1 Chapter 1: A Late Night Encounter

Mom

We just arrived at the hotel. How are you and your

sister?

Me

We’re okay. Just watching a movie. Hope you guys have fun.

Mom

Thank you, sweetie. Gn. <3

***

DEMING, WA – BROWN’S RESIDENCE

“Good night,” I mumble, pressing the send button as a blunt gets passed by me.

Shutting off my phone, I scan the living room, taking a moment to register people’s faces. What was once a quiet and quaint two-story house of four is now loud and wild with an occupancy of about at least thirty people. The autumn brown walls change color to every beat that surges from dad’s stereo, and our family portraits fight to stay on their nails. It’s definitely more of a living room than it’s ever been.

College students flood the “dance” floor, drunks cling to the stairs, the frat boys bunch up around the dinner table playing beer pong, and somehow, the stoners have made themselves home on the sofa with me. The blunt eventually makes its way back, and I peel my head away from the smoke. The guy in possession of it, Oscar I think his name is, looks at me as if I’m a prude before taking a greedy puff himself. I roll my eyes and sink further into the cushions.

It was only a matter of time before my sister would host a party here. And of course, I’m taking the brunt of it all, keeping surveillance of any chaotic activity that can wind up breaking something irreplaceable. She said it would just be a “small kickback,” but that obviously backfired. Our house has never held so many people before, it’s almost like I’m not at home.

“Anna!”

My ears perk at the sound of my name as my friend, Jessica, strolls up behind me. She dangles her arms around my neck, very flushed and inebriated. Leaning forward to find her center of gravity, her brown hair falls like a curtain over my face. The smell of marijuana makes her lips curl in sweet mischief.

“Oh my god, are you high?” Her question rings with enthusiasm.

To her dismay, though, I shake my head.

“Aw, and here I thought I was going to be proud of you,” she pouts, her breath fanning alcohol into my face. I try to keep my nose from scrunching.

“I missed you earlier,” she whines, “it was our song playing.”

I smile at that. The fact that she recognized me amongst the crowd and came over to talk made me feel like all my efforts to claw out of my sister’s shadow weren’t in vain.

“Oh! Do you know where Taylor is by any chance? I need to–hic!–talk to her about Jacob.”

My face deflates.

“Taylor!”

Speak of the devil. Jessica and I turn to see my sister’s girlfriends crowding around her, probably chatting away about some guy, maybe Jacob.

“Oh, there she is! See you later!” She pecks my cheek, staining it with her pink lipstick, and scurries over to the life of the party.

Ah, my lovely sister, Taylor Brown. A beauty with beach waves of gold and a pair of twinkling hazel eyes to match. Her laugh is perfect, her smile is perfect, she’s practically the epitome of perfection apart from her nasty personality. She’s never liked me, ever since I was adopted into her family.

I grab a lock of red hair, curling it around my finger.

We look nothing alike, but I’m always compared to her; known as the ‘lesser of the two.’ Even the friends I have want to be her best friend. She’s pretty, I’m plain. And she’d like to keep it that way.

“Woof!”

I blink back to the living room and see Ben, our golden brown labradoodle, resting his head on my thigh, tail wagging in anticipation. It’s not because the stoners are all now craving for his attention, but rather for something that should’ve happened at 6 o’clock.

“Ah, that’s right. Time for a walk, Ben.”

Ben barks again and races to the door, weaving through jeans and miniskirts to the front where the leash sits beside the coat rack. I receive a few questionable stares as I hook it to his collar, but carry on outside with Ben leading the way.

The sudden cold air slides goosebumps across my skin. I didn’t think to bring a jacket with how stuffed it was inside, but it is the middle of fall.

The first semester has started and classes are back into full swing. To think I have one more year left after this and I’m getting my bachelors in communications. Though I’ve done well in school and balanced it with the kind of social life my sister is absorbed in, I feel like I haven’t really made any progress. More like, something in it is missing that I can’t find.

I thought it was just my inferiority complex over my sister that I needed to overcome, but now that I’m in her same social circles and am technically considered “popular” in university, that empty feeling inside hasn’t changed. Almost as if none of this mattered in the first place.

I stop in my tracks as Ben scours a neighbor’s lawn.

Did I really work this hard and ditch my childhood friend to be on par with my sister, just to come to the realization that it didn’t fix anything?

“Bark! Bark!”

I groan in frustration, watching my breath trickle through the air.

I’ve been going about this all wrong. Can’t believe it took me three years to-

“Bark!”

“Ben, what are you-”

My words are stripped from my tongue seeing him sniff around an unmoving body.

I stay still, trying to process the image in front of me. Ben starts circling the possible corpse and ends up licking its face, tail wagging happily.

I quickly come back to my senses and pull him back.

“Ben, stop!”

Frantic, I feel around for my phone, finding it in my back pocket. I have to call the police. A dead body in our neighborhood? Is the killer still around? I need to run back home-

Suddenly, the body moves. The person groans in pain, putting a hand to their head. Ben races back to their side, pulling me along with him, and starts licking their face again.

“Ben!” He just wouldn’t budge. What is going on with him? He’s never been this excited seeing a stranger.

Upon closer inspection, it’s a guy, one around my age at that. He looks dazed more than hurt, possibly drunk out of his mind. Did he come from the party?

I look both ways for any signs of his friends around, but it’s just us in the middle of the night, outside of someone’s house. Maybe it’s his house?

“Hey,” I call out to him. He shifts a bit. “Are you alright? You’re from Taylor’s kickback, right?”

He mumbles something before turning his head away from me. Probably on the verge of blacking out.

“Geez, you need to know when to stop drinking,” I decide to lecture him while scrolling for the Uber app on my phone. “Where are your friends? Did they not see you leave the house?”

“...quiet,” his voice is gruff which unnerves me a little, but I stand my ground.

“Would you rather I had said nothing and left you to freeze to death out here?” He doesn’t respond to that, which I saw as permission to continue. “I’m nice enough to help out a total stranger. So if you don’t like it, stop putting yourself in situations like this.”

He seems to have been irked by that because he attempts to sit up–and he does for like, three seconds–before gravity takes his head back to the grass.

Sighing, I crouch over and help him sit up, keeping my hand on his back to support his weight. Ben takes the other side, leaning against his arm panting like he ran a marathon.

“What’s your address? I can call an Uber to come pick you up.”

“No…thanks.”

“Then do you wanna call one of your friends to come get you? Although, not gonna lie, they kinda seem like as*holes for leaving you out here like this,” I mumble the last part more to myself than him.

He goes quiet again, most likely contemplating what he should do. Taking a better look at him, he’s kind of cute. Dark hair slicked back with a nice fade, albeit a bit messy from lying down, structured jawline, fair skin and hard black eyes. He could be a model for all I know, other than the fact he looks pretty disheveled drunk.

His lips part. My eyes zero in on them.

“...an Uber, then. Thanks.”

“Yeah, no prob.”

We sit in silence for fifteen minutes or so. Ben keeps snuggling into him to which he doesn't return the favor. I take it that he’s not a dog person.

Then, just when I feel the need to clear the awkward silence, the Uber driver pulls up to the curb. Thank God.

“Alright, here we go,” I say, hoisting the man up and walking him to the car. He somewhat collapses into the backseat, breathing heavy like we just did an intense gym workout.

“Sorry, he’s a bit drunk, but he’ll give you the address. Thanks for picking him up.”

The Uber driver waves it off, happy to help. I look into the stranger’s eyes who seems just about ready to knock out.

“Hey.” I say again, catching his eyes briefly. “A word of advice,” I reach over him, my body hovering just above his, “Get better friends.” I take the seat belt and drag it across his body, clicking it into place.

I could feel him glare into me, even after closing the door. The car drives off, and I wait until I can’t see the red lights before heading back to my house with Ben in tow.

It’s kind of ironic how I can say all that to a drunk stranger and not be able to actually apply it to myself.

I chuckle dryly.

I’m such a hypocrite. But, hey, maybe he’ll take my advice and save himself from the trouble I put myself through.

As I come up to my front porch, I reach for the doorknob before stopping to inspect my palm. Something was on it that wasn’t there before. A dark, thick liquid. I slowly turn it to face the porch light and my heart stops seeing blood stained across my hand. My head snaps back to the street. Of course, they were long gone. My mind spirals trying to conjure an explanation.

Why was he bleeding? Was he not…from the party after all?