Darkness Next To Me

Genivieve

That day, Hera came up to me at lunch. She walked confidently, and flipped her hair. I didn't see her but, Barry almost fell when he saw her. 

I turned to look at him, "What?" 

He pointed toward Hera, "Hera is coming over."

"Hello Fellow Students." Hera had a straight face as she greeted us. I instantly felt self-conscious about everything. 

"Hi..." I replied. Barry was speechless. 

"The reason I am here, is for you, Stacey." She looked at me. 

"It's La-" I tried to correct her but Barry shook his head like a warning. 

"You're on the team." She told me. 

Barry gasped so loud, i hadn't told him that I even tried out to be on the team. "What?" He asked. 

Hera ignored him, "Sit with us tomorrow at lunch, or you're out." She turned on her heel to walk away, but stopped, "Don't make us regret it, Lacey." 

I almost dropped my tray, "Sorry, Barry, to ditch you but, it's not like I have a choice." 

Barry laughed, "I would ditch me too." 

Ding! I heard my phone buzz, I looked down to see a text from Rain. 

Hey! How's school?    

I didn't answer for the first time, I had so much on my mind. I was about to have a different life. hanging out with the most popular girls, being a cheerleader, being outgoing. It was every cliche high school movie dream. It was my dream since I got to Florida.

The next day, I managed to find Giselle and Hera sitting at their lunch table, only because people were crowding them while tears ran down their face. I pushed through everyone, sitting in an empty seat. Suddenly, everyone stopped comforting them and looked at me, confused. 

I was confused, I've never had so many people give me such dirty looks for just sitting in a chair. Giselle looked up and saw me, "Oh hey, Lacey." She waved at me through sniffles. "Welcome to the squad." 

I heard shocked whispers. Bad ones. Some good. 

"Yeah, thanks." I said, grabbing my school milk from off my tray.

After Hera shooed everyone away, I asked, "What happened?" 

"Genivieve is like, missing." Giselle said, wiping her eyes. "I haven't seen her since Monday." 

"I wonder what happened." Hera stated while doing her makeup in her phone camera. "She's so stupid, she probably got abducted by some truck driver." 

I looked at the emotionless girl in shock. "That's horrible, you seem not to care."

I guess I hit a nerve, 'cause Hera stood up and left. Giselle turned to me, "Hera is basically a sociopath, I know, but don't point it out, she gets sort of offended."

"I don't think I want to be around a sociopath." I said.

Giselle laughed, "you'll get use to her, she's sweet, just don't get on her bad side." I didn't reply. Maybe it was just me, but it sounded like a threat. I was worried for Genivieve, I've never even had a conversation with her, but she was still innocent. She didn't deserve the lack of emotion from one of her best friends. 

I went home that night and stayed up hours talking to Rain on the phone. I put him on FaceTime with my headphones in so I wouldn't wake my little sister who was sleeping in the room next to me. 

"Okay, Rain, it's like, very late here and I still need to change into my pajamas." I said, smiling. "I'll talk to you again later." 

"Don't hang up!" Rain exclaimed. "You can change in front of me." 

I giggled silently, "Nice try." I got up from my bed. "You missed your chance." 

"Dang it." He chuckled. "Then I won't keep you up, goodnight." 

"Yeah, good night, Rain." I blew a kiss to the camera before hanging up. As soon as I hung up, another call came in. I checked the contact, it was an unknown number. I never picked up unknown numbers, but for some reason, I had a weird feeling to pick it up. 

"Hello?" I answered. 

"Lacey." The voice over the phone said. "It's Giselle." 

"Oh, hi." I said, calmly now. "What's up?" 

"Get to my house right now." Giselle replied. "It's a mandatory squad meeting." 

"Giselle, it's like twelve." I protested, "I can't leave." 

"Then sneak out, dammit." She raised her voice. "It's mandatory."

"But-"

"I'm sending you my location on 'find friends.'" She said. "Just hurry the fuck up." 

She hung up. 

It was twelve-thirty. I would have to jump out my window. The only problem was that my room was on the second floor. The noise would wake up my sister, or even my parents. I really didn't want that, I would be grounded forever. 

But, I did it. 

I jumped out that window. 

I grabbed my bike and rode all the way to Giselle's house. 

When I got there, the door was wide open. Unusual, but I went inside. "Giselle?" I called out. It was silent...dead silent. Then something grabbed my arm. I yelped, I turned around and saw it was Giselle. 

"It's already one am." She was frustrated, I could see it in her eyes. "What took you so long? I thought I said hurry the fuck up." 

"I don't have a car." I pulled away from her grasp on my arm, it hurt a lot. She was quite strong. "I rode my bike here." 

"Whatever." She turned away and I followed her into her living room. Hera was standing over the printer in the corner. Papers were being spit out of it. 

"What's going on?" I asked. "What's so mandatory about this?"

Hera grabbed a paper and threw it at me. I wasn't even apart of this clique for twenty-four hours and I was already used to the mean actions. I picked up the paper, and looked at it. It had a giant picture of Genivieve in the middle and on top of the paper, it read: MISSING PERSON then at the bottom, it said: CALL *67 (786) - 286 - 0606 IF FOUND.   

"Who's number is this?" I asked, "Why star sixty-seven?" 

"Because we said so." Hera answered, in a mean tone. "Stop asking questions." 

"Whatever." I rolled my eyes, "What are we going to do with these?" I pointed over at the printer who was spitting out about five hundred missing person papers. 

"I thought I said no asking-" Hera started, but Giselle interrupted her. "We are going to put them around school, hand them to people, strangers, everyone."

I thought about what Micheal said about Garren. Genivieve could also have just run to Columbia. She had a motive; her brother. I didn't want to bring it up though, something tells me there was a piece missing from the Garren story and I didn't want to find out.

Handing out posters was my reality for a week. Also suddenly being in the spotlight. Everyone knew who I was. I was in people's mouths, good or bad. I heard the craziest rumors in just the week I was recruited into the squad. Obviously, they were tied into Genivieve's disappearance. I heard things like: 

"Oh, that new girl? She blackmailed Genivieve into leaving" and "I heard she threatened Genivieve with a knife to get on the squad."

It kept getting worse every single day that week. I quickly learned not to listen. "They are jealous, nobody gets accepted in." Said Barry and Micheal would tell me, "You're the Cady of Miami." Soon, it didn't really matter. 

Until, they found a body.