Delirium: Crash & Burn

Part XXIV

Evie

The halls were quite for a Friday, everyone had left early to start packing for the weekend trip to Lake Greenwood. It was one of the many senior school trips for this semester and was by far coolest one. People walked past me chatting and giggling unable to contain their excitement about the trip, two whole days away from parental supervision, in the woods with your friends and lovers. I on the other hand had to stay after last period to see the counsellor before I went.

The months had flown by and I was truly enjoying my fake life so much so I had completely forgotten about all of my other social and mental issues. It was like a constant day dream that cocooned me in a hazy fog which warped time itself. Nothing felt real anymore. I was completely numb to my feelings towards my birth mom, for the first time in years I felt as though I was worth something.

I sighed imagining if this was really my life, I contemplated if the euphoria would be the same, whether if I would feel the same if I truly was this version of myself. My daydream was interrupted as Cole walked past heading out the doors. His eyes quickly glanced in my direction turning me cold at his intense glare. My breath hitched in my throat, it happened every time I saw him and he gave me the same look. A look of suspicion and disgust.

After the winter formal, Harrison and Cole didn't utter any words to each other. Whenever they would cross paths in school they would cast silent stones of hatred to each other. I couldn't help but feel as though I was merely the catalyst who encouraged all of these issues between them. Harrison comforted me and tried to assure me that it was much deeper than the surface I still wore a coat of guilt and it weighed heavy on me.

I looked down at my phone, only half an hour and I will be out of here for the weekend. I had a message from Harrison, "Pick you up in 40 gorgeous xx" We planned to head to the Lake before everyone else to get unpacked and have some time alone. I sighed finding those little butterflies forming in my stomach causing me to shuffle were I stood, uncomfortable from the heat my body was projecting. Harrison had some how captured me and I was happy to be his prisoner.

I was now sending the majority of my school hours with Harrison and we had become closer, spending evenings together in the hospital with Kat, dinners and lunches on the weekend. He was generous enough to maintain my fake life and I with his. We trusted each other and I could say, sometimes, occasionally, maybe I felt as though I was in love with him.

The hours and days faded into each other creating weeks which soon morphed into months. He felt so familiar to me, he felt like home. I was wrapped up in my own that my eyes glazed over not noticing my counsellor passing  me in the halls until she turned around to face me.

"Evie?"

I instantly snapped out of my trans-like state as she cocked her eyebrows and summoned me towards her office with a slightly crooked hand and a warm smile.

Poppy

My leg tapped and convulsed under my steering wheel I checked my watch again and pressed harshly on my horn to summon Cole. I told him I would pick him up on my way to Lake Greenland. I was going as part of a secondment with his high school; I was part of their student representatives on school board so I volunteered to be a guide. I knew Evie and Harrison would be there also and I was curious to see them. I suppose my intentions weren't all good.

My thumb scrolled though Harrison's Instagram I had been logging into his account, reading his and watching her as she posted. I felt as though I knew more about her than anyone. Through the glass eye of my phone and the projection of social media I felt connected to Evie. She and Harrison would go to Starbucks almost every morning before class, sit and read together, he accompanied her to piano lessons and they went to dog parks together. On Friday's they would eat dinner out together they even go to Jade's grave together, they celebrated life and death together.

In the short months that they've known each other they appeared to be perfect for one another. My mind raced in anticipation to see them two together in real life. I was obsessed, crazed and possessed with my own insecurities. I continued refreshing the page hoping to see that Evie or Harrison had posted again. Nothing.

I locked my phone and took a sip of my Starbucks, I anxiously waited for Cole.I wanted to know what Cole knew. I was frustrated that he wouldn't tell me. I wondered if it was all a tease that he knew nothing at all and just wanted to ease my mind by telling me he knew something.

To be honest I was worried about my baby bother, in the few times I had seen him since I went to college he was different. He was aggressive and moody, where as Harrison was full of life and happy. It felt like a parallel universe an upside down world in which I had no control.

Cole and Harrison had become so different and I longed to know what was going on. I began to think to myself, had I not moved away for college maybe I would have been in Evie's shoes, with Harrison and maybe Cole wouldn't be going off the walls, maybe Cole would be with Evie if I had stayed.

My thumb hovered over the home button opening my phone again the page had refreshed and Harrison has posted. The blood in my veins pumped harder, I was like an addict who had just gotten a fix. It was a poorly angled selfie of him and Evie in his car, the caption read "Time for Lake Greenwood with my lady @E_Wiliams".

I read over the caption again and again, I could feel my face getting hotter and hotter my chest vibrated as my heart rate creeped up to an unhealthy speed. I was a jealous bitch. My mind was in a whirlwind, I was perverse with jealousy. I was knocked back into the present almost spilling my coffee all over myself, when Cole brutishly knocked on my window. I could hear him laughing at my reaction.

My face suddenly cooled as the chilling reality of what I had done and who I had become was evidenced by the presence of my baby brother.He clumsily clambered into the passenger seat, throwing his bag into the back seat.

"Hey! Easy where you throw your shit, this is a new car."

I spoke so harshly that Cole raised his eyebrows in shock and dismay. I was expecting him to say something, but he remained silent. My mouth wanted to fill the silence; I wanted to tell him the secrets that were crawling under my skin and eating me alive. The webs of lies which I was entangled in and couldn't free myself from. But I stopped myself. I had a better plan. If I could win Harrison back maybe we wouldn't have to explain the past two years, maybe we could get away with it, maybe I could get away with it.

I zoned out imagining that my mouth couldn't stop the words as they spilled out my mental guts. I imagined what babbling the words, telling Cole the truth, the painful truth would feel like. Me and his best friend, me and Harrison rolling around, all over each other and heated positions in our family home, next door to his room. I imaged Cole's head physically exploding, his brain splattered against my windscreen and all over the leather BMW interior.

Maybe I will keep the secrete for a little while longer. My eye caught a glimpse of Cole in the passenger seat, his eye locked on his phone. I wondered what he was so fixated on. I had a sickening feeling he too was obsessed with Evie, infatuated with her as I was. I wondered what he knew about her, what he promised to tell me but hadn't gotten around to doing so.

He wasn't my little brother anymore. He was taller, stronger, less naive, less trusting, less trust-worthy. He looked over me and lowered his hand and passed me my purse as we pulled into the Mc Donald's drive through. His green eyes piercing into me as I thanked him and paid.

I studied my baby bothers pale dark skin, his mixed race charm and dark hair. He didn't smile, he doesn't do that anymore, his face was stern and frozen. The way his eyebrows furrowed and raised. He questioned me silently casting shadows with his eyes.I looked down to avoid his gaze.

"Pops..." 

He began but his voice trailing off as he sighed frustrated with the lack of conversation.I wanted to ask him why he was so obsessed with her, why he admired and longed for her. But to be honest I knew why. I saw her myself. She was tall and dark, her long legs and thick her hair. I too continued to watch her life behind my black mirror.

Cole and I danced around the conversation; we avoided the obvious, refusing to discuss why we congregated in my car the first place. We wanted to talk about her but neither of us could utter the bitter words.