Fall (On Hold)

Orange Juice

I kept running even after I knew they’d stopped following me, I no longer noticed the feeling of air rushing through my lungs, my good stamina kicking in. I simply noticed the beating of my feet on the pavement and the feeling of the cool air tugging at my hair which was loose and flowing behind me in the wind. I stopped only once I’d reached the glass door which led into my apartment building.

“That’s not really running gear is it?” I could sense who it was before I’d even seen him, as he stepped out of the stairwell and gestured to my black jeans and leather jacket which was clinging to my arms which were sticky with sweat. It took him a moment to see the state in which my face was in, I could tell that the side of my jawline must’ve been purple by then however I’d had much worse and therefore wasn’t too worried. “What the fuck happened to your face?” His outrage surprised me but what surprised me more was when he began to stride towards me looking very pissed off. I jerked backwards as he went to raise his hand to my face, he paused a moment looking me in the eyes waiting for me to react. Slowly he went to raise his hand to my jaw letting his fingers lightly trail over the bruising. “What happened?” He growled. I reached up and grabbed his hand firmly pulling it away from my face and allowing it to drop back to his side. “Nothing,” I said shortly, “It was stupid I just walked into a door.” Noel remained silent for a moment as though waiting for me to continue, perhaps thinking that I’d suddenly decide to be honest, even I knew that this hadn’t been one of my finest lies and could tell that Noel was still incredibly suspicious. “I know you’re lying, I’m not an idiot. What was it? A drug deal gone wrong?” My eyes flashed with anger, so the asshole thought I was a drug dealer did he? Disappointingly the only retort I could think of was weak to say the least but definitely delivered the message. “Fuck you asshole.” I spat as I quickly moved to walk away but somehow the asshole just couldn’t let me go because rather than allowing me to walk away and wallow in anger, he reached out and gripped my forearm tightly pulling me backwards so I stumbled and bumped into him as I hissed in irritation, yanking my arm from his grip and protecting the bruise on my arm which he’d just grabbed. His face softened slightly as he looked down at me, my forehead creased in annoyance. “Sorry.” He muttered under his breath, then swallowing quickly he said; “look if you’re not going to tell me what happened then at least let me help.” My first response would’ve naturally been a harsh “No” but somehow looking at his puppy-like eyes I knew that he wasn’t going to let me go until he had at least done something. It dawned on me now that he was probably this kind of person, I realised that he was one of those people who are just so frustratingly helpful and would take it as a personal failure if he weren’t allowed to help me even just a tiny bit. “Fine.” I grumbled letting my eyes drop to the ground in defeat as he glanced up flashing me a wide dorky smile looking, I thought, way too happy about the prospect of spending more time than necessary with me.

So he led me up the stairs to his apartment, pulling out the keys and opening the door with a huge flourish. “Tadaa, welcome to my humble abode.” The layout of his apartment was similar to mine, however the difference was also immediately noticeable, whilst mine looked barely touched, Noel’s apartment looked extremely lived in. Books, magazines and juice cartons lay scattered around and he hurriedly moved to pick them up. Eventually he turned around and looked at me, tilting his head to the side he studied my face curiously. “You know, now that I think about it, there isn’t much I can do is there?” He said, looking mildly amused. I shrugged my shoulders, “Not really, it’s just a bruise anyway.” Noel simply looked at me, he seemed to be contemplating something, I wondered what it was as his mouth twitched slightly and it almost looked like he was holding in a laugh. I began to feel uncomfortable beneath his amused gaze and began to walk backwards cautiously towards the front door, “I guess I’ll be going then.” I reached for the door handle but a firm hand on my wrist stopped me, “And where do you think you’re going, nope I’ve got you here now. We’re going to hang out.” Uncaringly I allowed him to pull me back into his living area and allowed myself to be pushed gently onto the soft couch. I relaxed into the plush fabric but still watched him as he moved around the room, on high alert for anything he was planning, as yet I didn’t trust this strange man who had suddenly declared that he wanted to ‘hang out’ with me. I watched as he walked to the kitchen and pulled out two glasses and began to fill them with orange juice. After he’d filled both glasses Noel walked back over and passed one of the glasses to me before letting himself flop onto the couch beside me. I raised my eyebrow at him, “So I’m guessing you just assumed I wanted orange juice then.” Noel looked at me in surprise, “Are you saying you don’t like orange juice” he looked seriously hurt but nevertheless reached out to take the glass from me. “No” I yelped, “I love orange juice.” I yanked the glass back out of his reach, “I just think its funny how you kind of just assumed I’d want some.”

Once again Noel studied my face, “Hmm, well if you think it’s so funny why aren’t you smiling?” His set down his glass and moved both hands to my mouth, each hand pulling one side of my mouth up into what must have been a psychotic grin. I scowled and pulled away, “Maybe I was smiling on the inside asshole.” Noel laughed and shook his head as though I was being ridiculous,

“Actually I’ve been wondering, can you even smile? I’ve never seen you do it.” He placed his arms behind his head and looked at me expectantly as though discussing my smiling habits was something completely normal. Once again I scowled at him, of course I could smile, the only reason I didn’t was because there wasn’t much to smile about. Eventually after waiting a few moments for a response but receiving none, Noel reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, he turned on the camera application and held it up, clearly meaning to take a photo. I shrieked and moved my hands up to cover my face, but somehow Noel managed to use one hand to pry my hands away from my face whilst the other snapped a photo of me, my face scrunched up in annoyance. Noel released my wrists and looked at the photo, letting out a throaty laugh. “Ugh it’s ridiculous.” He said running a hand through his already messy hair.

“What is?” I asked curiously.

“How do you manage to look so damn attractive all the time?” Noel said frustrated, “I challenge you to take an ugly photo, maybe it’ll make my self-esteem a little better.” I groaned, was he being serious right now? Frustrated with his attempts of flattering his way into my pants I grabbed the phone from his hands and held it out in front of me, sticking my tongue out and crossing my eyes, I took a photo. For some reason I enjoyed taking ugly ‘selfies’ so I leapt up from the couch away from Noels hands which were reaching for his phone and ran away, Noel hot on my heels. “Come back, what the fuck are you doing?”

As we ran through Noel’s apartment I continued taking selfies, making mock terrified faces at the camera. After a few minutes of dodging around furniture Noel finally caught up to me, grabbing me from behind he reached for his phone but I attempted to twist out of his grip. For some reason I was still taking photos and it took a while before Noel finally managed to tear his phone out of my grasp. Scrolling through the photos he began to smile, “This one’s going to be my new lock screen.” I looked over his shoulder at the photo. It showed me laughing, my mouth stretched wide as I shrieked and Noel’s grinning face as he attempted to grab the phone from my grasp. Without meaning to my mouth twitched into a smile, it was a cute photo I’ll admit, I’d have to be an idiot not to acknowledge that. Glancing back at me Noel looked surprised, “Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you remotely happy. Maybe we should do this more often and you could spend less time standing on that bloody roof.” I rolled my eyes and sighed,

“C’mon, I need to show you something.” 

A/N: Sorry sorry I know it's unedited and unlong (cough short cough) but I've been finding it really hard lately to update this story but then today BOOM I got inspiration so you're lucky I even uploaded anything k cool bye.