SKIN (WATTYS UNDISCOVERED GEM)

Chapter Nine: No Rest for the Wicked

AN

Schuyler's like Holland Roden except a bit softer. (ಠ‿ಠ)

My bold and italics isn't working and it's killing me. My computer revived itself but has proved to show me how much of a fuck up it is. Sorry for any mistakes.

I feel like the song on the side is just like...LENNOX WOAH.

Schuyler's scared of thunderstorms.

She won't tell anyone, save her papa, that when one is pouring down above her, she'll roll over into the corner of her bed and plug earphones in as she turns up Hey Jude- at least until she can calm down enough to go to sleep.

It's always been that way, since the first time she could remember what a crack of thunder sounded like- it was impounded in her brain to fear the winds that'd come with the storms.

The lightning that flashed in the skies would haunt her thoughts, even if she was nineteen- she still won't take a shower in the middle of a storm, ever since she saw that episode of Mythbusters that proved you could very well have a fatal encounter with a little running water and just one bolt of bad luck.

Including that, she won't pick up a landline phone- or really any phone at all. You can call it being paranoid- because it is- but she calls it safe.

And no, there isn't a reason why she fears them. She didn't almost get struck by lightning when she was younger- nothing tragic has ever been revolved around thunderstorms.

She just knows she doesn't like them. Just like how Tessa hates wasps and how her dad will scream at the top of his lungs if he sees a dog the size of a rat.

And it's been nothing but the sheets of rain for the past twenty-four hours that makes sure she doesn't get a wink of sleep, even in the cab of the truck, where her legs are tucked up on the edge of the seat and her head is leaning on the window with a pillow tucked beneath it.

She can usually deal with it; sometimes she even likes the sound of rain when it doesn't sound like it's going to impale her from how hard it's seems to drop. But in the early, early morning hours, it seems as if the universe has made an acceptation for this one time.

Her eyes are barely staying open, those pretty blue irises are slowly falling into sleep until a roll of thunder sounds in the air and she jumps out of her own skin. Each time, she'd become comfortable enough to just listen to the little hums Lennox would sync with to songs he listened to, and then she'd be wide awake, eyelashes framing her tired eyes as she'd let out a huff of surprise each time a crack of thunder shook her awake.

"You should calm down," the words come from Lennox; both of his hands are on his steering wheel after she was clearly uneasy by how he had carelessly let one palm catch on the wheel in the dark. In the rain. On the highway.

"I am calm," except when Schuyler says it, it's all tension, nothing in her tone exuding that cool blanket of serene she wished she had; instead she was she a ball of nervous energy.

He chuckles at that, not because it's funny but because her best friend couldn't be any more different from Schuyler. Tessa isn't just asleep in the backseat, but completely gone to the rest of the world; slumped up against half of the luggage they had to pull in after an hour of driving.

"Please, you aren't calm," he laughs- he can smell the fear basically leaking off of his mate; the only reason why she hasn't screamed yet is because she doesn't want to embarrass herself.

"You shouldn't be talking to me, Lennox- it's dangerous to be distracted when you're driving," Schuyler tells him, eyes trained on him as the scenery behind him flashes with blinding light that can only come from lightning. It washes away, the rain storm continues but she's still waiting for another crack.