Reliance

"Jesus Christ, Jared! Slow down!"

Ellie slams one hand on the dashboard of the SUV, the other clinging onto the "sissy" bar placed above the passenger door as her boyfriend makes a sharp turn around a bend. She, as well as the other passengers of the vehicle, could hear the tires squeal and skid along the snowy asphalt as Jared fishtailed, just barely straightening out before a semi barreled past them, its driver laying down on his horn as he did so. Outside, fat snowflakes drifted violently through the air, making it impossible to see out into the desolate flatland of rural South Dakota. Out here, there were no streetlights, no stars or moon to guide them through this storm. Just the glow of the high beams from their SUV as Jared drove through the darkness, and the specks of white as they delved deeper into the blizzard.

Ellie sighed and rubbed her tired, hazelnut eyes, craning her neck to check on the five other passengers in the car. "Everyone okay?"

Heather flashes a smile and nestles closer to Bryan. "Yeah, we're alright. I'm alright, too."

"Sure you are," Laura grumbles. "How wonderful."

Her black eyes flicker angrily to Heather, who was too busy staring out of the window and into the winter storm to notice, before settling on the muscular, dark-haired man who sat squished between the two girls.

"Hello, Bryan."

She shot him a flirtatious smile and placed a hand on his thigh, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. He may be Heather's boyfriend, but Laura and Bryan had shared a bed several times in secret and he was just as much her lover as he was Heather's, perhaps more so. Laura was the better of the two, after all. Her foreign, dark-haired beauty and promiscuous attitude was much more appealing than her timid, pale counterpart. But over time, things had changed between Laura and her lover and now Bryan wouldn't even acknowledge her, let alone answer her various phone calls and text messages.

She wasn't sure why he suddenly decided to ignore her wants and needs, or why he suddenly decided to become the perfect, loving boyfriend to Heather when he had snuck around the bitch's back and put Laura on hers for months. But he was distancing himself, that much was certain, and if there was one thing Laura hated more than being ignored, it was that bubbly, golden-blonde girl who had what she wanted, and Laura was determined to win Bryan over no matter what. That boy was hers.

"What about you, Bryan?" Laura asked in a sultry, playful voice. Her black eyes were cold and hard as they bore into his, demanding that he would look at her, see her, want her, like he used to. "Are you okay?"

Like a slap to her face, Bryan grips Laura's wrist and forcefully puts her hand back in her lap, shifting closer to his girlfriend and away from the dark-eyed beauty to his right. He avoided Laura's sharp, angry glare and silently prayed, for the thousandth time it seemed like, for Laura to accept the fact that what the two of them had shared was over. But persistence was second nature to Laura, and Bryan was afraid her actions may escalate to hurting Heather in an attempt to win him over.

It wouldn't be the first time Laura's hurt Heather intentionally, after all. Laura was constantly belittling Heather and pulling cruel pranks, even going so far as to steal her clothes from the school's locker room and scattering them throughout the hallways, where everyone could see Heather when she ran out of the locker room in nothing else but a towel. It was awful, but Bryan wasn't surprised by her actions. Laura had never liked Heather, and he was more than certain it had to do with jealousy on Laura's end. In their tightly-knit circle of friends, it wasn't a secret that everyone liked Heather's optimistic attitude rather than Laura's negative and harmful behaviors, and as time progressed and Laura's "jokes" became more hurtful, the group decided it was best to distance themselves from her.