Exotic - Chapter 15: Chapter 15

There was no better way of putting it; Tuesday fucking sucked.
Aaron was being very careful with me, and Max gave me a (not entirely unwanted) hug that morning, but they were the only two people in the school who knew. The rest of the day consisted of vacant staring and very little work getting done. Miss Riley tried to reel me into a conversation about progress, but I stonewalled her until she dismissed me.
I sat in the library at five past three, my knee bouncing as I waited for my Tranquillity tutor. Whoever she was, she seemed to be making a point. Miss Riley had told me they got off at two-thirty, so her tardiness seemed like a purposeful dig. Like I wasn't worth being on time for.
I checked Sephora's Instagram. My gallery was slowly filling with images, drawings, and photographs, and my follower count was slowly rising. I kept a close eye on each person I accepted, making sure they had no links back to Truman or Miles. Even the very complimentary comments couldn't lift my mood.
A satchel dropped onto the table next to me like a lead weight, and a body dropped down into the chair adjacent to me.
"Right. You look the twitchiest in this building, so I'm assuming you're Miles?"
I looked up in surprise, instantly recognising the deadpan tone.
Lauren Proust, in a navy blazer and sensible ponytail, quirked an eyebrow at me. "Hey. I know you."
I let my eyes drift closed. A bubble of laughter popped in the back of my throat. Lauren leaned back, visibly perturbed as I kneeled over and cackled.
It fucking figured. I had joked about not being able to go a week without bumping into a Proust. If it had been any other day, and I had been in any other mental state, I would have just walked out. But the irony was pretty hysterical.
Lauren glanced around the library, visibly embarrassed for the both of us. "Did you swallow another fly or something? Breath."
I clapped a hand over my mouth, nodding quickly. "Sorry. I just remembered something really funny."
Her expression wouldn't have been out of place on the sane side of the glass in a mental asylum. "Clearly. I remember you. You were friends with Jess's... friend. She was really upset over him for all of two hours."
"I'm glad she's moved on," I clapped my hand down on the desk. "Woah. Sorry. It's been a weird day. And I didn't expect to know who you were. Lauren, right? What are the chances?"
"Pretty slim. Since there are only three tutors on the roster willing to work in public schools," she flipped open her satchel. "Most girls drop out around midterms."
"Not you?"
"Nah. I'm not much of a studier," she dropped a textbook almost as tall as it was wide and flicked it open to the first page. "So, what is it about modern history that's not clicking with you? Is it boring? It's boring, isn't it."
Her bluntness reminded me of Max. I trusted it, despite my trepidation. Then again, at any moment she could have looked me in the eyes and realised that she recognised me from another interaction. I kept my voice level and my face angled away from hers. "I guess. I'm not that focused. I don't do great with..." I searched for Miss Riley's words. "Recall. And I don't study."
"Good. You're honest," she said resolutely. Her cheeks were wide and brushed with freckles; she was very pretty, slowly growing into her own skin. And she wasn't lacking in confidence. It reminded me of Jake. Despite his age, he hadn't been held back from doing the right thing by what his peers thought. Lauren, despite being fifteen at most, seemed to be well past caring what anyone thought of her; I envied her that. "Well, I can't teach you to focus. You're seeing the councillor for that, right?"
"Wow. She told you everything, huh?"
"I like to know what I'm getting on the bus for," she said, twisting her wild ponytail over one shoulder. "She also told me you're smart. So, I'm hoping this will be pretty easy community service hours for me."
"I wouldn't bet on it," I warned her. I struggled to think of a single piece of history I'd locked down since discovering Sephora and starting my dual life.
Lauren frowned, but a second later she was shrugging me off. "Oh well. That's what I'm here for. Should we start at the beginning of unit three?"
"I think I've got Russian history down," I informed her. Her smile was pretty, but tight lipped like she was nervous about exposing her teeth. She stuck her fingers into the textbook and opening it to the correct page, first try.
"We'll see about that."
The clock hit and passed 4 pm, and I was too wrapped up in Lauren and her unorthodox, yet oddly endearing way of teaching to notice. She was strict, sometimes mocking, but never cruel. She never expected me to know anything, never presumed. Even when I blanked on pieces of universal knowledge, like the end date of the first world war, she never shamed me for it.
"...and lists are great. Dot points, and then dot points below dot points," she suggested, checking her watch. "Crap. My rides waiting."
"We can wrap here," I closed my book. "This has been... really helpful."
"Same time next fortnight?" she confirmed, and I nodded. "Remember to watch The Missing Picture. With tissues handy."
We packed up together, Lauren shoving her satchel closed with a grunt. There was an assortment of badges pinned to the lapels of her jacket, advertising her in-school achievements. Arts captain, junior prefect, interschool swim team. One, in particular, caught my eye.
"What does one have to do to achieve Tranquillity's 'Enduring Spirit' award?"
She looked down to the purple-themed pin, and then up, fly-aways hanging heavy around her face. "My eyes are up here, Miles."
I laughed again, shaking my head gently. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder, digging her hair out from under the strap. "It's given out every year to a student overcoming hardship. Going through chemo, death in the family, persevering through a learning disability. If they don't have anyone more interesting in the year group, they just give it to the scholarship kid."
"Scholarship?" I shouldn't have sounded so surprised. Lauren was clearly a gifted kid.
"Yeah. Full academic ride," she hummed. "My brothers go here, actually. OLOT likes taking in a poor impoverished kid from the suburb every year. I get to study there minus tuition costs, and in return, I do an assembly speech year about how grateful I am and how hard I'm working for the sponsors. It's a pretty sweet deal."
"Thought I recognised your last name," I said insipidly. She immediately rolled her eyes.
"Yes, those idiots have made it infamous," she snorted. "Seth's decided he's the class clown, which is giving Mum parent-teacher meeting fatigue. Jake's even worse than your friend Max in the female department. New girl on his arm every week. And Caleb... well, I shouldn't say anything bad. He is picking me up."
I faltered as we left the library together, nearly tripping myself up. Thankfully, Lauren didn't seem to notice.
"I hope knowing them hasn't dampened your opinion of me," she added. "They're only morons on the surface. And they have bad friends. Which way are you headed?"
"Bus stop," I said quickly, moving to make my escape. Lauren stepped in my way.
"Where do you live around?" she asked, and a sheet of dread settled over me. "Caleb can give you a lift. Buses hardly ever come by after four."
I opened my mouth to make an excuse, a strong no, but all that came out was a garbled, "I wouldn't want to inconvenience him."
"No inconvenience," she assured me. "I kept you past four, it's the least I can do."
"My complete inability to absorb information kept me past four," I assured her. Her eyes were intense, and her face was determined. There would be no shifting her, it seemed; at least not with any excuse that wouldn't push suspicion to her brother, or make me seem like an asshole. "... alright. Thanks."
She granted me a small smile, and we took two steps together before I slapped my forehead exaggeratedly. "Oh! I just remembered... I forgot... to go to the bathroom. I'll meet you in the parking lot?"
Lauren nodded, visibly perplexed. I turned my back on her and walked quickly back towards the library.
Once out of view, I slouched against a classroom wall and let out a shaky breath. Lauren would tell Caleb that she had a friend, a Miles Stewart, who needed a lift, and he would make excuses to leave. I just need to wait them out.
It hit hard and fast – two years of withheld grief, with only one day a year with an excuse to express it. Lauren's company had been a pleasant distraction, but it was never going to completely take away the agony of the day.
Two years ago, I'd held my mum's emancipated, pale hand and told her it was okay to let go. That I would be alright, and she didn't have to worry about me. I'd gone to get a sandwich from the vending machine, and by the time I'd returned, they refused to let me back in the room. She'd become unresponsive. They tried to resuscitate her for six minutes, they told me and Reece, who had a ponytail back then, but both her lungs had collapsed and her brains oxygen supply had shut off even if they'd been able to get a pulse back, the woman they bought back wouldn't have been my mum.
I wondered if that had been for the best. I knew my mum wouldn't have wanted that for herself, but sometimes, I wanted her back so badly that I wouldn't have minded in what state I got her back. Unresponsive, unable to speak or care for herself... at least she would have been there, alive, warm in my arms with a heartbeat I could press my ear against.
My eyes were dams, threatening to break. I pressed my fists into them.
My phone buzzed, and I dug it from my pocket with my eyes still threatening to spill over.
She's not going to let me leave without you. Just get out here.
I sighed myself back to composure, and I replied to Caleb's text bluntly.
she's fifteen. tell her you're not waiting.
His response came quickly.
You've met Lauren, right? Just come to the car park. I don't mind.
I wanted to respond, maybe I mind. I also wanted to sprint to the car park to make sure he didn't leave without me.
My compromise was to walk slowly through the school, quietly hoping that Lauren would get fed up and leave before I got there. When I reached the gates, it became evident that she had done no such thing. There was only one car left in the parking lot, Caleb's sedan, and she was pacing in front of it. Caleb was hunched over in the front seat.
I approached with my eyes averted. "Sorry. Long line."
Lauren gave a pointed glance around the deserted parking lot but didn't call me out on my lame excuse. "Come on. Caleb's getting pissy with me."
She slid into the passenger seat. After much consideration, I popped open the back door and dropped into the middle seat. Caleb's car looked different from the back. The seat pockets were crammed with loose bits of paper, and there was a stray soccer ball rolling around at my feet. There was also an empty box of condoms peeking out from beneath the passenger seat. I kicked it out of sight with my toe.
Caleb started up the engine and turned up the radio without saying a word to me. Lauren immediately switched it off.
"Caleb, this is Miles," she said, in the same tone a mother might remind their toddler that sharing is caring. "You guys are in the same year."
"There are three hundred people in my year," Caleb muttered, but he caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. "Good to see you, Miles."
I was rendered momentarily speechless by the fact he hadn't pretended to not know me. Even more so by the fact he'd said it was good to see me. "... Yeah. Likewise."
Lauren seemed satisfied with this, kicking up the music to fill the uncomfortable silence which followed. Caleb kept stealing glances at me in the mirror, and I kept being bad at ignoring him. I opened my phone, finding another older message from before I'd gotten in his car.
Are you going to ask for a new tutor?
Irritating pricked me like a heated needle. I met his eyes in the mirror, scowled obviously, and then leaned forward into the centre console. "Lauren, if I have any questions before our next session, should I email you?"
"Yeah, if we were living in the nineties," Lauren retorted. "Texting is a thing. Just don't blow up my phone, I don't usually do tutor work when I can't log it for community hours."
We exchanged numbers, as Caleb's knuckles became progressively whiter on the steering wheel. I was keenly aware of how close my arm, draped between the front seats, was to his thigh. I might have retracted it, but then I thought about Max's black eye and Aidan and Caleb's choice to fall back into his good books, and I decided he was due for some discomfort.
"You play volleyball as well, right? Jess mentioned it. "I pocketed my phone. "Do you not like free time or something?"
"Free time to do what?" Lauren snorted. "I like drawing, I guess. But I do that everywhere. Caleb can attest."
Caleb cleared his throat obviously. "At least you've gotten over your male anatomy fixation."
Lauren slugged his arm, none-to-gently. "Context, Caleb. Jesus."
"Oh, sorry," Caleb took one hand off the wheel to give her a gentle shove. "At least you don't ride the bus with a sketchpad full of dicks anymore."
Lauren looked back at me with a can you believe this guy roll of her eyes. "He's exaggerating."
"I draw too," I dropped back in my seat. "Not in public though."
"Horrified by your own creations?" Lauren queried.
I thought about Sephora and the stacks of drawings in my closet. I'd never been interested in drawing much else. I still sketched clothes on occasion, but I would eventually lose interest and start drawing Sephora, slip her into the outfit I'd thought up. "Nah. Just personal."
"Ah," Lauren nodded perceptively. "Are you going through your own male anatomy fixation?"
I considered telling Caleb to pull over. He immediately looked like he was about to pass out. I laughed, sure I sounded like I was being garrotted. "No. Fashion, actually."
"Ooh. Can you send me some pictures?" she perked up. "I'll return the favour. Nothing lewd, I promise. Unless you want to see my dick sketchbook. I got pretty good towards the end there."
My laughed came easier the second time. "Family-friendly content only, please."
Lauren grinned, which faded pretty quickly when her eyes drew back to Caleb. "You alright?"
The tips of Caleb's ears had gone red, and he appeared to be having trouble swallowing. Upon Lauren noticing, he breathed out heavily. "Fine."
"You look high," she noted.
"I'm not high."
"I know," she turned back to me. "Caleb doesn't get high."
"Alright, Lauren," he hissed, as he jerked out of the middle lane way too fast. "I understand it's your birthright to give me shit whenever possible but I'm sure Miles doesn't want to hear it."
Lauren granted me another eye-roll but flopped back in her seat. We sat in tense silence as Caleb pulled off the highway, sitting high in his seat to check his blind spot. I did my best to sink into the backseat and disappear, looking out the window as the sedan began twisting through suburbia.
"How's Max doing?" Caleb asked, out of the blue.
I glanced back to the front, surprised. His eyes trapped me in the reflective glass, and I cursed myself mentally for being lured in. "He's fine. So is Aaron."
"Max?" Lauren asked, dark brows dipping low over her eyes. "Is this the same Max from the cinema? And his brother, the cute one?"
"They're identical," I reminded her, at the same time as Caleb said, stricken, "Lauren."
"They weren't identical. Aaron dressed way nicer," Lauren argued, and made a face at Caleb. "Wait, was this the fight Jake was talking about? What happened?"
Caleb didn't respond, which I took as a blessing to illuminate her. "One of Caleb's friends made a bunch of revolting jokes about them, about Aaron, and got his face beaten in by Max."
"Greenaway isn't my friend," Caleb snapped. "He's on the junior team. I hardly know the guy."
I turned my head and fixed my eyes on the outside. My house wasn't far away. I could ride out the awkward silence. But Lauren was persistent.
"Jesus. What an asshole," she spat. "And Jake split them up?"
"I helped," god knew why I felt the need to say it. Validation from a fifteen-year-old should not have been the top of my priority list.
"Did Max get kicked off the team?" she queried. I shook my head.
"Your brother was to thank for that," I reassured her, then added, "Jake. He lied about who threw the first punch. Got Greenaway benched for two games and Max off scot-free."
Lauren leaned back, revelling in the drama of it all. I couldn't imagine she got to see much action at Tranquillity.
"Were you there?" she probed Caleb, who shook his head. "Probably a good thing."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She shrugged against her headrest. "You probably would have told the truth."
Caleb opened his mouth to retort, but then we were at my house and he was pulling up on the curb. I scooted to the door, ready to throw myself out to escape the thick, choking blanket of apprehension filling the car.
Lauren's voice stopped me in my tracks. "Hang on. How did you know where he lived?"
Caleb and I exchanged fervent glances. His skin went instantly pale, and I wanted to cuss him out for being so obvious. "What?"
"He never gave you his address," Lauren was frowning, and gears in her brain were visibly grinding. I felt my heart flutter in panic, my urge to bolt from the car flooding my system.
"I'm pretty sure I did," I blurted out, way too quickly.
"No, you didn't," Lauren concluded and narrowed her eyes at me. My hand was motionless against the handle, my mind whirling with potential excuses.
Caleb came to my rescue. "I've given him a lift home before. A few Mondays back. Remember, it was raining like crazy? And I was late home?"
Lauren's eyes were like the reboot screen on a computer; blue, suspicious, and nerve-wracking. She turned back to look me up and down, and I kept my eyes glued firmly down. After a heart-racing three seconds or so, she dropped her shoulders and with them, her mounting paranoia. "Oh. Alright. See you again, Miles."
I nodded numbly, already pulling from my archives of excuses to give Miss Riley that I absolutely needed a new tutor. Preferably, someone completely unfamiliar to me. I was beginning to think I'd magnetised with the Proust family by stepping foot in their house. I threw open the door and made my escape.
Reece was smoking on the front porch. As I vaulted up the steps to the door, he dropped the butt and extinguished it underfoot. "Miles."
"What!" I exclaimed, setting the daggers in my eyes on him.
He scratched under his fraying beanie, digging at his thinning hair. "How was your day?"
I swallowed, my tongue thick in my throat. "How do you think?"
He nodded jerkily, and glanced to the road, where Caleb was pulling out and retreating down the road just a little over the speed limit. "Was that Steph?"
I found myself at a loss as to what he meant at first, before remembering our conversation what felt like an age ago. The reason he'd stopped talking to me for a blissful four days. Lauren, in the front seat, wearing the Tranquillity blazer. "Yup."
"Thought she was blonde," Reece remarked.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. "She dyed it."
"Mmm," Reece dug a fist into his pocket and fished himself another cigarette from the graphic packaging. "Who was driving?"
My nostrils flared, and my skin crawled. I didn't want Reece to know about Caleb. "Her brother."
"Wow," Reece flicked the lighter, and I flinched minutely. "So you've met the family."
My eyes searched for anything to latch onto, besides his vacant face. They landed on a familiar cylindrical container, chipped metallic blue. My heart leaped into my throat, and my mouth dropped into a slack O.
"Is that..." I rushed away from the door, scooping up my mother's urn and cradling it close to my chest, screwing off the top in a hurry. When I saw that her ashes were still inside, coarse and grey with pale dust crawling up the sides. "What the hell? What were you doing?"
Reece's eyes flickered restlessly. "I was just talking. To her. At her. I do that sometimes."
I hitched my backpack up on my shoulders, hugging the urn to my chest. "About what? Everything you've achieved in the last two years? How you think you're ready to move on? Or were you just bitching about me because she can't respond? That's weird. That's weird."
Reece raised the new lit cigarette to his lips, returning to an impassive state. I grimaced at the smell of tobacco flooded my nostrils. "And are you really smoking today?"
Reece let the cigarette hang in his lips, eyes darkening a little. "You can't lay off for even one day, can you?"
Mum had been a social smoker before she'd met Reece; that had turned over into a pack a week when they'd been together. I had never liked the smell, but it had never made me so sick to my core before she'd died. Her cancer hadn't been genetic, it had been bought on by her lifestyle, the doctor had assured me. As if knowing I wasn't at risk made everything better. "Do you have even an ounce of self-awareness? I'll legitimately curious."
Reece blew out a cloud of smoke over his shoulder, but the light wind drew it back into my face. "And I'm curious as to how you've been PMS-ing for two straight years."
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to rouse the whole neighbourhood, pelt him with every splinter of white-hot fury until he was reduced to nothing but pulp.
I hate you. I fucking hate you. It was right there, on the crest of my lips.
"Sorry," I bit back without a hint of remorse. "I'll let you smoke yourself to death in peace."
Reece raised his cigarette to me, half-heartedly. "Thank you."
I flew up the stairs with mum's urn pressed into my chest. My bed sagged under our combined weight, as I tossed my bag halfway across my room. I cupped my face in my hands, rubbing the bridge of my nose with both index fingers.
Aaron had told me I could come over if I needed it.
I needed it.
I pulled out my phone. There was a notification from C.P. I considered deleting it without reading, sure that it would just be a scathing paragraph about how I needed to stay away from his sister and leave him alone.
I didn't have that kind of discipline with myself; I opened the message. Upon reading the two words he'd sent to me, my phone slipped from my fingers and bounced twice on the carpet. The pit of my stomach seared, as my comfortable life flashed before my eyes.
Lauren knows.