My therapist calls it ‘compulsive staring’ as part of my OCD diagnosis, but I hate the label and I just let people comment on it the way they want. There is no use trying to explain it to people who wouldn’t understand.
But this time feels different. Most times I space out and I don’t actually know what I’m staring at, but this time I do.
It’s her andonlyher.
It’s her long dark brown, slightly curly hair and that fucking ribbon that she always wears. It ties up half of her hair in a cute bow and it makes her whole look seem innocent. It drives me crazy every time I look at it because it draws people into this false innocence. But she is the furthest thing from that. She’s lethal and dangerous and-
“Any theories?” she asks, still looking out the window. I shake my head, averting my eyes to the steering wheel in front of me. Could she sense my eyes on her? God, I hope not. I clear my throat.
“What?” I croak out.
“What do you think is going to happen? I can’t sit here in silence, Branson,” she explains. I don’t know how long I was spaced out for, but I’m surprised she didn’t fill that with her talking. She talks a lot. A lot of it is nonsense. But it’s a lot.
“I never said you had to,” I whisper, picking at the cuffs on my shirt.
“Well, it didn’t look like you were starting a conversation anytime soon,” she murmurs with that sarcastic undertone that makes me want to shake her shoulders.
“Do you always give this much attitude?”
“Do you always say the most stupid things?” She turns to me now, raising an eyebrow. I narrow my eyes at her, not sure what to say and she backs down with a smirk, turning back to face the store. “Just tell me a theory.”
I sigh, trying to think of something. It’s what I should have been thinking about instead of her. I say the most basic, typical thing that comes to mind. “I think whoever is in there is someone inVossandis probably connected to Tinzingate in one way or another.”
She blows a raspberry. “Boring,” she says, dragging out the syllables. “Next.”
I groan, scratching at the back of my neck as I try and think of something more substantial. “Okay. I think that whoever we were supposed to be looking out for has been using the change in strategy for the diamonds as a coverup, steering you away from where the real source is; the source that leads you to finding out who started the rumours with Tinzin andVoss.”
“Ooh, that’s not bad,” she says, turning to me and she actually smiles. Not at me, but at the idea. And it’s sort of…endearing? I don’t know. But the way her face lights up does something to me.
“Are you a true crime junkie or something?”
She shakes her head. “Not at all. Only about this. I'm getting more of an adrenaline rush from being here than I could from a documentary.”
“Why do you care so much? Aren't you supposed to want to rebel or some shit if you're not even a part of the company?”
I finally say what I’ve been thinking all day. About what this means to her. Why is she so set on finding out what happened when no one else is? Most of the press has made up their minds, not digging into what has happened, waiting for her dad to recover. Meanwhile,mydad thinks it'sourplace to find out what happened to expose them.
“I don't have to be a part of the company to care about my dad,” she argues. Fair. But I want to know more. There is more than that. Especially because she’s letting me help her. She must be desperate.
“Come on. What are you trying to prove, Angel? This seems like more than just trying to help a situation that doesn’t need you meddling with it,” I say, shifting in my seat to get more comfortable, leaning in closer to her. She glances out the window hesitantly and when she catches no more movement from the store she turns back to me.
“Not like I need to tell you any of this, but I’m hungry and I’m tired and I don’t know what I’m saying,” she begins.
“Strong start if you want me to listen to you,” I mutter, and she pins me with a look.Thelook. The one that my dad gives me when I’m being a little shit. The one that when she gives it, it’s extra fucking terrifying. I wave my hand between us, adding, “Continue.”
“You know that my mom was sick for a really long time, right? Well, of course you did. Everyone knew. Because we couldn’t get a moment of fucking privacy, even when we switched to private care, we were still followed everywhere,” she explains. I don’t say anything, not wanting to break whatever has led her to open up to me. “I was useless. Absolutely fucking useless. I was scared and all I could do was stand and watch. I couldn’t help the company because I didn’t have enough experience. I couldn’t succeed in school because of the pandemic, so none of it even mattered. I couldn’t help my mom and she was literallydyingright in front of me. Do you know what that feels like, Branson? To watch someone you love almost disappear right before your eyes?” I shake my head, almost frozen to the spot. I do know what that’s like, just not in the way she means. “She managed to pull through, luckily. And now we’re going through it again, but this time, I can have a handle on it. I’m going to find out what happened, and my dad is going to befine.”
She ends her last sentence almost with a growl, as if she’s trying to convince herself that that is what is going to happen. I swear the more I speak to this girl, the more I learn about her and how fucking wrong I’ve been. She has layers. Tons of them.
“That’s…A lot,” is all that my stupid brain can come up with to say. She blinks at me for a second, slightly shaking her head at me in disbelief before dropping my gaze and turning back to the window.
“Gee, thanks for that analysis,” she mutters. “Like I said, I’m hungry and tired, so don’t let me telling you that go to your head.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I argue. I totally was.
“Right,” she says sarcastically. She leans off from the window, resting her head against the headrest with a sigh, giving me the prettiest fucking view of her throat.No. We’re not going there. “Do you know how long this is going to take?”
“You’re asking me?” I say. “You’re the one with the lead that got us here.”
