It had been two days since I got that ominous text. I'd been reading the words over and over like they were a love letter: You're a murderer.

I breathed in sharply, catching my breath again. It was only a matter of time until I was entering the school and blocking the questions that students were still throwing at me. A girl from my class-Ella, that one who was popular yet badmouthed her friends-approached me slowly.

She asked me cautiously, "Don't you feel bad? It's your mother's fault that someone's parents are dead."

I felt my heart begin to race with fury and I was seeing red. Snapping my head towards her, I looked at her with eyes full of fire. I grabbed her by the collar of her polo-shirt and pulled her closer to me. I moved my lips nearer to her ear so that our newly found audience wouldn't have overheard, I growled, "Who the hell do you think you are? You know nothing."

"Don't I?" Ella snapped back, pushing my hands off of her, "I'm Elliott's sister. He told me everything in detail last night. Your mother killed my parents too."

Everything fit together like puzzle pieces that became perfectly aligned. Ella Hastings and Elliott Hastings were brother and sister. I'd never seen them together, but of course I hadn't. None of the siblings in the school went near each other. Considering what I'd learned of Elliott, I didn't think he'd be close to his sister generally. Of course they'd turned to each other this time, though.

"My mother killed no one," I hissed back. I thought about my actions for a second before I flung my hand back and forced my hand to make contact with her cheek as hard as I could.

I heard gasps and Ella's cries, but the sounds subsided as someone grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the commotion. I heard one of the bathroom doors slam open then close, and I was being dragged into one of the bathroom stalls. As I was pushed onto the (closed) toilet seat, I saw Elliott's green eyes focus on me.

"What the hell was that, Luna?" He asked me, kneeling in front of me, "You slapped my sister, I know... but why?"

I sighed, putting my hands over my face. He gripped my wrist and I felt my cheeks burn as he placed my hands between his.

"Please." He begged, "Tell me."

I began to talk in a low, self-depreciating voice, "She said you told her that my mother killed your parents."

His hands instantly slipped away from mine and I felt my fingertips grow cold with the loss of his warmth. I shook it off just in time to see him punch the cubicle door.

"Elliott!" I squealed, grabbing his wrists like he'd done to mine. He looked at me with cold eyes.

"I didn't say that," he informed me as he rubbed his knuckles, drawing his hands out of my grasp, "I told her that your mum was the one who was going through a red light. That's completely her own assumption, I-I've already told you that's not how I see it."

Elliott paused for a few seconds, watching me calculatingly. He looked guilty.

"What is it?" I inquired, standing up from the toilet seat. It wasn't particularly comfortable.

"I know I'm meant to hate you right now, but I really don't. Can we, um, start again? Friends?" He stopped speaking to evaluate my reaction and he quickly began to talk again, "I mean, I completely understand if you don't want to. I-I've been horrible to you..."

"I've had worse," I told him, unlocking the bathroom stall's door and stepping outside. I sighed in relief as I saw it was the ladies room - what girl would voluntarily go into a bathroom full of men (actually, don't answer that). I continued to tell Elliott how I felt about his proposal, "Okay, yeah. Being friends is cool with me."

Elliott nodded happily before asking me if I could check if the coast was clear outside. It seemed like all the students were in class so Elliott could escape without anyone ever knowing that he'd been in a female-only toilet.

I saw someone angrily storming up to us and before I could apologise to the teacher for our tardiness, I heard Seth's voice. "What the hell were you-Oh. You're with him."

"Seth!" I said quickly, "He's fine. We're friends."

"What?" Seth yelped as if he was in pain at my statement before pulling me away from Elliott and taking me aside, "Luna, yesterday he hated your guts! This isn't normal behaviour."

"His parents recently got killed, Seth," I said, placing a hand on my hip. I gave him a look of disapproval, "You don't know what it's like. My feelings are all jumbled up right now and so are his."

"She's right, you know."

Elliott was leaning against the doorway behind me. Seth must've noticed him before. He obviously didn't care what either of us thought of his words.

"You're both just messed up," Seth muttered and stormed off.

I sighed, turning to Elliott. I pulled my phone out to check the time, but a message came up first.

The message I'd left open after staring at it for ages, after opening it countless times to ponder whether its content was true.

"Elliott," I gulped, immediately feeling sick at the thought of what I was about to ask, "Could your sister have hijacked your phone? Gotten my number, maybe?"

He eyed me curiously and I showed him my phone. He nodded slowly as soon as he saw it, saying, "She's always been known to do dodgy stuff like that. She wants all of everybody's information."

I gave him a small smile in response. I blocked Ella's number immediately and deleted all evidence I had of the text. She didn't matter.

"I'm sorry she behaved like that," Elliott told me hesitantly, "She's always been like that, but since Mum and Dad... I think, like me, she was just trying to find someone to blame. She knows it wasn't right to freak out on you like that and sending you that text... Well, that's just cruel."

"She is cruel," I said quickly before pursing my lips. I parted them again to tell Elliott I was sorry.

"She might be my sister but that doesn't mean I have to wholeheartedly love her. Ella has done some unspeakable things even to her family," the way Elliott spoke seemed as if he were remembering something that she'd done to spite him in the past, "We'd better get going. There's no point going back to class."

"Wait," I said, pausing instantly and holding onto his arm so he couldn't leave, "How come Ella wasn't home that night I stayed at yours?"

"Ella's never usually home," Elliott informed me with a forced smile, "She stays at her boyfriend's house."

"I see."

Elliott and I left the school after feigning illness to the nurse. We somehow ended up outside my house together. I looked at him as I shuffled my feet awkwardly; my key was jingling against my fingers as I spun it in an attempt to seem more nonchalant about the situation. His mossy eyes landed on my hands as he reached his fingertips up to stop me from twisting the key around again.

"Do you want to come in?" I quizzed him as he stopped staring at my hands. His eyes met mine.

It looked as though he gulped before he replied, "Yeah, sure."

Elliott followed me in as I unlocked the door and removed my shoes, placing them to the side of the hallway. It was as empty as I felt inside. Usually, I'd have seen countless pairs of my mum's shoes lined up and I'd have compared the amount she owned to the ones I had. She was a shoe hoarder. I felt Elliott's hand come into contact with my arm and before I knew it, I was in his arms in a soft embrace.

"I really am sorry," he broke the silence with, "I don't know what was going through my head. I was just so distraught. I didn't want to accept it..."

"Have you?" I interrogated him, pulling him off of me quickly, "Are you over it already, Elliott?"

Elliott shook his head with a chuckle. "Of course I'm not. Anyone who could get over something like this so quickly is just... I don't even know how to describe it. Crazy, maybe."

"Yeah, I think so too," I agreed speedily. I rushed to the sofa and plopped down. Elliott took my silent invitation and sat beside me. We sat without vocalising our thoughts for a while and I began to feel anxious about what he was actually thinking about. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "What are you thinking about?"

Elliott laughed. The joyous sound was dragged out a little and he wheezed before calming himself down and telling me, "To be honest, I'm not really sure you'd want to know."

I frowned at this. Moving closer to him and studying his expression, his cheeks reddened. "If I didn't want to know, I wouldn't have asked."

"Even if it's about you?"

"Even more so," I stated as I moved back. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the back of the sofa, enjoying the cushiony feel on my neck and cranium.

"I was just thinking about how cliché this is. I'm quite the reader, you see, and I find it awfully typical that two orphaned teenagers have ended up hanging out like this. It's more than likely that we'll fall in love and knowing this awfully common storyline, it'll turn out that your best friend Seth also loves you and that's the real reason he is avoiding the thought of you being anywhere near me. It's likely that he'll get jealous and give you the ultimatum of being with him or me," Elliott divulged as his eyes traveled anywhere except my own. I stared at him sideways after I exposed my eyes to the light again. He added, "If I were the writer of this painfully stereotypical story, I would be your first choice and we'd get married with kids like every other love fable ends."

I looked at Elliott again, absolutely flabbergasted. The only words that I could manage to muster up were, "Was that a confession, Elliott?"

"W-what? Of course it wasn't. We've only known each other for, I don't even know..." Elliott said, and as he spoke he spluttered his words.

"Okay, okay!" I exclaimed, erupting into laughter, "I was kidding, Elliott. I'm not exactly the most likeable girl on the planet."

"What? You are great," Elliott told me in disbelief.

I giggled again, pushing his arm slightly. "Don't say stupid stuff like that. I've had boyfriends, sure, but they only get bored of me after a while and move onto some other, prettier girl."

"You're one of the prettiest girls I've met."

Elliott was completely flirtatious. I moved closer to him and clamped his cheeks together so that he looked like a fish. Instantly, I smelt alcohol and I cursed myself for not noticing it earlier. I began to yell at him in frustration, "Elliott, why the actual hell are you drunk? You were in school! Is that why you want to be friends? You just wanna screw around with me until you're sober and can bugger off to bitch about me with your sister? I bet you were having a blast when she confronted me! Or maybe you were busy getting yourself pissed."

Elliott burst into a fit of laughing tears, "I'm mildly tipsy, Luna. I can control myself. A friend of mine offered me a little bit of beer. As for my sister, well. You can tell we don't have a strong relationship just by the fact that I was the one who pulled you away from her. Why would I have done that if this whole friends thing was a joke?"

"I don't know," I grumbled, looking at my feet in embarrassment. He chuckled again as he leaned over the sofa to grip my hand in his own. He mumbled a quiet apology and in response, I said, "No, I should be sorry. I wrongly accused you."

"Shut up," Elliott muttered and before I knew it, he was asleep on my shoulder so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and did my daily time-wasting, procrastinating routine as he slept soundly on me.