the sleepless elite

ii

the sleepless elite

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chapter two

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Oh, all my friends are turning green

– Vance Joy, Riptide

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Darling Charming sits on her bed, sandwiched between her two brothers, Daring sits on her left and Dexter sits on her right. Shoulders brush against one another, feet dangle off. It's one of those moments where someone's door is left open then suddenly everyone's crammed into one bedroom.

And they're all talking about college and their futures.

"So you're really taking a year off, huh?" Dexter asks his twin, fiddling with the sleeve of his button up shirt. He's rolled and unrolled his sleeve about a dozen times so far.

"I need to find myself." Darling explains.

She doesn't know why she needs to say it so many times though. She's already convinced Mr and Mrs Charming to let her take a year off before earning a degree in something. Darling even used her position as the baby of the family to worm her way through. Now the only people who needed to let her be were her brothers. Or, more specifically, Dexter.

"But we'll be separated – again." Dexter claims. "It's bad enough my twin-sense failed me in the last year of high school, I don't want it to happen again with me being far away."

Daring sends Dexter a look. Ever After High was not as 'fun' as he thought it would be. Their final year was just a disaster.

"Aw, come on, Dex. It's just a year. I feel like it'll do me some good. I really need a breather after ..." Darling trails off, pausing. She looks up from the silver phone in her hand and turns her gaze to Daring. In less than 0.2 seconds, she'll be mentioning their ex. "... you know, her."

"Yeah, understandable. Apple did break our hearts," Daring says, adding an almost bitter chuckle.

"Dare!" Dexter exclaims and swats his older brother's arms.

"Ow! That hurt!" Daring says and attempts to reach across the bed and swat Dexter back. It semi-worked. Daring then frowns and says to Darling, "Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't 'warn' you about Apple being a heartbreaker." He rubs his arm. "Apple wasn't like that when I started dating her in Freshman year. Something just happened in Junior year and when Senior year came around, it just blew up."

Darling doesn't say anything, only shrugging and putting her head on her twin's shoulder.

Apple White was originally Daring's girlfriend before the blonde girl started having an existential crisis of some sort and drifted away from him and her friends. Apple then started dating Darling whom had moved to Ever After High. Daring never said anything when he found out his apparently now ex girlfriend was dating his baby sister, he was going through some stuff too. But then on prom night, Apple lost her chance of being prom queen and just broke down. According to what Briar and Ashlynn told Daring, Apple's been bisexual all this while. But Darling tells a different story, saying Apple has always been jumpy when it came to her sexuality; probably using Daring as a moustache and only becoming true to herself when with Darling. So was she bisexual or lesbian? Most likely, as everyone concluded, still closeted.

But, anyways, it still stung for the Charming siblings in the end because Apple was the one to break things off.

A chime interrupts the heavy air for a moment, Darling unlocks her phone out of habit. It's just a notification about someone named Chase_you_there following her Instagram. It's nothing, she locks her screen and sighs.