Homewrecker

31 - 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰

"Are you flipping kidding me, Bronwyn Chloe Larson?"

It took me a moment before I realized that the voice admonishing me wasn't a part of my subconscious as I shifted in my bed, the sheets tangled around my legs and my cheek warm against the pillow, sunlight bright against my closed eyelids.

I was already expecting it to be later than I normally woke up—which, since arriving at the Solidays' lake house, was early morning with the sunrise—after not getting back until after two in the morning from the Starbright Drive-In.

I opened my eyes a second later, squinting my bleary gaze at the figure standing beside the bunk bed, realizing after a moment the skin tone, the hair, was too dark to be one of the Solidays. I blinked, hoisting myself up on the mattress, and rubbed my wrist against my eyes before taking in Indie grasping onto the railing of my bunk bed, glaring at me.

I frowned. "Indie? What are you doing here?"

She tilted her head, incredulous. "You text me on Sunday that your mom was murdered, I text you a million times after and you don't respond once, and it's Wednesday. Wednesday!"

I glanced over at Andi's bed across the room, seeing that it had been made and adorned with carefully arranged throw pillows over the duvet. "You came all the way here because I didn't text you?"

"It's like an hour, Bronwyn. It's not that far," she pointed out, dropping down from where she had been perched beside the bunk bed, releasing her grasp around the railing and dropping her feet down from Natalie's mattress to the floor. "Why didn't you text me back, or call me, like I asked you to? I was worried about you."

"How did you even know how to get here?"

She shot me a look. "I had my mom call Amy. Now would you stop deflecting and actually start talking to me?"

I untangled my legs from the bedsheets caught around my knee and under my ankles, brushed my hair back behind my ears as I crawled for the ladder at the end of the railing alongside the edge of the bunk bed.

"I really don't have much to talk about," I told her, climbing down the steps and ignoring her frustrated glare as I opened the door to the closet. "What's up with you? Are you back at the pool?"

She watched as I shifted hangers inside the closet, looking for something that could've looked like mine even if I wasn't the one who bought it. I knew I could've taken Amy up on her near constant offer to go out shopping at the mall and pick out my own clothes, but she would still be the one handing over the debit card. I didn't really want that, either. "Who cares about summer jobs, Bronwyn? What did you mean your mother was murdered?"

"I think that's what I meant," I said, pulling out a t-shirt with a band name emblazoned over the front, one I had heard of it but never actually listened to. "Have you ever listened to Pink Floyd before? I can't think of any of their songs."

Indie sighed. "Is Pink Floyd the new Bill Paxton?"

I frowned. "What?"

"At the funeral, you kept talking about Bill Paxton? Now, you're going to try and distract yourself with Pink Floyd. What's next?"

I thought back to what Ethan had told me the night before, remarking how whenever I was uncomfortable around him, I came up with some sort of joke about his body, specifically his abs, then shook my head, promptly shoving the shirt back into the closet. "I'm not distracting myself. I just wanted to know if you ever heard any of the songs."

"No, I've never listened to his stuff. Now can you—?"

"Their. Pink Floyd is a band."

She scowled. "Fine, their. Whatever, now cut it out and actually talk to me, Bronwyn. What is going on? What's going on with your mom?"