The Bad Boy's Sleepover

Chapter 31

Eva flipped her bag over her bed and collapsed against the soft sheets. She turned on the flat screen in her room immediately, which was something she had been doing religiously for the past week, a week that had been nothing short of madness. 

First the news about the leaked and doctored tapes had dominated every television screen, every news channel and every post online. There was no denying Julian's solid alibi by now and two days ago it was announced that the murder case involving both Fiona and Jason had been reopened. 

The whiplash from this sudden turn of events had made Eva's anxiety worse. She stole her mother's prescription of Xanax every chance she got and popped one before bed every night. 

The ants were crawling out of the woodwork. Eva should have known it would happen eventually. She'd felt this growing sense of dread ever since the van escorting Julian to juvy had crashed leading to his timely disappearance. 

She flipped through the news channels which were all talking about the same damn thing - Julian's innocence and the fact that he was wrongly executed - but then she stopped when she saw his mother speaking to a reporter outside her house. 

Julian's mother looked haggard, like she had aged twenty years in the span of a few months. Her face was ashen, deep lines marred her forehead and her cheeks were sunken, hollowed out. It was as if she had stopped eating properly, stopped brushing her wispy blonde hair and stopped bothering about her appearance in general. 

Eva remembered finding an old picture of her in the safe her father hid in his office. Eva's father was a ruthless business man but he was terrible at keeping secrets, especially from his daughter. And his passwords were always the easiest to guess. 

Eva had begun sneaking into his office at the tender age of five, it was her way of connecting to a father that was often there but never present.

It was only when Julian disappeared in middle school and she found his mother's picture in her father's safe, did she realise why. 

Julian's mother, Mrs. Paula used to be beautiful, her blonde hair wavy and shiny, her slim figure almost statuesque as she posed for the camera. Her long legs were barely obscured by the short white dress in the picture. Eva could never tell if the dress had been splotchy or if the picture was just too old. 

But she would always remember the carefree smile on her father's face as he stood next to her, his arm wrapped tightly around her tiny waist. Eva had never seen him smile like that, even when he was around her mother. 

He'd never smiled at Eva like that either and sometimes it caused a ball of fear to lodge in her throat. Maybe he'd never really loved her to begin with. After all she was adopted, she didn't share his DNA. 

She wondered if he smiled like that when he thought about his biological son. 

Eva shook her head, ridding herself of the thoughts that always haunted her nights in this bed. She stared at Mrs. Paula on the news channel, who was currently looking into the camera with a broken smile and sagging eyes. 

She was begging for her son to be found safe and sound. Her voice was breaking and she looked so frail, if the wind picked up she could very well be swept away with it. 

There was a gnawing feeling in the pit of Eva's stomach. She felt bad, horrible even. She'd hated this woman, ever since she found her photo. She had blamed her for her father's distractedness but the more she looked at her, the more she began to hate herself. 

This was all Eva's fault. Julian had been framed because of her. Because of what she had done. Fiona and Jason had been killed because of her. 

It was all because of her.