled up out front of her house, she was already outside, sitting on her porch. She had on a long sleeve black shirt, with a pair of white jeans. Clearly she was hiding something, but I didn’t want to ask her about it yet, she’ll tell me when she is ready.
    “ Hey Si,” she said as she climbed into the passenger’s seat of my car, “ you look nice.” I looked down at what I was wearing, a blue button up shirt and khaki shorts, and shrugged. “ You dressing up for a certain someone?” I felt my cheeks warm, and she smirked.
    “ You don’t have to bring it up everytime that I see you. I never should’ve told you, it was a mistake.” She laughed.
    “ Relax, I’m not going to tell anyone, but the least you could do is tell Cleo. She has a right to know, I mean it’s been three years since you two got together, how would you feel in her position?”
    I looked away from her and started driving to Tristan’s. This was a conversation that I wasn’t willing to have at the moment.

Tristan
    A good friendship is hard to come by, and as much as I couldn’t stand Audrey now, her and Simon had a good friendship, as long as that was all it really was. I couldn’t see Simon cheating on Cleo, but I wouldn’t trust Audrey so easily.
    “ Did we need to grab anything on the way to Ember’s?” Simon’s voice ripped me out of my thoughts.
    “ I think Cleo and her decided to put us in charge of music, so maybe some CD’s since we are going to be using her dad’s old stereo.” I reached into the drawstring bag that I had brought with me to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten Cleo’s gift. We decided to get each other graduation gifts to celebrate our many years of friendship, and to honor this very occasion, I made her a playlist of different songs that make me think of her and our friendship. Sometimes even something more.
    “ Ember is really trying to knock us back years of technological advancements isn’t she?” Simon replied with a grin on his face.
“ Well I think I know the perfect place to find some good CD’s. Si, hand me your phone so I can type in the address that way we don’t get lost.” Audrey spoke for the first time since I got into the car.
“ And where would that be?” I was intrigued by her knowledge of this so called perfect place. She always told me she hated CD’s.
She stared at me for a moment in the rearview mirror before offering a wink. “ It’s a bit of a surprise.”