Page 201 of Ominous: Part 1
When she realizes I’m not going to respond, she shakes her head, ducking down into her car, long legs exposed from the way she’s rolled up her skirt a few times. She grips the armrest of her door but doesn’t yank it closed. “I’ll send Dom a text and let him know he can come over. He’s just hurting.” She slams the door then, but a second later, her engine starts, and she rolls down the window. “Try to remember what that’s like.” With one last lingering look at me, she drives off.
I get in my car, start it up, rolling down the windows and turning on the A/C because my shirt is sticking to my back with sweat.
Creed starts playing from my phone, and I don’t change it as I see Eden has texted me back.
Her: Drive safe.
I don’t, but all the same, on my way to the house, the smile doesn’t leave my fucking face.
33
Eden
Mom:Text me if you need me. Be safe. Stay smart.
I smile at Mom’s text at the same time a knot of guilt tightens in my stomach. Eli wanted to pick me up, but I have to keep up pretenses I’m spending the night with Luna or Janelle. Especially now Mom has heard the news too, about Winslet. She casually mentioned her before I left, told me to be very careful.
Sebastian must have kept his mouth shut about how close Winslet’s ghost is to my new friends.
“You want a drink?”
I jump, startled as I drag my eyes up from Mom’s text. I didn’t even hear anyone come in, which has been happening to me a lot lately. Spacing out, totally engrossed in my own head, and forgetting the world exists.
Forgetting the world, with the exception of Eli.
My eyes meet Janelle’s dark ones. She doesn’t seem to care I haven’t yet answered her question despite the long pause between us. She pours rum in both of the red plastic cups on the counter, turning her back to me. Her dreads are pulled up on top of her head, and I tentatively reach a hand to my crown of braids, ensuring they’re in place. Glancing out the back door, I see a few guys Eli introduced me to, wrestlers, jumping into the pool at the same time, different variations of a cannon ball—some tightly wound, others… not so much—and Luna beside another girl in two of the chairs pulled close to the edge of the deep end, drinks in hand.
Bass is thudding through the door, but I can’t tell what the song is.
Eli is smoking a joint closer to the shallow end, his cousin, Jasper, sitting beside him under one of the tables with the umbrellas over it, flared open in the blazing afternoon sun.
“Here.” Janelle has closed the space between us, offering me a drink. I glance at the counter behind her full of bottles of liquor, and see soda, juice, and carbonated water as potential mixers.
I take the cup, her fingers grazing mine when I look down, seeing pale yellow in my drink. I want to down the entire thing.
“Pineapple juice,” she confirms.
I look up as I take a sip. It’s really damn good. “Thanks,” I tell her, drinking more, the ice in it she got from the fridge door making it the perfect temperature. I finish the entire thing too fast, but it’s like I need something to do with my hands.
She doesn’t seem to notice.
She doesn’t drink from her own cup as she turns her gaze to the pool, one arm crossed over her body, her elbow propped in the opposite hand. I glance at her swimsuit. White, contrasting with her dark skin, and one piece, like my gray suit. But I’ve got shorts pulled over the bottom half of mine, and I’m annoyed I started my period this morning. The first few days are always heavy for me, to the point I’m wearing a pad and a tampon right now, which means I won’t be getting in the water unless or until I take it off.
And withLunahere, I don’t want any… accidents.
I take another sip of the dregs of my cup, crunching the ice. “You okay?” I ask Janelle. We’ve been texting a little, but not since last Friday. When we all found out about Winslet. I know Janelle wasn’t as close with her, but I’m sure it’s still a little harrowing. “About the news?” I sink down onto one of the stools of the island, feeling a little dizzy already, from lack of sleep this week and the drink.
Janelle swallows, but she doesn’t look at me. I’ve pored through a few of the books she gave me, we talk a little in the hallways. I think we’re becoming friends, and I know I should be there for her if she’s upset or whatever. Besides, I really am curious how she feels about this. Everyone else pretends nothing even happened. Aside from the police presence that first day when the news broke, and the flyers being ripped down from the entrance of Trafalgar, nothing has changed.
“I’m okay,” she finally answers me, her voice low. “I didn’t know her that well. But…heseems okay too, huh?” She smiles as she says the words, but she doesn’t look at me. She’s staring at Eli, I realize, as he brings the joint to his lips, inhaling before exhaling smoke through his nose while he listens to something Jasper is telling him, leaned in toward his cousin and speaking with his hands.
“Yep.” I stare down into my cup. “Seems like it.” Looking at Eli without his shirt on, the hint of his tattoo visible beneath his white swim trunks, his abs glistening in the heat from the sun, it’s enough to make me ache for him. But even though I know he said blood doesn’t bother him, some part of me has no inclination to have period sex with him, not as heavily as I bleed.
I cross one leg over the other under the overhang of the kitchen island.
Janelle clears her throat, but she isn’t shy with her next words. “Did anything happen with you two?”
I feel my face growing hot, and don’t lift my eyes from my cup, mainly empty, ice cubes clustered together between thin rivulets of pineapple juice and rum.
