A fractured fairytale

11

On Monday morning, I was slightly less miserable about having to skip practice for tutoring because I finally had my car back. Alex had his too, so we drove separately, with Jay joining him in his car and Violet riding with me. She'd been in another fight with our dad this morning so spent the entire journey with a stony expression.

"What's going on with you?" I finally asked her as we pulled up in the car park outside school. When we were younger, Vi, Alex and I were always close and would play together all the time as kids. Even when Chris and Em came along, she remained closer to the two of us than she ever was with them. When we got a bit older, we started to bicker and tease each other a lot but we'd still always felt close, but recently she'd seemed more and more distant and spent all her time arguing with everyone around her.

Her scowl deepened at my question and she twisted away from me to slide her bag onto her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

I rolled my eyes. "You know exactly what I mean. Why've you been so moody and argumentative."

I realised my mistake the moment the words left my mouth. Never tell a woman she's in a mood. That was what my dad had always told us. I could see the anger simmering in Violeta's eyes as she whipped back around to face me. "Fuck off Matt," she spat before throwing open the car door so violently I was worried it would snap off the hinges. A second later, it slammed hard enough to shake the whole vehicle and Vi stormed across the car park without even glancing back.

I huffed out a sigh and jumped out of the car. Across the car park, I saw Alex tip his head back and laugh while he and Jay approached me, their gazes darting between me and where Vi was heading towards the main entrance. "She looks happy," Alex commented, brows raised.

"My fault, I asked what was wrong," I told him with an eye roll.

Jay chuckled. "Women." I offered him a grin.

"What does she do every morning before class starts?"

Alex shrugged. "Gossip about other girls with her friends? How should I know?"

That was enough of an answer to have me twisting and following in the same direction she had gone. "Where are you going? Don't you have tutoring?" my brother called after me.

"Yep."

I heard him mutter something before two sets of footsteps fell into step with my own and the three of us quickly caught up to Violet in the main hallway of the school. I watched her walk straight past her locker and make a right towards where the science labs were. "Can't imagine she's developed a sudden interest for chemistry," Jay muttered beside me, voicing my own thoughts. My sister was a lot like me in that regard and wouldn't be caught dead inside the chem labs when she didn't have to be there.

I inched forwards, keeping quiet so she didn't hear us following her, and then turned the corner to peek into the room she'd entered. The only other person in there was a guy I didn't recognise and I felt my stomach tighten.

He was a tall, big guy, with gelled hair and a stupid smirk on his face as he eyed my sister. He wasn't anyone significant enough for me to recognise him, but he wore a leather jacket and a pair of motorcycle boots and had an air of superiority around him that rubbed me up the wrong way. "Who the fuck is that," I muttered.

Before either of the guys could confirm whether they recognised him or not, Vi approached him, raised onto her tip-toes, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her lips to his. I saw red, and, before I even knew I was moving, I was closing my hand around her arm and dragging her back from him.

"Ow! What the hell," she screeched, twisting to look up at me and then ripping her arm free.

Meanwhile, her companion stepped forward. "Hey! Get your fucking hands off her!"