Act 1, Scene 9

Mr Donahue's office was perfectly clean. His desk had no evidence of work and no sign of life anywhere other than the files lined on his bookshelf. Before I could've talked myself out of it, I went to the files and pulled out the many scripts that had been left. My vision blurred before my eyes but names scribbled along the front of pages concentrated my gaze, if only for a moment each. I took the picture of Khaleel and my faces crossed out from my pocket.

Last night, I'd analysed the handwriting of the threat on the back to compare to these scripts but I was hesitant to find something. If I were to find something, what would I have done? Would I have confronted that person? I had yet to see Nora Takahashi after hearing her voice on the phone. That single word she'd uttered still haunted me. Though Nora was cruel, I couldn't quite see her as a killer. Nor could I see Khaleel as one either. I didn't exactly suspect anyone in our school for these deaths. I couldn't see anyone doing something so inhumane.

If I tried hard enough, I could trick myself into believing that perhaps Elijah and Jackie hadn't died at all; that this was all an elaborate joke and everyone was laughing at me for running through Donahue's office to find the author of this fake threat. That I'd only have to wait until after the memorial and Elijah would jump out with a grin to tell me how much he'd laughed while watching me run around trying to find clues that weren't really ever there.

Julien sat on Donahue's chair as he spun around in circles, the squeaky sound loud over my thoughts. He opened drawers and looked through the papers inside, throwing them over his shoulder and dropping them onto the table. A navy school blazer was draped over the desk and my cousin raised it over his head, swinging it in the air as a gust of wind intertwined with a perfect lavender gushed at me. He threw it to the floor in a careless heap. 

I rolled my eyes but let him do what he wanted. Though Julien was known as a troublemaker, his friends didn't know even half of what he was capable of. When we were young, my mother was hesitant for me to even see Julien and his sisters because of how troublesome Julien had become.

In the weeks leading up to my parents' separation, my mother talked non-stop about my dad's brothers and how they let their children roam free. She talked about how the last thing she wanted was for me to be sucked into their wrong-doings. Especially without Henri, the supposed good influence, now to look after me, she was worried. 

I wouldn't stop Julien from roughing Donahue's office up, but I'd watch. Besides, I had my own issues that had nothing to do with him or his sisters or my other cousins. 

I flicked through the scripts, each time I turned to the next hand-writing, it strayed further and further away from that of the threat. A ball of frustration slowly built in my gut and I resisted the urge to scream. Instead, I threw the box of scripts on the floor in a huff to which Julien let out a cheer.

"Yes! Again, throw more!" He grinned with his legs on the desk.

I rolled my eyes. "Didn't your dad teach you to analyse handwriting too? You should be helping me."

"I wasn't the miracle child who could see the past or future. That was all you and Henri. You two always got the most attention," he shrugged.

I stood tall, my back spiking up straight as I stared at Julien. He seemed unbothered but I was unsure of how truthful he was being.

"Did that annoy you?" I wondered.

"It gave me enough time to perfect many of my other skills, and there are many. I am a man of many talents. You may be able to see into the past, Lottie, but I can skateboard. Can you skateboard? Or dance? Or bake a cake?" He wouldn't make eye contact.

"No," I said. "I can't. I only do what my parents want me to."

He flinched. Julien, of all people, knew about the little freedom Henri and I had. He knew why Henri became so good at sneaking around and why I was so distant. I grew up in the past, forever seeing things that had already happened. I spent so much of my time looking through other people's eyes that I was unfamiliar with my own. Julien had to beg my father and uncles to let me out to play on especially sunny days around the woods and deep blue lake. He had to sneak Monopoly into my bedroom at the dead of night when my father forbade me to do anything that could have clogged up my brain away from other people's memories.

Julien slowly pulled his legs down from the desk and almost folded in on himself. He felt guilty. I could tell from the frown built into his face. I sat in the seat opposite his and folded my arms on the desk. His green eyes flickered to mine before they fluttered back down. I surrendered into the seat opposite his along the wooden desk.

I sighed. "I'm not angry with you, Jules. Are angry with me?"

He met my gaze unsurely. "Why would I be?"

"For hogging your dad's attention," I offered.

He gave me a small smile. "Don't be silly. It's not your fault that the Monet's are shit fathers."

"I don't blame you, you know. Anyone would be angry if their father ignored their existence. I just want you to channel that anger at him, and not me. I mean, I'm angry at him too. They used me for all those summers then shipped me off to boarding school."

Julien reached across the table and messed up my hair with a content sigh while I glared.

"I'm sorry, Lottie," he frowned. "I really am glad you're my cousin, though. You know me better than my father does and I think I prefer it that way. I promise from now on, though, I won't blame you. We've got each other's backs, yeah?"

I pushed his hand away from my hair and fought a smile. "Of course. And if you ever decide I'm not good enough for you then everyone in the school will mysteriously know about your obsession with ABBA. They'll see all the records and the shrine, the lot."

He released a barking laugh. "I do love ABBA," he murmured dreamily to himself.

"Even Benny?" I teased.

"Especially Benny!" He declared, leaning back in his chair again with a wide smile while I picked up the scripts and put them back into the box.

"But he broke Anni-Frid's heart," I gasped dramatically.

"And I will put it back together again," Julien grinned before throwing more papers from Donahue's drawers out onto the carpet.

When I'd finished placing the scripts back into the files tidily, I realised that he wasn't worth it. There was nothing left here for us and I would have to go back to that stupid party empty-handed. Julien had trashed the office for no reason.

Though the tension between us had disappeared, I could still sense the fog of guilt that clouded my cousin. While I watched his movements that were far more robotic now as that faraway look settled in his green eyes, a sick part of me wanted him to suffer. I wanted to watch him wallow in guilt for he would never understand what my brother and I went through.

That one summer where it was so bad, I barely saw the sunlight. Where I cried so much that my eyes were swollen for weeks. When my father and uncles could have lost the company and I spent days and nights, wide awake and buzzed on coffee while pouring myself over paperwork. Just to see a vision, write it down, pass out and continue that all over again. 

When my brother barely talked to me and he'd hardly look me in the eyes. When my parents divorced and I memorised a whole book of piano sheet music to appease my mother who'd cried most nights. When my father drank so much that he'd forgotten my name and screamed so loud that I forgot his.

Then, my brother killed himself.

So, yes, a small part of me wanted Julien to suffer even a quarter of what I had.

"Let's go," I whispered to him after a moment. He jumped up and threw an arm around my shoulders. It was gestures like that that made me wonder how much humanity my father and uncles had stripped me of to wish such a horrible feeling on somebody as good as Julien.

Then, the nights when I was up late with my head whirling with too many thoughts to even close my eyes for a second, on those dark nights, I wished for the same fate as my brother.