My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

Chapter Thirteen

The alarm woke Lauren with a jolt.

"Shit."

She rolled over and pressed the button on her phone, silencing it. Sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Lauren cursed multiple things.

She cursed mornings. She cursed the fact that she didn't get any sleep last night. She cursed the bar she'd been in last night for serving drinks until two in the morning. She cursed her job. Not for any particular reason, she just fucking hated it. And she cursed her boss, who was a lot less understanding than her previous one, and probably wouldn't tolerate her being late.

She shuffled around the room, picking up some clothes and putting them on slowly. Pretty much everything she wore was black anyway, so getting dressed in the dark was never really an issue.

The stairs creaked as she padded down them, and she winced. Luckily, no one seemed to wake up.

When she reached the kitchen, she saw a figure standing there, pouring a glass of water.

"Hey, what are you doing up?"

"Well someone woke me up a few hours ago with her drunken singing. I figured there was no point trying to get back to sleep," Chris replied.

"Yikes. Sorry about that," she grimaced.

"It's alright. Natalie's still asleep," he handed another glass of water to Lauren, who took it gratefully. "You know, I should probably tell Mother you're here."

Lauren barked out a laugh. "No chance. She'd force me to leave, and probably douse you in holy water for letting me in your home."

"You know she's not that bad."

"She killed Luce!" Lauren burst out, before realising that she probably woke up Natalie. Ah well. If she had to get up at this ungodly hour then so did everyone else.

Chris smiled sympathetically. "No, she didn't. You know who killed Lucy? The guy that pulled the trigger. Not our mom, not her mom... and not you."

Lauren scoffed. "I don't-"

"Not you," Chris said with a finality that indicated he wouldn't be argued with. He tilted his head slightly, before turning around and heading back upstairs.

This was why Lauren hated staying with Chris. (Well, one of the reasons. There was always the loss of her dignity, having to rely on her baby brother because her foray into the adult world had left her jobless and homeless.) He always seemed to know exactly what was going on in her mind, which was unnerving. She'd become quite accustomed to being an unreadable mystery to most people.

Sighing and finishing her water, she picked up her bag and headed out the door. It was bright, which was not a good thing. Even though it was pretty cold, the harsh sunlight gave Lauren a headache and she struggled to keep her eyes open.

She put on a pair of sunglasses as she walked to the bus stop, hoping that it gave her more of a cool vibe than a 'I'm super hungover and pissed off' vibe. Although, as long as it kept people from talking to her, she didn't really mind.

The bus was late, which gave Lauren just enough time to curse the weather, young children who made obscene amounts of noise early in the morning, and public transportation as a concept.

"The Lustig Mall," she mumbled, handing over her change before the bus driver could even tell her how much it was. She knew. She'd been getting the same bus every morning for three damn weeks.

Thankfully, the bus was pretty empty. She found herself a seat at the back and leaned her head against the cool window.

As the bus drove along the high street, Lauren averted her gaze. She didn't want to see a certain thriving tattoo parlour, and she definitely didn't want to see the empty shell next to it. They hadn't even turned the space into anything else yet, so it was just sitting there looking derelict, reminding Lauren of yet another decent thing in her life that she'd fucked up.