Elysian

The calm before the storm

"Are you sure you said nine?" Dex asks for the tenth time, leaning against a fancy looking pillar outside of the Kingston's huge mansion.

I glare at him, refusing to answer the same question again.

"Fuck this," I say after a few more moments, not wanting to waste anymore of my day standing outside this house. "Wait," Jay says, pointing down the drive.

I turn and see Juliet rushing up it, her backpack bouncing against her back as she speed walks over. "I'm so sorry guys I got a little caught up," She apologises. "I hope you haven't been waiting long," She says, sending us a sheepish smile before fiddling with her keys to open the door.

The fact that she looks completely disheveled and is still wearing yesterday's clothes peaks my curiosity. I wonder what or who she was doing.

"It's cool we just got here," Sy lies, knowing we got here twenty minutes ago. "You don't mind that we brought him right," He says, motioning towards Jayden who refused to stay back in the dorms while we spent the day at Marco Kingston's house.

"No it's fine," She assures. "Nice to meet you by the way," She beams. By the look on Jay's face I can tell he's already in love.

She pushes open the large stained glass door, revealing an immaculate foyer decorated in expensive art and sculptures.

She looks wearily around the house, seemingly checking if anyone is home. "Dad?" She calls out while leading us towards the staircase. I can feel the anticipation radiating off Dex and Jay who are both desperate to meet Marco but nobody answers, the house remaining utterly silent.

"We can go up to the library there'll be more room up there," She announces, ascending the stairs.

This girl has her own fucking library?

"Nice place," Sy compliments. "Shouldn't we take our shoes off?" He asks, looking down at our scruffy, beat up shoes that patter along the perfectly polished floorboards.

"Nah you're alright," Juliet says after turning around to look at us, her soft brunette hair bouncing around her face as she did so.

We walk through the maze like house, trudging through hallway after hallway with no end in sight. The walls are coloured a cool toned beige with golden accents everywhere.

The house is nice but it feels lifeless in a way, the only way I can think to describe it is when retailers set up rented furniture into staged rooms. Sure it's a house with furniture but it doesn't feel like a home, it's just pretending to be.

Juliet's house is filled with expensive abstract art, but not one picture of her. There's a huge living room filled with everything you'd expect there to be, sofas, a coffee table, a tv but it looks way too pristine as if it's never even been used.

Everything here just feels off, the house absent of any love and warmth.

Maybe I just don't understand the rich or maybe it's because I grew up in a tiny cluttered apartment where me, my sister and my mum practically lived on top of one another.

"Just chuck your stuff wherever," Juliet says, ushering us into the library. She plops down on a leather armchair in the corner, acting like having something like this in her house is normal while us peasants marvel at the sight in front of us.

This library could easily rival the one we have at uni. The huge mahogany bookcases tower over us, stretching all the way up to the roof which is painted with a memorial of numerous Michelangelo inspired paintings. There's a huge matching mahogany table in the centre of the room with a golden lamp resting upon it.

"Wow," Jay mutters, admiring the structure of the room. He's an architecture student so this room has probably made his day.

"You guys get out your notes and I'll go get us some snacks," She says, hopping out the chair and exiting the room. Getting out our notes is a quick task considering we have none.

She returns moments later with an arm full of snacks and dumps them on the chair. Damn she really went all out, bringing us all the most expensive brands.

"We kinda don't have any notes," Dex says sheepishly after noticing Juliet notice the completely empty table. "Neither do I," She snorts.

"Well then we're fucked," Sy shrugs, grabbing a box of lindor chocolates from the pile.

"Nah I reckon that we could crack it out," Juliet says confidently, causing me to audibly laugh. "Yeah I'm sure building a mobile autonomous robot will be no sweat," I say sarcastically.

"It can't be that hard Callum, with all our combined knowledge we might actually make up the brain power of one good student," She laughs.

Did she just call me Callum?

The boys burst out laughing as I glare at all of them. "Yeah you heard her Callum we have work to do," Dex snickers.

We spend the next three hours coming up with design concepts for our robot and sketching them out. I have to admit Juliet did carry all of us in that department, I can't even draw a stickman without fucking it up.

"Oh my god," Dex exclaims as he walks through the door, having just returned from the bathroom. We all stop our work and look up at him expectantly.

"Juliet tell me why I just came across the sickest gaming room I've ever seen," Dex marvels. "The tv was fuckin huge I would kill to play on that," He adds.

"Well we're pretty much done for the day, fancy a round of mario cart?" She asks, tilting her head slightly. Dex looks at her as if he's ready to immediately wife her up as she passes him, munching on a bag of Cheetos as she leads us through the hall.

We arrive in a huge, cinema like room. There's rows of recliner chairs, each one higher up than the one in front of it and they're all pointing at the biggest screen I've ever seen.

I follow Juliet in, watching as the glow of the blue led lights shine down on her. We scatter out across the seats, immediately sinking into the comfortable material as Juliet hands us each a playstation control.

"Fuck off you prick!" Dex screams at Jay who hit him with a banana peel.

"Wow you are so bad," Juliet laughs, nudging me with her elbow. I scoff but don't deny it, knowing I'm god awful at this game. In my defence I've never played before.

"Use your green shells," She whispers to me. "Oh my god piss off dickhead," Dex yells again after I hit him with a green shell, causing me to laugh at the fact that  he is now in last place.

I actually start enjoying myself, finding it amusing to ruthlessly bully Dexter every round because he gets so pressed.

Our fun is interrupted by the loud sound of a door slamming shut downstairs. We continue playing as Juliet ditches her controller and rushes out of the room.

She returns moments later, trying to mask the panicked expression on her face.

"You guys need to leave."