Crimson

Chapter 4

Noah and I had been friends for 8 years, but we had known each other for longer. His family moved in next to us 12 year ago, when we were 4, and his house was only 5 minutes away from mine, which made me wonder why he was so late to pick me up for school.

Not even a full 10 seconds later, his car entered the property, which made me sigh in relief.

"You, Noah Schmidt, are awfully late", I said, closing the car's door behind me.

"And you, my dear Meredith Anne Cunningham, need someone to drive you", he replied, "So shut it, sister"

He drove away from the house, changing the speed every 5 seconds.

"You are an awful driver", I said, puting emphasis on the word awful.

"I'm not!", he exclaimed.

He had gotten his permit three months ago, I don't know how, and not once did I not fear for my life whenever he started the engine.

"You are not even wearing a seatbelt!", I put my hands up in frustration.

He suddenly hit the brakes, making me hit my arm.

"Ow, Noah", I said as I rubbed my limb.

He looked at me pettily as his seatbelt clicked.

"Happy?", he asked, "Now let me drive, God knows I'm not in the mood today, and we still have to get sister Ella"

I looked ahead and sighed. My lips were sealed, not wanting to make Noah any more upset and have him crash into a tree on purpose and kill us. We still had to get 'sister Ella', as he called her.

"What's up with the sister thing, though?", I suddenly asked, "We aren't nuns"

Noah rolled his eyes at me and sighed.

"Well, you should be, I can see right through your goody two shoes facade; your soul needs some cleansing", he added, moving his hand around.

Ella's house was still a few minutes away, during which Noah decided to torture me with his choice in music. It's not that Justin Bieber was a terrible singer, but the sound of 'Baby' had been on repeat for over 2 weeks now.

Noah did not particularly have the voice of an angel either, although he had improved. But still, hearing the word 'baby' so many times had almost made it lose its meaning to me.

'Just 10 more houses', I thought to myself when we got to Barlow Street. Every house looked identical, the same size, same style, even the colors were similar. This made Ella's house easy to spot; its yellow hue and the abundance of flowers made it stand out.

"Morning, guys", Ella said as she got in the car.

"Hi, sister"

"Noah, have you been watching James Charles videos again?", she asked, putting her dark curls up in a bun.

"He insists we should become nuns and cleanse our souls", I informed her.

"Noah, my soul is just fine"

"Sis, I know what went down between you and Tommy Jensen last summer", he said, looking at her through the rear-view mirror as he drove, "so don't come at me saying you're a saint"

Ella's mouth went wide, she couldn't even blink.

"And yes", he said out of nowhere, "I have been binge-watching sister James, ok?".

"You don't even wear makeup!", I fired back.

"Neither do either of you, but who were the first ones to click on Tati's video when it first came out?", he said, accusingly pointing his finger at us, "Oh. That's right, sisters, it was you. So shut up!"