Page 56

Story: Pretty Poison

It was crazy!

Derek's heavy footsteps came towards us, and I felt his eyes look at me with disdain before hugging his little sister.

“Hey, chica… How are you doing?”

She just shook her head before going back to crying in Derek's arms. The rest of the girls and I gave them some space and walked away.

“She's devastated...” Emily commented, looking at her roommate.

“That boyfriend of hers has always been scum.” I replied, convinced. “It's a shame he did something so horrible like that, but at least she got rid of him for good.”

“Don't say that in front of her.” Emily asked, looking at me angrily. “She's already very shaken by everything, she doesn't need you being a jerk too.”

I opened my mouth to answer her, but Sidney stopped me, placing her hand on my mouth while she smiled weakly.

“She'll be quiet!” My friend assured. I rolled my eyes, but did as I was asked.

We stood there staring at each other and waiting for Veronica to come to us. She spent about fifteen minutes talking to herbrother and I just announced that I was going to buy a coffee when I lost my patience.

Jaz and Troian came with me.

We made a request to Emily too and to Veronica. Troian was the one who bothered to order a latte for Torres, but in the end, I insisted on paying for everyone. When we returned to where the two girls were, we found them talking.

Veronica seemed calmer now and her brother was out of my sight.

“Hey...” I handed the cup to the brunette.

She looked at me suspiciously for a moment before taking the glass from my hand.

“Thanks!”

Her eyes conveyed her exhaustion with the situation, but at no point did she look away from my eyes until I answered her simply: “You're welcome.”

It didn't take long for the biggest victim of the day to announce that she was tired and just wanted to go to bed. We all followed her back to the dorm.

The attention we six were getting all over campus was annoying. People must have been starting to gossip and create conspiracy theories about what had happened. A student from a prominent team on campus had been arrested, everyone would talk about it.

Already in the dormitory building, Veronica, clearly weakened, asked us:

“Don't you want to go to our room?” I was sure that the invitation wouldn't extend to me, even with the sudden addition: “I need a distraction.”

“We can watch a movie…” Jaz suggested, being kind and attentive as always.

Veronica agreed and, before I could walk away and make any excuse, she looked at me again.

“Shall we?” The question was just for me and I knew it, as I also knew that she was waiting for a verbal answer from me.

I thought about denying it, I even considered it just run, but it was heartbreaking to see her like that. Lost, hurt. I couldn't say no to her at that moment.

“Yeah, sure…” I whispered .

I had no idea if I was doing the right thing. Probably... I wasn't, but deep down I knew I never did. I entered Veronica, Troian and Emily's room and the girls began to arrange things so that they could all lie down in the living room. Half an hour later, we all settled down on mattresses on the floor. Emily and Jaz lay down on the couch and the rest of us accommodated as best we could.

Emily put on the most cliché movie on the face of the earth:“10 Things I Hate About You”and everyone seemed lighter as the scenes went by. Troian was next to me, but after falling asleep for a while, I woke up with Veronica next to me, sleeping too.

She seemed harmless like this, however, it was almost obvious that her sleep was being disturbed. I sighed, regretfully, and brushed a lock of hair away from her face, letting her sleep while the very end of the film played out on the television screen.

Two days have passed since Martin's arrest. So people began to discover what had actually happened and the judgmental looks were abusive everywhere. I was barely sleeping and honestly, I could barely eat too. I felt sick with everything and tired all the time.