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IT'S A QUARTER to twelve, and Darcy Sumpter was wide awake in bed, limbs spilling off her mattress and gone a bit cold from the lack of cover.
⠀⠀⠀ The problem? Her mind wouldn't shut off, mulling over information that she'd been fervently revising for the past two weeks, like some sort of mantra. It played in her head, over and over, like a saccharine song that'd been overplayed on the radio.
⠀⠀⠀ The even bigger problem? Her present company.
⠀⠀⠀ Pushing herself on her elbows, and casting a frosty glare at the bed adjacent to hers, Darcy felt a small tide creeping up and a cool, calm rage shipwrecked in the depths of her stomach at the sight of her very unconscious sister who was snoring and drooling and — she couldn't make this shit up, grinding her teeth — at the top of each hour, like clockwork.
⠀⠀⠀ Being a restless sleeper was one thing. But what Emma Sumpter did was full on offensive, and quite frankly, she could rot in hell.
⠀⠀⠀ In her restlessness, Darcy spun fantasies and tall tales of stuffing her twin sister into the underside of her mattress with no air to breathe or throwing a sucker punch square on her mouth. She would do it, she'd done it before; to other girls for lesser reasons. But that was another life and she was totally zen now. Finding her centre, she shook her head and dragged herself to their en-suite bathroom.
⠀⠀⠀ Glimpsing her reflection in the mirror, then thinking to herself — who is that ape? — she piled her wildfire hair into an up-do with only a slight face-framing piece in a gentle curl that unveiled her milk skin peppered with an array of golden freckles. In primary school, she used to loathe them and would dream of angel skin, devoid of it. Now in sixth form, unforeseen circumstances had prompted her to burst out of her inhibitions and forge confidence out of her shell. She was rather fond of her freckles now.
⠀⠀⠀ She rinsed her face with chilling water, before taking a deep breath — just like she'd practiced many times before — to momentarily calm herself down. She could still feel the itch of a wild fire searing through her veins, but it was tamed beneath the skin now.
⠀⠀⠀ Totally. Fucking. Zen.
⠀⠀⠀ She emerged from their bathroom, trudging back into their adjoined bedroom, where she was welcomed with Emma 's insolent snoring and... music?
⠀⠀⠀ It was crisp and clear now, the keyboard riffs and the chord progression of the most eighties sounding song from the nineties. What should have been white noise, was now Robert Smith's velvet voice on 'Friday I'm in Love' blaring through the night. Darcy blinked at the chorus, her fingers curling into fists. "Right," she muttered, crossly, "what's all this, then?"
