The Day Before

It was utter silence after that. I kept petting Dash inside of my bag, trying to keep him for growling or barking or making any noises. I would look over at Benji, sometimes he would be looking at something else, but when I caught his gaze, he would smile with a mysterious glint in his eyes. I would quickly turn away of course, my face flushed and heated.

Charlotte and Eli came back, both looking ill-tempered and steamed. Eli walked away, not taking one look at me. He stopped near one of the stores by the Food Court. He stepped into what I thought said Journey’s.

“I’m sorry, about, well, you know…” Charlotte said exasperatedly at me, breaking the awkward tension in the air. I looked up at her and cocked my head to the side.

“Eli, he’s just being…overprotective.”

I heard Benji snort and Charlotte shot a glare in his direction. Benji shrugged and got up, throwing away his Styrofoam cup in a nearby trash bin. He kept walking until he was far away to not be able to hear anything.

“I really am sorry.” she apologized again, her mouth a thin line.

“I’m still kind of…” I tried looking for a word that would describe what I felt towards Eli, without making me look like a wimp.

“Scared?” she suggested. I shrugged and nodded, agreeing with her. “Yeah, I’m still kind of scared of him. But, I mean, I yelled I wasn’t gonna hurt anybody or anything.” I said in a daze, remembering the bullets whizzing by me.

She sighed, “Look, you don’t need an apology from me. You need one from Eli himself.” she said firmly, putting both her palms on the table and standing up.

I quickly stood up too, shaking my hands in front of me, “No, no, no, I’m alright with your apology. I accept…” I pleaded, I didn’t want to be on Eli’s hit list, I made it too far to be killed by a gun.

She kept walking towards Journey’s and I stayed by the table, all the while breathing in deeply.

“I accept!” I yelled out weakly.

But I could already hear an argument breaking out between the two. I saw Charlotte point over at me, pleading with Eli. He turned his head the other way, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Eli!” Charlotte called after him, when he left the store. He made a right and pushed past Benji, I heard an annoyed “Ay!” from him and then everything went silent.

Benji brushed himself off and calmly walked over to me, looking insolently at Eli’s trail, angrily pushing out the chair he was sitting in before.

Charlotte made her way towards us, taking a fallen chair from another table and making herself comfortable. She turned towards me and smiled weakly, “He’ll come around.”

Benji snorted yet again and looked the other way.

“Yeah, right.” he mumbled disbelievingly, loud enough for the both of us to hear.

Charlotte sighed and rubbed her temples. “The stuff that’s been happening, it’s just taking a toll on us.” she said with a tight smile. I nodded my head.

“Oh, so anyway, my name’s Charlotte.” she said, extending her arm out for me to shake it.

“Violet.” I answered quietly, shaking her hand.

“Benji.” she warned.

“Benji.” he repeated flatly, turning his cool gaze to me. I nodded dumbly and looked down, trying to avoid his gaze.

“So, anyway,” Charlotte said breaking the silence, “Florida, huh?”

I nodded my head and looked up at the skylight, the heavy glass material on the roof gave the food court a sullen look. I turned my head, but then I heard footsteps.

“The window’s leaking!” I heard a boy say. I looked over and saw that it was Cove, he was panting heavily and pointing to the back.

Charlotte cursed silently and got up, her chair falling with a loud ‘bang’. She ran over to Cove and whistled loudly, when nobody came she whistled a second time, then a third, when nothing happened after that she snapped a little.

“Eli!” she yelled. She quickly ran away with Cove to the leaking window.

“We better go then.” Benji said standing up with a sigh.

“Oh, yeah…” I trailed off, looking down. We followed Charlotte and Cove’s hurried footsteps. They were going straight ahead. We passed by a few carts that held straighteners and curling items for hair. There was a fountain that was bone dry in the middle, and the whole place looked like the rest; sullen and blue.

“Oh my God.” I said in disbelief when we arrived at our destination. When Cove said a ‘leaking window’ I thought he meant a little window. You know, a square or a narrow one. But, this window reached the third floor, making us see underwater. It looked like an aquarium window. There was algae and seaweed floating past. The whole place looked dark, and you could vaguely make out shadows of whatever animals that were hidden in the water.

Eli was next to Charlotte, looking dead ahead at a little crack that had a fountain of water falling through. The floor was becoming flooded little by little. Eli cursed and Cove looked at it in awe. Benji looked unconcerned, scratching his head and yawning.

“It’ll be a while before the whole place is flooded, so we can wait it out.” Eli said, his voice sounded deep and smooth; authoritative. Benji shrugged and started to make his way to the Food Court. “Wait, Benji.” Eli called out, he started making his way towards him and Benji stopped walking, his back towards us. “Yeah?” he called out, clearly annoyed.

“Never mind.” Eli snapped, turning his head around. Benji shrugged his shoulders and kept walking away. Eli was now close to me and I stared at him. Eli glared over at me, “What are you looking so stupidly at?” he snapped at me. I flinched and remembered the gun, shaking my head to appease him. He shook his head and walked away, mumbling something under his breath.

“See, progress!” Charlotte called out to me, noticing that Eli had talked to me. But I bet she didn’t hear his words.