21 | hallucinate (part one)

THE SKY HAS CONSIDERABLY DARKENED by the time school lets out. Marbled grey clouds give way to a light drizzle that spills from the sky; a thick, translucent sheet that endows my hands and entangles with my eyelashes, blurring my vision.

Archer's car is moments from leaving the car park, and even after breaking into a sprint, the heels of my shoes skid across the slick tarmac, and he's still driving away, not caring if I'm in the car or not.

Something heated stirs my veins, and I'm no longer interested in running after him. Instead, I storm, a rage-fuelled march blaring in my ears―red warning lights and bleeding white noise―and my hand grasps the handle of the passenger door, flinging it open with no regards to the fact he's halfway out of the car park, and every car swerveing around the bonnet of his car is cursing him through open windows and waterlogged lips.

The rain picks up outside. I'm soaked to the core, a chill cutting into my bones as I huddle into my coat on the passenger seat, slamming the car door shut.

Archer looks faintly amused. "Hi."

"Stop," I snap, wringing out my sleeves and jumper as best as I can. "You were all too willing to let me walk in the rain."

"Maybe." His eyes twinkle as he curves onto the road: lights diffusing across a rain-streaked windshield, the world growing fuzzy and beautiful. "You were taking forever."

"I took the same amount of time as usual," I say, wrestling my hands through my hair to squeeze the water from it. "You just wanted to leave earlier. After how you acted this morning, you could at least be a bit nicer to me."

"What did he do this morning?" Ebony pokes his head forward from the backseat, his presence cutting the tension between us.

"All I did was mention what happened to Elina―scratch that, I didn't even get to say anything before Ivory was in denial," Archer says casually, and I scowl.

"I wasn't denying anything, I was just stating that nothing actually happened," I say, toying with the piano necklace. My dad had a matching one, a testament to my mother and me―the thought calms me, when the tension makes me feel anything but calm. "Everyone knows they just moved away afterwards. Who ever said that she got into an accident?"

"No one," Ebony laughs, and his certainty makes me smile. "She didn't get into an accident, what are you on, Arch?"

"What?" He glances between the two of us, his expression uneasy. "I'm not on anything―I swear. Eb, c'mon, you must remember that Elina's...you know. Not around anymore."

"No, not that I know of," he says, still laughing. "You must have her mixed up with someone else. Elina Garcia Flores is still perfectly alive. There was never any accident involving her."

"Exactly." I stab my finger into Archer's arm in triumph. "Also, I'm pretty sure you can't just assume people are dead."

"You happily would," Ebony reminds me. "You hated that girl."

"It wasn't a secret, either," Archer says, his fingers tapping against the wheel. "Everyone knew."

"I didn't hate her." Defensive, I squirm in my seat. "We just...never saw eye to eye," I say, and I can feel both boys' gazes boring into me.

Okay, so Elina Garcia Flores and I were never good friends. Or really friends at all. At the ripe age of about six years-old, she'd already perfected the ability to treat me like gum at the bottom of her shoe; by seven, her fingers were quicker than her mouth, and there wasn't a single lunchtime where I didn't find her gladly scoffing the best part of my lunch while I kicked miserably at the empty snacks table, long since ransacked by the other kids.

Her looks were snide and her laughter sharp, and the nights where I snivelled from another bald patch in my hair and another set of scratches on my face or legs were nothing compared to the nights where she followed me home and made sure I knew about it. She would watch me through the windows until it was dark out, smiling her evil little smile, then wave goodbye before slinking back into the shadows to her own home.

"Okay, yeah, I hated her," I echo Ebony, twisting my fingers together. "I'm pretty sure her leaving was the best day of my life, or something. There one day, gone the next. Brilliant."

"So, I really did get this mixed up, huh?" Archer changes the subject, turning into our neighbourhood. Streetlights line the rain-glossed roads, endowing them in a glow that burns bronze. "Sorry, Ivory. I'd rather it were Rebel, anyway."

"I think we all knew that," I say, unbuckling my seatbelt and having another go at wringing out my coat. Dark patches form on the dark grey upholstery, growing in size when the car finally pulls to a stop and I get up.

Jumping out of the car has the puddle beneath my feet sending a bitter chill crawling up my ankles; rainwater lodging itself in my tights and weighing them down. The rain has slowed by now, but drizzle-filled gusts still whisk through my hair and cut down my spine with an ice-chiselled knife.

"Thanks for the lift," I say, but it has become a parroted line now; instinctive. "See you at school."

"Yeah, see you, Arch," Ebony says, following me as I hurry up the stairs to our apartment.

Silence permeates the distance between us. My brother is content with it, seemingly, but something doesn't sit well with me.

"Ebony?"

"Hm?"

"How can someone get something so wrong?" I ask, unlocking the door and kicking my shoes off as soon as I'm inside. My feet squelching in my tights is an unwelcome feeling. "Of all the things Archer could be certain of, why was it that Elina Garcia Flores had ended up in an accident and died?"

Ebony smiles, but it's weak on his face. "I don't know, Ivory. I really don't know."

☆☆☆