Agreements With Mr Rich Boy | ✓

50 | At Peace

IT STILL DIDN'T feel real, even as we turned the corner down my road.

Mum had already gone by ambulance and settled in the house. I'd wanted to go with her but the nurse had had to be the extra person. And, I knew, I wouldn't have been able to stop from crying.

Miles hadn't said much since we'd heard the news and honestly, I wasn't complaining. Him being there, just there, was all I needed right now. Every now and then, he'd glance over at me, make sure I wasn't going into one. When he did it for the fifth time, I held my hand out, a comfort to him as much as it was to me.

Miles took his eyes away from me, a sad smile pulling at his lips. He frowned. "What the fuck?"

I leaned forward to see out of the front window.

Outside my house and those neighbouring our's, vans and more cars than I could count were all lined up outside. I looked behind us to see the rest of the road clear.

We pulled over.

Now closer, I could see those dotted around on the pavement all had cameras strapped to their fronts. My heart plummeted and I felt my stomach churn uncomfortably.

One of them glanced over, a large man with an even larger mid section. His crow-like eyes lit up when he spotted us.

"There they are!"

I'd never seen people react so fast.

One minute, they were dawdling, chatting amongst one another and the next, they were swarming around us. Even from inside the car, we could hear to clicks of their cameras, accompanied by the blinding flash as they tried to get closer and closer.

They were yelling things. But their voices were fighting with each other, so all that could really be discerned was a lot of gargled noise.

"How's Archer?"

"Are you still together?"

"Is he going to visit?"

"How did you and Archer meet?"

Rounds and rounds of questions, all pretty much the same— all revolving around Archer. It felt like each one was squeezing me tighter, that hand around my neck crushing my air pipe. And the door wasn't even open yet.

Miles and I looked at each other.

"What's going on?" He asked, putting a hand up to the window as a camera forced its way to his window. The flash of it illuminating the car.

"I don't know," I said, face probably as white as each flash.

"Let's keep driving," he said, leaning forward to the man at the wheel. "We'll come back when they've gone."

I put my hand on his arm. "They're not going to just go." I knew if they were desperate enough, they'd be here all night. And by the looks of the amount of stuff they'd brought with him, that wasn't so improbable. "Let's just get this over with."

No sooner had I stepped a single foot out of the car and we were being hounded by men and women alike, being shouted at in all directions. They asked whether various rumours were true and about mum. How could they possibly know? I could hardly breathe.