White Knight Syndrome

5 • Damsel In Distress

• not edited •

The wind followed me, and it seemed the icy chill had even somehow seeped into my car. I shivered as I stopped in front of a red light on a smaller road, heading towards the outskirts of the city's heart, where my gated community was.

An icy finger scraped against my cheek and I groaned in irritation. The wind powers came packaged with cold air. I wondered how long it'd take until I'd become a human popsicle. Or how long it'd take until I could also control ice... that would be way cool. But that wasn't the priority right now.

I was still shivering as I turned up the heater and reached over to the passenger's seat to grab my hoodie, which Ellie had left on the seat when I had dropped her off. The red-light turned green just as I poked my head through the hole of the hoodie, and I took a left, driving absent-mindedly as my mind wandered into the dangerous territory of Ellie Jacobs.

Trying to analyze my feelings, I tried thinking like Mckenzie did - logically and with an organized sequence. Except I wasn't Mckenzie, and I was pretty much the opposite of her when it came to thinking reasonably. But I forced myself to start with the kiss. That seemed a solid and promising topic to start with.

The kiss. What did I think about it? Well, like most kisses, it was nice. Ellie was certainly skilled in the art of kissing, even though we hadn't even gone close to using tongue. I've also already established it to myself that kisses did not invoke "fireworks", and that such descriptions were embellishments.

So there, done with analyzing the kiss. It was simple enough. It was a good experience, and that was all. But why was my heartbeat picking up pace?

I wasn't quite sure what to think about next, so my mind took me to my feelings. For her. She liked me, that much I knew. I wasn't sure how much, but since we barely knew each other until tonight, and we still didn't know each other well, I concluded that she didn't truly like me as much as she probably led herself to believe. I mean, the only things she could like about me at first glance were my looks, money, and status.

But then again, there was the factor of my known personality. But then again, just because I was inherently nice, it didn't mean I had a fun and like-professing-worthy personality. Maybe she was just nervous about the whole party thing. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with my idea.

Yeah, that was it. Ellie confessed her feelings for me, which was just a small crush, because she was flustered from being invited to such a big party. I mean, not to sound snobby or anything, but she wasn't exactly known in Argent Prep, and for us to invite someone to our party, we'd have to actually know about them. So, yes. She must've just been thoroughly flustered.

Even as came to that conclusion, or rather forced myself to, I knew I was lying to myself. Then started the chain of other thoughts. It was a good thing Ellie lived quite far away from me, or else I would've still been thinking with a blank look on my face as I reentered the party, and Jay would've seen me through his posse of girls and forced an answer out of me.

I thought about the reasons why I wouldn't date her, which were because she wasn't well-known in Argent City or Argent Prep, and I had an image to uphold, because she was too shy for my taste, wasn't the most charming person I could be with, wasn't exactly super hot, also (what? I was only human) we didn't seem to have anything in common. Not to mention how nervous I felt talking to her, afraid to say the wrong thing and send her running for the hills.

But then I thought about the reasons why I would date her. She wasn't popular, but did that really matter to me? Or did it matter to my parents? I was keeping secrets from my family - big secrets - so what's dating an unknown girl going to do any more damage? As for the shyness issue, I remembered the spontaneity of her kiss, and the way we had joked briefly when she got into my car. That was fun. It was unpredictable and... fun. What else could I say? I liked unpredictable and fun. I probably just needed to break her out of her shell a bit. That was the same thing for the charming part. Ellie wasn't a smooth talker or a flirty, but I barely knew her, so who was I to judge?