Twisted (Editing)

Chapter 6 (Edited)

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After school, I met Jonah by his locker. He was with a pretty girl with dark hair, whose face resembled his just enough for me to know that was his sister. But he introduced her to me anyway. "This is my sister, Lara," he said.

"Hi. I'm Imani."

"Nice to meet you. Welcome to Evansville." Her smile made her look even less similar to her brother. If it wasn't for the vague similarities in their face shapes, and the strong way they carried themselves (like they owned the place...which they did), I'd never have known they were related. She looked up at her brother. "Can we go?"

We walked into the student parking. Was I surprised that he drove a black Audi sedan? No. In fact, I thought it was a little modest for what they probably could have afforded, with the way he talked about this town. It was sleek all over, down to the windows so dark you couldn't see through them. That was illegal, but who was he to care about the law when his family probably owned the police too?

I sat in the backseat. Lara slid into the passengers and Jonah entered last. He started the car, and we took off, in the direction away from my house and into a gated neighborhood of grand houses that humbled (and quieted) my thoughts.

Beyond just the houses were large fields of open land, rolling green hills, and ponds of clear, sparkling water. It was like a nature reserve. There were apartment buildings two, or townhouses more like it, in large circles, surrounded by children playing tag and hopscotch and jump rope. A pack of boys zoomed by on bicycles, waving at Jonah's car as it passed, and women stood on the steps of the housing complex, bouncing babies on their knees. They all looked young and almost identical⁠⁠—not in their color, or their shape⁠⁠—but in the sereneness of their eyes. It creeped me out.

We rolled into a driveway and I had to crane my neck to see the entire house; no, it was an estate. Stone exterior, a sprawling garden, and a fountain that coated me in a cool mist. I followed Jonah and Lara through the front gate, feeling a lot smaller than I ever had in my life.

The inside was homey though, in a plush, comfortable-life way. I could tell some of the paintings on the wall were real. As in, somebody important had painted them. But I avoided looking closer in order to avoid the envy and the shock.

"Mom," Jonah called out. "I'm taking someone up to my room. We're working on a project."

She called from within the belly of the house. "Do you want me to bring you food?"

My stomach rumbled at the opportunity. Granted, I didn't try what they brought me the day they came to my house and I wasn't sure I wanted to begin eating their food now. Plus, Jonah was looking at me from the corner of his eye, almost demanding that I say no. I shook my head.

"No," Jonah replied, before nodding for me to follow. The steps to his room were lined with family pictures. A picture of Jonah's mother standing on a hill against a starry sky. Jonah's mother again, heavily pregnant. A baby. A toddler and a baby, one in blue, the other in pink. A young Jonah. Then, a recent picture: a mirror-image of Jonah as an older man, Jonah himself, Lara, and the mother. They all stood in a pasture, illuminated by the setting sun. Jonah was smiling here. He was handsome. It wouldn't hurt him if he did this more often.

When we reached the room, Jonah sat in the swivel chair at his desk and nodded at his bed. I took my shoes off, sat on the edge, and opened up my laptop. "So we have to have an argument first. Even if it's a history paper."

"We can focus on a specific school of writers," he said. "A specific movement."

"Postmodernism? Aren't we still in that?"

"We can just focus on the first half."

And that sounded boring to me. "Okay, so we'll start with a calendar. I say we have research done by...the end of the first quarter."

"Feels doable."

"Then we need to have the entire script written by the end of the second."

"Okay."

"And she wants a final version of the script by March 1st for grading."

His eyebrows furrowed. "I thought she was just grading the documentary."

"I wish. She wants the fully cited script, at least 10,000 words. She says that amounts to about an hour. Then we have to find the pictures, the audio, the background music, which we have to buy the rights for unless we just use whatever free shit we can find."

"No, no, I want the film to be nice."

So you make it as hard for us as possible. "We can focus on the thesis for...a week. We can just begin preliminary reading on our own and come back with our interests. Does that sound good?"

"We should still meet while we're reading. To keep each other accountable."

"I could text you."

He tilted his head. "You said we'd work on it five days a week."

"Why work hard when we could work smart?"

He offered me a closed-lipped smile that told me he was not pleased at all. You think he would be⁠⁠—he didn't want us to come to his home in the first place. And he'd driven through the neighborhood with tense shoulders the entire time.

"Do you mind if I call my Mom to pick me up?" I asked. "Will you have someone let her through the gates?"

"I'll drop you off." He swiped his keys off the desk. "Where did you say you lived?"

This time, I sat in the passenger's seat. It would've been too awkward to sit in the back like I was taking a taxi. The drive was quiet, and just long enough to be scenic. Except⁠⁠ (and this was just me, unable to relax) there were times when I swore I could feel his eyes pointed at me. But then, when I chased after them, he was looking at a stop sign or a red light or the radio.

So I guess it was nothing.