The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Nightly Rambles

LUC

I LIED ON MY BACK, smirking blissfully at the sky, too engrossed with how the stars spun and whirled. I was lifting my arms up and making a glow trace my veins to entertain myself. We called it the lava lamp trick, and the name fit perfectly. It was like looking at dust settle down in the stale air, emptying for the mind. 

"Ya know whut? Hangin' out here's nice," she slurred, head lolling sideways until it bumped my shoulder. She was such a lightweight.

By the time we were halfway done with the bottle, Riley was wasted. 

Drunk her was excessively talkative. She couldn't string two sentences in a row for the life of her, and couldn't stand up without falling over, hence the reason why I lay flat on the roof with her on the side. The last thing I needed was to see her stumble and fall off the edge on my watch, right after her birthday. Her hair streamed underneath her and tickled my nose whenever she whipped her neck.

We'd just stopped guessing the lyrics to old songs from a random playlist as a heavy drowsiness crashed on her. Riley tapped on her screen like a maniac, constantly missing the buttons, until her phone slipped from her grip and struck her face. She let out a garbled sound of surprise to which I chuckled.

"It's not funnyyyy. Ouch."

"Sure, it is," I replied, and my breath formed a cloud of vapor.

She grumbled something about me being a big meanie and momentarily forgot to be intelligible with the words. My mind was spinning even if I wasn't that shitfaced, but it was funny to catch her so disarmed. I let her be and focused thoughtfully on the moon—just that sent me into a trippy whirlpool. The numbness was mixing with the exhaustion I earned for firing up the roller coaster and the jackass stunt I pulled to get down from its peak. 

After drinking, I usually became restless, the very incarnation of annoying, but now my body was worn down, begging to stay still.

"I can't believe you're not even tipsy."

I chuckled again. "Lots of experience in that department, Sunshine. I built up my tolerance pretty early on."

Riley squinted in my direction, switching on her side. I turned my head to look back, and her eyes glimmered in the darkness. Her cheeks were rosy, but not from the cold. She lied so close to the point I could sense her body heat and the faint energy stirring beneath her skin, just waiting to be unleashed. More and more, I could feel her abilities growing within, almost piercing the surface.

"Thank you for bringing me here. I think I needed this." This time, it resonated lucid as her stare seemed to zone in on me, losing some of that haze. The gleam in it intensified until I realized that those were tears. Unshed tears. "I wondered... a lot if I'd make it to eighteen at this rate."

She hiccoughed, trying to blink and appear soberer. Like she could fool me. The way she'd confessed that slammed me like a punch to the chest, strong enough to clip off my breathing. I knew she never imagined it'd escalate to this. I knew that she had always planned to control her life and live it to the fullest. 

"Hey," I said, and felt like a crunched wrapper at the bottom of a trash can. A part of the problem was because of me. I'd given her grief for having human friends. "You'll make it to many other birthdays. You'll get to university." 

Riley reverted her gaze to the sky, and I noticed her chest hollowing. Her lids veiled down, dark brows knitting tightly together. She didn't answer. I propped my head on my palm and faced her, my clothes scraping against the rooftop.