LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

chapter twenty-four.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

ZARA Felicity Phillips has always been good. 

It's the first word of a testimony that one describes her whenever they talk to someone new for the first time. Her face is placed besides the definition in the dictionary, her name among the lips of those envious and in awe at all of her and her wonders. Zara's life has always been story-book perfect: she has a nice family and a nice house in a nice neighborhood, complete with a nice childhood and adolescence.

Oh, and how inexplicably sad she was all the time.

Despite the million-dollar watt smile attached to her lips, despite the way her hands are gentle with compassion and despite the giggles she gives that could cure the deepest of sorrows, you take a further glance into deep blue eyes and will find an emptiness that rivals that of the darkest black holes. Zara can't exactly quite pinpoint what made her the way that she is and most likely never can. Her earliest memories consist of a gray cloud over her head every moment she was awake, and she always wondered if it would ever go away. It never does, but the way that she chooses to drown her sorrows in a sea of liquor sure helps out, and so does her Arthur.

God, Arthur.

Even thinking about the boy with gold in his hair and good in his heart makes her own swell three times its size, and there has never been a time in her life that she hasn't been grateful for his presence. He means what he says, and he gets confused when others don't. He's never once lied to her, and she has never been happier that their parents introduced them to each other. 

But then ... Sullivan Maxwell came into town.

Zara doesn't really know what it is about him, but there is something fermented deep within his bones that she doesn't really like. If she's being honest, there really isn't much that she likes about the boy at all. She's heard enough from the kids around school and has seen plenty to know that Sullivan is not a good person. She isn't really sure why Arthur has decided to be best friends with the resident drug dealer, but that is his best friend at the end of the day, so she tries to be as friendly as she can. The blonde girl has never had trouble making people believe the good facade she puts on, but SJ has looked through her like glass and has seen the detest she truly has for him. Of course she plays nice when Sullivan passes yet another snide remark towards her, and she ignores the scowls and the side eyes he passes to her everyday, but Arthur never once comes to her defense when it comes to him and she has never understood why.

"That's just the way he is, lovey, ever since we were kids" he replies to her dismissively (like he always does), making sure to press a soft kiss where her jaw meets her neck so she will melt underneath his touch and her agitation will web away. "He's not a nice boy." 

And that's her thing. Because Zara Phillips is not a nice girl either, but she isn't as cruel or as harsh as SJ is to everybody she sees around him. He is a constant raging fire, and anyone within a ten foot radius of him is threatened by his flames at all times. 

She fears that Arthur has been too badly scorched for recovery.

.     .     .     .     .

IT is July the Fourth, and her time with her friends has been nothing but the best times of her life. To Zara, what she loves is alcohol, friendship, and her man. Now that she's got all three, she really doesn't believe she has a right to complain about much at the moment. She sits in Arthur's lap, arm wrapped loosely around his neck and a smile wired across a pair of pretty red lips. They sit and watch Teddy sing his many renditions of songs about America, many of which he has changed to suit what he deems as true patriotism.