To Our Pinky Promises

Chapter 13

"I can't believe you got yourself locked up." Alex's brother shook his head as he drove away from the station.

I don't think he had realized that a girl had slipped into the backseat of the car as he continued to nag Alex.

I couldn't see Alex's response to his brother's remark but I could imagine him rolling his eyes. His head was turned to the side, looking out of the car through its window.

"Do you really have nothing to say for yourself?" His brother went on again.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable at this point. How do you make your presence known in this kind of situation? I shifted on my seat, unsure of what to do. Did I want to notify them of my presence? Was having them know that I was sitting in the backseat better than being invisible?

I didn't get to decide which of them was better for myself because Alex turned his head to look at his brother and jerked his head at my direction. "Stop it, you're making her uncomfortable."

I met our driver's eyes over the rearview mirror and without any prior warning, the car came to a screeching stop, throwing me against the back of Alex's seat. My hands planted themselves on Alex's seat to prevent my face from hitting it but they weren't quick enough. My forehead bumped against the back of Alex's seat while Alex got catapulted against his seatbelt. I felt his body hit the seat again as he cursed loudly at his brother.

"Fuck, Wayne! Are you trying to get us killed?"

Meanwhile, I rubbed my aching forehead and inched back to reposition myself in my seat, this time pulling the seatbelt from behind me and buckling myself in so that I don't get thrown around again in case Alex's brother decided that was fun.

I met Wayne's eyes through the rearview mirror again as I buckled my seatbelt in and gave him an awkward and shy smile, raising my right hand to give him a small wave. "Hi?"

Wayne shook his head, closing his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. I guess he was completely oblivious of my presence in the car after all.

"Jesus.. Fuck. Couldn't you have given me a heads up? I thought I was looking at a ghost." He muttered to his brother a bit too loudly.

Well, ouch. I was trying to be less sensitive of what people think of me but how was I supposed to take that as a compliment?

The road was fairly quiet since it was pretty late at night but a car eventually passed us, beeping their horns angrily. In their defense, we did stop in the middle of the road and was practically blocking it.

The loud beeping from the other car snapped Wayne back to reality and the car started moving again.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you okay back there? And not to be rude but, who are you, again?" He finally addressed me.

I gave him a tired smile. I can't muster anything more than that after everything that I've gone through that night.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Sorry for shocking you like that. I didn't really know how to greet you when I got in the car.." I trailed off before moving on from that topic when Wayne started giving me an awkward and uncomfortable laugh. "I'm Emily, Alex's schoolmate."

"Ah. Well, I've never seen you around at the house before. New kid?" Wayne asked.

I didn't know how to answer that but I opted to be honest and just shook my head. There's no need to lie about it anyways. "No, we've been going to the same school for a long time now."

"Oh?" Wayne turned his attention to Alex now, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.

Alex simply ignored him, resting his head against his seat and facing the window. I didn't know if he was pretending to be asleep or if he really was sleeping. I reminded myself that he was in the holding cell before I even arrived there. He spent more time in that cell than I did and if I felt as exhausted as I was feeling, I can't imagine how drained he must be.