AN: I just realized I never thoroughly described Bella, or at least I'm pretty sure I didn't, which is weird because I could have sworn that I did. So I'll *discreetly* put it somewhere in this chapter. ;D
Also, I'm not sure if I explained the significance to Bella's name yet either, so that's in here as well. :]
Chapter 4: Screaming
Damien
I was dreaming about shooting stars. Or, it looks more like comets. Or meteors, if there were a difference. I never studied Astrology. There were five falling meteors. I was watching it happen, not like I was one of the meteors. I wasn't standing in range that they could hit me.
But then I realized they weren't meteors; they were stars.
But something was off. This wasn't the places the Bella and the others fell. It was different in a way.
Then something small and silver—in the shape of a star flew in front of my face. I thought I saw eyes on it, but I reminded myself it was a dream.
Then the stars hit the Earth with a boom and I woke up.
My body flew forward so that I was sitting up. I heard a pounding on my door similar to the boom in my dream. I groaned.
"What the hell are you doing?" I heard a familiar voice yell the question at me. "Get up!"
I turned to face the clock. 6:22. I fell back in my bed. "I'm tired!" I yelled as if I were drunk. That's how I sounded when I was tired.
"Yeah?" My sister said. "I don't care. Get up or I'll break the door down!"
I rolled over to look back at the clock again.
Woah, wait a second! I jumped out of my bed so I was standing on my feet. "Why am I sleeping in so late?" I grumbled to myself. 6:20 in the morning was late for me. "I'll be out in a minute."
"It's eighty degrees out here, by the way." My sister said, pissed at me. "I'm not kidding."
I took off my sweat pants and pulled on a pair of shorts. Before I put on a shirt, I stepped outside to actually feel how warm it would be that day.
I stepped outside and stood there for a second and took in the warmth of the air. I took a deep breath in as well. I smelt the familiar scent of hay. But I smelt something else. Something I adored. I turned my head towards where the smell was coming from, only to find a very impatient Bella standing next to my door. Her arms were crossed, waiting for me to finish getting ready.
The smell of my favourite fruit – pineapple – was coming from her. It was probably some sort of perfume she was wearing. She was wearing a blue and white striped camisole, short (short) shorts, and white flip flops. If my sister were dressed like this, then I would have told her to go back inside and change or I wouldn't let her see Tristan that day, but I learned throughout the week that I couldn't tell Bella what to do. Her long, golden blonde hair had lost its curl and was tied in a pony tail to the side, falling over the front of her right shoulder. Her almost platinum-blonde bangs were left down, swept to the right side. Her one blue eye and one purple eye (multi-coloured like the rest of the girls) were looking up at me.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," she gave me an annoyed smile. I had already learned this was her way of teasing me.
"How did you have time to straighten your hair," I asked.
Her eyes blinked in shock. "I woke up at five this morning. Isn't that funny?"
Then I noticed she was wearing the necklace I gave her. I tried hard not to smile at the sight, but I failed. Then I looked closer. The stardust inside the bottle looked like it was moving. It didn't seem to be doing that a few days ago. It had been a few days since her first day of work –it was Monday, now it was Friday.
"Yeah, it is considering the first day you were whining so much not to get up at six in the morning," I teased.
"Isn't that what you were doing in there a minute ago?" She pointed at my bed. I realized I was still standing half inside the room, half outside. I took another step towards her; she stood perfectly still, except for her arms, which went back to their folded position across her chest.
I realized I was standing there, smirking at her while her arms were folded across her chest. We were staring into each other's eyes. Her face dropped the defensive look.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?" Your eyes are just gorgeous, I wanted to add, but couldn't.
She seemed to be glancing up and down at me and hesitated to speak. "Just go get a shirt on, shirtless man." She began to walk away.
Thirty seconds later I came back out of the cottage with a tank top and flip flops on. Bella was walking slowly away from the cottage, as if she were waiting for me.
"You haven't met shirtless man until you've hung around Olivia's boyfriend enough," I said, catching up with her.
Bella rolled her eyes.
We began walking toward the crops to water them. "So I'm guessing you didn't have time to practice your ballet this morning since you were straightening your hair?" I made it sound more like a question than a statement.
She stopped walking, looked up at me, grabbed her right arm with her left hand, blushed, then looked down at the ground. "It's important to me, okay?"
Tuesday of this week, the blinds to Bella's window were open. I wasn't peeking or anything, but I saw something moving around in there, so I went to go see what it was. I saw her dancing. Ballet dancing to be specific. I knocked on her door, and I guess she seemed a little bit tired. I still wasn't quite sure why she was dancing so early in the morning.
This was when she explained to me what her name meant. If you used her full name—Bellarina, and switched the e and first a, it would spell ballerina.
I grabbed the hose, "You girls are so PMS-y."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She grabbed the other one.
"You're all nice when I first meet you," I began watering the plants as I spoke," the next morning, you're all grumpy. Later that day, you get all timid when I try to buy you something because I'm glad I met you." Did I just say that to her out loud? "I'm just saying." I chuckled a bit.
I felt something cold on my legs. I looked down at them, and my eyes followed to where it was coming from. Bella was spraying me with the hose.
At first I thought she was really mad at me for what I had just said, but when I saw she was smiling.
I turned my hose towards her, spraying her legs. She screamed. I turned the nozzle to the 'center' setting. It was a lot like the 'shower' setting, but the water came out faster, and it was more centered (hence the name). I sprayed a little more up her legs, almost to where it would hit her shorts.
She switched her nozzle. I'm guessing –by the way the water came out, it was the 'fan' setting. I chased her a bit, getting her torso wet. She screamed when the cold water hit her. When the water hit me, I jumped a little bit, but it felt nice.
After a little bit of chasing each other, she switched her nozzle to the 'jet' setting. (AN: I know this is on every hose. I'm not sure why they have it, but I just like spraying my friends with it.) It's simply a line of water, but it comes out really hard and hurts when it hits your skin.
"Ow!" I yelled. "You're gonna get it now!" I dropped the hose and started running after her. She dropped the hose as well and started to run.
It didn't take much to catch her. We kind of ran around in circles, though. Earlier in the week I had told her about how to lock the hose, so you wouldn't have to keep pressing the handle when you wanted it to spray. So the hoses were on the ground, facing up. Water was falling on us as if it were raining.
I picked her up, my hands around her stomach. I was spinning her around and she was yelling at me to put her down. I could tell by her tone that she wasn't mad, though. I began to get dizzy, which probably meant she was too, so I put her back on the ground.
She turned so her back wasn't facing me anymore. "I'm soaking wet!"
"You started it!" We were yelling in a very jokingly-type way. We were both still getting wet; the nozzles from the hoses were still facing up. The others were probably staring at us, I didn't really care. This was probably considered flirting, but I just wanted to have a little fun.
We were both just standing there, staring into each other's eyes. The curl had gone from her hair. It was dripping wet, along with the rest of her body. I realized I was leaning in closer and closer to her, but I didn't stop. All I had to do was lean down and–
"Ahem." Someone clearing their throat caused me to lose train of my thoughts, and I back away from Bella. I hadn't yet reached up to hold her face in my hands, although I wanted to. "You're wasting water," Joel said. He clearly wasn't happy with us spending out working time messing around. I saw he had turned off the water that was spraying us, as it wasn't showering our heads anymore.
I had to admit, I was a little annoyed that Joel ruined our moment, but he was right. We were wasting water.
I began to say sorry, when Bella beat me to it.
"Sorry," she said nervously, "it's my fault."
Was she scared of Joel?
"Just get back to work, Bella." Joel turned his attention towards me, "Damien, can I speak with you?"
Bella
"Sure," he said. I could have sworn his eyes flickered to me for half a second before following Joel into his cottage.
"Woah, what was that?" Ollie was facing me with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. I looked at the rest of the girls. They all had ecstatic smiles on their faces.
"What do you mean 'what'?" I asked.
"What was that—with Damien?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." I said honestly. I really didn't know what had just happened myself.
"So then why is your face all red," Olivia pointed out.
"It's still red!?" I covered my face.
"How can you be so clueless!?" Layla exclaimed out of nowhere. Although, the others were probably all thinking it. Next to Dae, I was probably the most clueless one out of us five. "You didn't notice—?"
"Don't tell her what happened," Ollie cut her off in a stage whisper. (AN: a stage whisper is pretty much whisper-yelling, but it's what actors do during plays. Just wanted to let you know, since I'll probably use the word a lot in the future).
All the girls' smiles had faded. I guessed they saw my face as I was trying to look for an answer to Ollie's question, but I didn't know what to say. I never really got what was about to happen.
The water from my body had dried off in the heat, but my clothes were still dripping wet. I went to pick up the hose, when Lily stopped me.
"Why don't you get dried up," she offered. "We'll finish up out here."
"Why?" I protested. "It's not like I'm hurt or anything."
"Yeah, but you're so soaked that you look like a wet, miserable cat," Lily pointed out.
I nodded and turned to go back to my cottage.
Damien
"Sure," I said to Joel in the calmest tone I could. I wanted to stay outside and help Bella dry off. She was just standing there sopping wet, in a way that made think she was scared of Joel. Of course, Olivia and I both say things like 'knock it off or Joel will get mad,' all the time, but we weren't scared of him. Olivia ditched work for a couple hours once to go hang out with Tristan, and I had to cover for her.
"What?" I asked in an exasperated tone after I slammed the door to Joel's room.
We both paused for a second, realizing DaeSung was standing right there cooking us breakfast.
"Sorry," Joel said, backing out of the room, "my bad."
"It's alright," Dae said, smiling sweetly. "You can stay in here if you would like. It's your room anyways."
"No, it's okay." Joel replied. I started backing out with him. "We'll see you at breakfast then."
Dae simply smiled and went back to cooking. It smelled like she was making pancakes. It made me happy.
We backed out of the room and into my cottage. I hate the reduced amount of space I had compared to Joel.
"What do you want to talk about?" I complained in a very sarcastic tone.
Joel turned to me with a very serious look on his face. Joel always looked at least somewhat serious, but this time, it was different.
"Damien," he said, staring into me, "I need to talk to you seriously."
It's like he read my mind.
"What is it?"
"I don't want you getting to close to these girls." His expression hadn't changed until I scoffed. Then he looked a little surprised.
"So, we invite girls to live with us, but I can't get to know them?"
"It's the way you're getting to know her." He said calmly.
"What's that supposed to mean!?" I raised my voice.
"You told me about how if a star doesn't make good choices, she'll turn into dust." I had told him, just to let him know. Maybe it was a mistake.
"Why would she turn into dust?" I felt the anger build up inside me.
"What if something happens and she's not who you think she is?"
"Why do you think she would do something like that, huh!?" I exploded. "Why can't you just trust my opinion on this!?"
He began to yell, too. "It's not that I don't trust your opinion, Damien. It's just that—"
"It's that you don't trust them," I cut him off. "I know; I've heard this a thousand times."
"Then when are you actually going to start listening to me?" He raised his voice above mine. I could tell he was trying to make a point.
My voice wouldn't yell that loud, but I tried anyways. "Why do I have to listen to you anyways? You're not my dad!"
"I'm your older brother, and I'm in charge of you—"
I cut him off again. "You're not in charge of me anyways. I'm not a minor anymore, if you haven't noticed." I shouted sarcastically.
"Would you just listen to me!?" He grabbed my shirt, warning me.
I grabbed his shirt, accepting his threat.
"What if something happens and you can't be with her anymore?" He lowered his voice. "I know how you get when you're depressed, Damien."
"You're not one to talk!" I didn't bother to lower my own voice. "I know you've started liking one of them, too."
He hesitated before starting again. "That's not the point. The point is—"
Joel was cut off by the door swinging open.
"Would you two, please—" Olivia cut herself off (I was pretty much the only one in the room who could make a full sentence), comprehending what she was seeing.
Joel let go of my shirt, so I let go of his. We both looked at each other for a second, anger still in his eyes.
"Would you two please not yell so loud?" Olivia continued.
"Do you even know what he—" There went my full-sentence streak.
"I don't care!" Okay, Olivia won. She could yell the loudest out of us three. "Joel, I need to talk to Damien."
"Sure," he murmured, and then walked away, slamming the door on the way out.
"Why can't you two put up a conversation without fighting for once?" Olivia's tone was dripping with annoyance.
"So, you guys could hear us?" I was barely talking – more like mumbling, actually. My throat was a little sore from yelling too much.
"Well," she started, "we couldn't make out the words you were saying. But we could tell you two were yelling."
"What did they say?" I looked down at the floor. I didn't want them getting a bad impression.
"They were just wondering what was going on," she explained. "I lied and told them I didn't know, but of course I knew it was something stupid." She whacked my arm on 'stupid'. "What was it about this time?"
"He didn't want me getting close to them?"
Olivia winced in shock. "By them you mean…"
"Mostly Bella." I didn't look Olivia in the eye. I was afraid she would still think the fight was stupid.
"That's stupid!" She exclaimed.
Here we go.
"You're just being protective; there's nothing wrong with that." Her eyebrows pulled together.
I looked her in the eye, surprised that she actually took my side for once.
"But still, you didn't have to yell so loudly."
"What happened to the 'there's nothing wrong with being protective'?" I tried to imitate my sister's voice when I quoted her.
"Do you really want them thinking that you're a teenager with a hot temper?"
"Isn't that what you say I am all the time, though?" Saying that caused me to get whacked again.
***
The day passed by pretty quickly, but only because I was thinking about the fight between me and Joel. After I thought about it, I wondered if Joel would actually hit me or not. His eyes were filled with anger after I said that he had his eyes set on one of the girls, as well.
When I constantly spaced out, thinking about the fight, Bella asked me if I was alright. She would ask 'are you alright?', so then I would say 'why do you even care?' and she would make a comeback something like 'I don't, stupid'. This happened probably twenty times that day.
During dinner, I wasn't really sure where all the girls went, and that included my sister. I made myself instant macaroni and cheese for dinner and brought it back to my room. I turned the TV on to the news. They were reporting the meteor shower (falling stars) that happened Monday morning. They had reported this three times already. They said people from the neighboring town had seen them fall, but no video was captured, and that investigators were still figuring out where the 'meteors' had gone. I rolled my eyes at the TV.
Not many people knew that the girls were actually fallen stars. It was just me, my sister, Joel, Emma, and Landon. I was pretty sure no one outside of that knew.
At about eight o' clock, I went back to wash my bowl. Something was weird. Every night, the girls and my sister had been star gazing around this time of night. Where did they all go? I wondered.
I knocked on Bella's door first. After two knocks, I wondered what she would say when she answered. I felt a little panicky, but no one answered the door. I knocked again. No answer.
I went around to Olivia's room next. I could hear creepy music coming from inside.
Then I heard a giant slam, and screaming.
"What's going on!?" I burst through the door.
They screamed at my random encounter; I yelled (screaming is too girly) as their harmonized screams scared me. I had a headache from all the screaming and yelling today.
"You caught me," The TV said, "You can hug me now; I'm clean." It was that blonde step mom person. She's such a—
"What are you doing here?" Olivia held up a remote and pressed the pause button.
"I was wondering where you all went." I brushed a hand through my hair. "What's going on?" I still felt a little jumpy; my heartbeat had only begun to slow down.
"We're watching a movie."
"What movie?" I asked.
"The Uninvited." Lily answered. "It's the scariest movie I've ever seen." Her fists were clenching a blanket.
"It's the only scary movie you've ever seen," I reminded her.
"It's not even that scary," Layla looked sleepy at the moment. I guessed she wasn't an easily scared person, like my sister.
When my sister and I saw this movie together, she only jumped a few times, like me. It was my sister: I could be scared in front of her and it wouldn't embarrass me (not that the movie was scary), but she teased me anyways.
I looked around. They were all sitting with their backs up against the side of the bed. Bella was sitting on the end of the row of girls with her knees tucked in to her chest, with a scared expression on her face. To the right of Bella was my sister. Olivia was still giving me a why-are-you-here look. Lily was to the right of her, clinging to the blanket. Layla was to her right and looked like she about to fall asleep, resting her head on Lily's shoulder. Diane was sitting with her legs crossed on the very right; no emotions on her face whatsoever. But there was one girl missing.
"Where's Dae?" I asked, looking around to room trying to find her. It's not like there was that much space to look around, though.
"Right here!" A bulge in the blanket on the bed jumped up.
"Why are you under the covers?"
"The movie scared me," she said from under the blanket, descending back into the bed.
"The sister and mom died and she went to hide," Layla explained.
The girls looked cute; they were all in pajamas. Is this what a slumber party is like?
"I'll be right back," I said before I went back to my cabin. All I did was change my pants and I was back in Olivia's cabin.
I sat next to Bella (of course).
Diane and Layla didn't do and screaming at all. Layla ended up falling asleep five minutes after I sat down with them. I could hear DaeSung shrieking from under the blankets, but it started to fade around halfway through the movie. Bella, Diane, and Lily fell asleep near the end of the movie. Me and my sister fell asleep not too long after that.
AN: Chiisana (AKA, the girl that DaeSung is based off of) would totally hide under the blankets if we started watching a scary movie around her.
Thank you, my lovely editor, Nganny! :D
