And then he stopped. Shane leaned his forehead against mine, breathing heavily, our eyes still closed, and he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Astra," he mumbled against my lips. "Please don't hurt yourself."
And all at once, his body fell l...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
C H A P T E R E L E V E N
A s t r a *.✧
Petrichor. That's what it was called. The way the earth smelled before the rain started was called petrichor.
It had been a hot week; despite it being in the middle of March, the weather had been unusually warm and by now, everybody was welcoming the soon-would-be-storm with open arms. The ground was hard, the trees about to collapse, and the entire human population was about to die of heat exhaustion.
Ok, so maybe I'm being a little overdramatic. But it certainly felt like it.
I took a deep breath, squeezing my eyes, and shoved all possible thoughts about it away from my mind. Rain. Not helpful to think about.
A small girl ran across from me and squirted a young boy - presumably her brother - with a water gun. It spattered on the grass all around him, and a few droplets of water landed on my clothes too.
That's it. I stood up, crossing my legs and bit my lip as I anxiously scanned around for the nearest building.
Mrs Smith instructed us to not leave Central Park under any circumstances. But rules were made to be broken, right? And I wasn't just going to stand there while I pissed myself.
I stuffed my notebook into my bag and headed into the first building I saw; a large, white one with hundreds of miniscule square windows rose up above me. I had to crane my neck back just to see the top. There must be a bathroom in there.
There was the usual hustle and bustle as people yearned to get home as I made my way across the street. The building had a glass elevator on the side, tall and wide. I stepped into the building just as it began to rain.
My knees ached as I hopped inside, looking around for any sign of where the bathroom might be. I had stop a security guard and ask, his eyes worriedly glancing to my cheek the whole time. I pulled my hood down further, twiddling with the string as I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
He told me it was on the top floor. I ran into the glass elevator and pushed the buttons, crossing my legs as tightly but un-obviously as I could.
The walls were made of metal on all sides other than the one behind me. That wall was transparent, revealing the massive city of Manhattan and the dark swirling clouds above. Rain had started to fall, falling harder and heavier with each passing minute. I'd only been in a glass elevator once before, and that was when I was invited to an interview years ago.
Another man - in a far corner, was busy looking over a pile of papers. His dark hair was slicked back with gel, his face expressionless and blank as his eyes skimmed over the pages. He was wearing a navy-blue formal blazer with matching trousers, his posture tall and relaxed.
