The Darkness You Curse

★ Chapter One.

Nessa
Six months ago

"You're gonna be late."

Damn this guy with his habit to barge into the place I called home since around eight months without knocking and causing me to mistake my arm for my daily choice of vegetable on the cutting board.

The open kitchen was centered right next to the thick, wooden entry door which made it as good as impossible to hear someone closing in until they actually knocked or, like Romeo, felt comfortable enough to enter loudly enough to make you jump out of your skin.

The two storey house with its stunningly Victorian design and interior connecting to the main residence legally belonged to my current intruders mother, Jane Marie Branson, who not only gave birth to the three young men my age walking around the acres of this big property, but also created Baneyard's more prestigious institutes for education. She also happened to be married to our town's mayor, Graham Branson, who's currently running campaigns to ensure becoming senator.

Technically this place would belong to Romeo James Branson someday but someday was so far ahead in the future I doubt I was there to would live through it, meaning the jokester had no business disturbing my morning rituals.
Morning rituals which included forty minutes on the treadmill placed in my bedroom, a thorough shower, doing my make-up and then preparing myself a plate full of cut vegetable. Why, you might wonder. Well, I guess it's safe to say some habits were harder to get rid off than others.

It made sense that the spawns of the most boundary respecting humans I know felt entitled enough to barge into everyone's space as if they were missed there.

I let out a hiss of pain when the knife sliced my skin around my wrist deep enough to draw blood.
By the way tiny scars decorate my left arm I wouldn't be surprised if rumours start circulating soon about how I'm on the verge of killing myself.
I was more likely to unalive the asshole stomping in here every once in a while causing me to look like one of those emo kids hanging out in the so called
'corner of poets' during lunch than offing myself, thank you very much.

"Ever heard of forming a fist and knocking on the door like a normal fucking person?"

By the way Romeo's face contorted for a second it was safe to say that I've been, once again, unnecessarily harsh but it couldn't be helped. I was not in control of my brain and how it reacted to things, was not in control of my mouth at times.

The taken off guard expression on my visitors face had me consider to apologize but even if I wanted to, which I quite fairly didn't, the words wouldn't leave my mouth anyway.
No need to lie without reason.

With knife in hand I walked over to the sink, laid the utensil down in it and started letting cold water clean the wound on the upper side of my left wrist, right where the word 'libertas' in black ink stared back at me.
It was the first tattoo I got and the little cut on it now reminded me of the needle marking my skin months ago. The engraving of art on my body gave me a sense of control only one other thing in the world could give me but while my past issues had actively endangered my life, tattoos were safe.

"If you weren't you, it would probably creep me out that you went all viper on me and then in a split second started smiling like the fucking joker," Romeo said, reminding me of his presence. "You're forgiven, by the way."

Back to scowling we go then.

I rolled my eyes and opened the drawer next to the sink where I started keeping the bandages after the third time I accidentally cut myself because of him.
"I didn't ask for your forgiveness."

He stepped closer and took the package out of my hand, pulling out a bandage while smirking.
"Granting it anyway."

Romeo's way too long fingers wrapped around my wrist just above the bleeding cut and squeezed a little. I involuntarily winced at the sharp pain.

My eyes followed his every moment and when his thumb spread the out of my body retreated blood around the letters of my tattoo as if to draw a new, more colourful one, I tried to wriggle out of his iron grip, failing.

His brown eyes underlined his amusement as he finally secured the white bandage to let the red blood cells do their job.

"Who's the creep now?" I deadpanned.

"Mom told me to give you this," Romeo then said, ignoring my statement, while pulling out something out the pocket of his blue jeans and laying it into the palm of my outstretched hand.
Finally his touch was gone and with that, the irritating itching the feeling of his skin had caused me was too.

In the middle of my hand laid a shiny black key with the logo of a car brand I had no business of having just for my short trips to the elite university Jane had set up back in the day.
I felt ungrateful and disappointed looking down at the key to the vehicle I was given, knowing other people weren't able to afford what was just thrown at me. Or rather, what amount money was wasted on me considering I didn't pay a dime for my studies either.
Instead of revealing what I really felt though I did what I always did when I felt uncomfortable, I joked.
"Only the Urus, huh?"

★

I was taller with my five foot eight than most girls I have met over the course of my life yet sitting behind the steering wheel of the SUV made me feel excruciatingly small. Not particularly because of the spacious inside but because I didn't radiate the energy that came with owning a car model like this.
Despite the venom flowing through my veins, I wasn't what you call a person who was confident of oneself.
I was just really fucking good at pretending when the occasion forced me to.
High end cars were to be driven by individuals that looked like they earned them even if they didn't.

I chose one of the parking spaces closer to the building I had my first class in so I wouldn't have to walk too much. Wouldn't be seen too much.

Grabbing the black Neverfull SS, that's what Jane had called the bag when she gifted it to me with the words "it will be perfect to carry around your laptop", from the passenger side, I exited the car.

For just a few seconds the sun presented me with a slightly painful feeling to my eyes but then getting used to the broad daylight had me seeing the campus more clearly.

I've been here a ton of times this year but its effect on me had still not faded.
Its breathtakingly small castle like constructions made you feel like the elite of the elite. As if the design was part of the reason people struggled to pay the enormous bill that was to be paid by the beginning of each month.
The different small, dazzling white buildings were connected by wide asphalted tracks.
Over all the structure of the Baneyard U reminded me of one of the colleges I visited before I graduated high school and wasn't sure if I planned to remain in the city.

The main dissimilarity to the Marist College in New York was that our university was not build close the sea but our city's biggest forrest terrain.

Just thinking about what's inside the woods had a tremor rocking through my body.
What was it they said?
Like calls to like?

My gaze slid to the right where another smaller way highlighted the long-ish distance to the first row of gigantic trees out of which imaginary shadows emerged and threatened to pull me into their invisible arms.

Then, as if someone was playing tricks on my already sick encephalon, the track disappeared right in front of my eyes.
Or maybe it was never there to begin with.