Page 100 of Ominous: Part 1
I don’t know if I believe him as he pulls away, still keeping a grip on my thigh, but… I know I want to.
It’snoon when I bring up the police again, and Dominic’s sister.
And it’s only the thick haze of alcohol in my bloodstream that gives me the courage to do it. We both had more to drink, and I slathered sunscreen everywhere over my body in the bathroom, watching myself in the mirror. I enjoyed the way the sun coaxed out my freckles, and I began to feel more confident as the hours passed and Eli ensured we stayed hydrated with bottles of water he has in a cooler atop one of the tables with an umbrella.
I didn’t smoke any more weed. The walls don’t move.
I want everything to stay normal.
Now, I tip back my fourth or fifth drink, the hot, muggy day only background noise as I sit on the bench beside Eli, a drink in his hand, his other arm brushing my shoulder. I’m leaned into him, this time we’re both facing the waterfall, and I watch the clear and blue of the water spill over the stones and into the beautiful pool.
“Why do they think you had something to do with her disappearance? The truth this time.” It comes on the tails of talking about Ms. Romano, her fascination with morbid Latin words, and it just seemed like the best segue to me. Like maybe he was leaving it there to see if I’d bite.
He doesn’t even tense beside me. He just rests his hand on my thigh and a jolt runs through my body as he squeezes softly, taking a drink before he answers me. Neither of us look at the other, but I’m staring at his hand, olive brown with green veins snaking beneath his skin, against my paler thigh, the fat and muscle splayed wide from sitting.
I should be self-conscious, I think, but maybe it’s the thin layer of water rising up over my legs or the alcohol or the fact we look pretty hot like this, I just feel good about it.
“I was one of the last people to see her alive.”
I don’t react to his newfound bluntness. It’s not the worst thing he could’ve said, until… he keeps talking.
“Thelast person who came forward.” He doesn’t give an explanation for why he didn’t say that first, and he doesn’t sound sorry about it. He takes another drink, though, shifting his hand higher up my thigh, then back down, like he’s trying to comfort me in some way, his fingers dancing over my skin.
“Tell me about it. The day she went missing.” I try to keep fear from my words.
“Night,” he corrects me, propping his elbow up on the table, cup dangling from his fingers as we both keep watching the waterfall, but I notice everything he does out of the corner of my eye.
“Tell me about the night.”
I’m still leaned against his body, my empty cup behind me, and I wind one arm under his, hooking onto him.
He glances down at me, smiling softly. “I like that,” he says.
I smile, too, but keep staring straight ahead. “Tell me.”
He sighs. “It was Dominic’s birthday.”
I think of the party.Dominic’s birthday then too.No wonder he wanted to get fucked up.
“His parents never really monitored… anything.” His tone is full of annoyance, which is funny, because we’re here drinking underage from bottles of rum and beer he’d taken from brown paper bags beneath the awning of the pool house, bottles he’d gotten from some guy in the neighborhood in his twenties, a disappointment to his too-rich parents, apparently Eli scores from him often. “Winslet got drunk.”
I keep my eyes on the waterfall, something mesmerizing and peaceful about the steady stream even as Eli keeps talking about the girl I’ve seen on that missing poster all semester. It’s still jarring, the fact he knew her. Not unusual, just… interesting, their tie. “We were all sleeping in the living room. I guess it wasn’t really night,” he corrects his earlier statement. “Three in the morning or something?” He takes another drink and I hear the ice hit his teeth, feel the muscles in his arm contract as I press closer to him.
“Devil’s hour.” I say the words without thinking.
He laughs a little. “You’d probably know all about that, huh?”
I smile, still looking into the distance. “I like magic.” I shake my head, the sleepy haze of the alcohol distracting me. “Keep telling me the story.”
He turns his head, his lips, cold from his drink, coming to my shoulder. I suck in a sharp breath, but a moment later, he’s talking again. “Anyway, Dom kept yelling at her to go upstairs. There were, like, six of us in the living room, and Winslet.”
I don’t ask if Luna was there. In my head, she isn’t.
“Dom’s parents never came down. Her and Dom fought all the time. Winslet got up, but she fell into the coffee table and skinned her knee. She was crying, and Dom told everyone to go up to the game room. So, they did.”
They.
“I was tired. I wanted to sleep. I curled up on the couch, under a blanket, listening to Winslet cry. It was soft noises.” He sounds like he’s there again, remembering all of it. Like he’s said it before, too, and I suppose he has. Maybe even as recently as this past week, with the police. “The next thing I knew, it was morning. It was like I blinked, and opened my eyes, and sunlight was streaming in through the blinds, the ones facing the lake.” He grabs me harder, digging his fingertips into my skin, and I let him. “There was blood on the coffee table. It was like, gold or something stupid, mixed with stone edging. The blood had seeped into the stone. Dominic was throwing shit around, like he was looking for a wallet, the way he tossed pillows and throw rugs to the floor, upturning cushions, like she might fucking be there.” He laughs a little, shaking his head. “He asked me where Winslet was. I told him I didn’t know.”
