Villains ➵ bill skarsgård a.u.

twenty eight

"Don't tell me you're falling in love with him."

"What?!" I exclaimed, my ears ringing from her choice of words.

"Listen, I'm jumping to conclusions here because you're not giving me anything to work with." She shrugs, "All I know is that you guys had a fuss in the hospital and that's it. Next thing I know, you're telling me you have a homeless dude under your bed. Like I know I've been sent to a therapy clinic, but Jesus Christ Adrianne, this is a little too much. I'm sorry!"

I take a moment to listen to her rant, suppressing the bees from taking over my ears. "I-It's fine, it's my fault anyway." I suck in the smoke emitting from the safe tip, shaking off the almost venomous remark.

"How's the little guy doing anyway?"

"I found him sleeping on my bed when I got home yesterday." I sigh, "He said he went back through my window and didn't get caught. I just told him not to make a habit of it."

"Where's he now?"

"Left him in my room, Uncle Ron drove me to school earlier and I wasn't going to bring him along with the storm."

"Damn, I was really hoping he'd just disappear."

I ignore her remark, knowing I wished the same thing.

"Did she call you or . . Anything?" I stutter, impatiently tapping the tip of the stick in between my fingers.

"Not at all." She says, "Been texting her all night and all I got for a response is a smiley face. Georgie doesn't send smiley faces, Adrianne. When she does, usually there's something wrong."

"Did you see her today?"

"In Trig. But she just reminded me about the meet up in the cafeteria, which was your dog's idea by the way, I'm surprised she even agreed."

I tried stopping myself from worrying too much, biting back the questions pooling at the back of my mouth about the absolute anxiety I've been having for twenty four hours. "H-how about . . How about the guys?"

"Dalton was pretty shocked, I definitely know that." She nods, "Dustin was shocked too, he's been texting me about it all night and I'm kind of sick of it. Grant could care less and Brylle is also pissed."

Another person not so fond of Arthur and the football team was Brylle. When we were sharing unfortunate experiences in a circle, he once told us about the entire group teaming up on him in the boys'locker rooms and taking pictures of him while he showers and selling his naked pictures on craigslist. Apparently they advertised him to be looking for a relationship, and some of the people interested blackmailed him for his nudes, threatening to leak them on facebook if he didn't agree to their terms. As expected Brylle was traumatized, he was only fifteen when it happened and from there on he had always been cautious.

"But you don't need to worry about them." She nudges me playfully on my elbow, a crooked smile curved on her maroon coloured lips. "You know them, they act like little bitches on the first day but eventually they'll understand. They're not going to murder you or anything they're not your cousins. I don't know about Georgie, though."

"What do you think should I do?"

"Even if you kneel in front of her, she's not going to cool down any time soon." She claims, genuine concern written across her visage. "So just give her space for now. This is a big deal anyway, she's not just going to accept him because you said so, they have history."

They have history.

"Did Georgie ever mention?" I dare to question, heat rising to the back of my head like something was breathing on my hair and listening.