𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇 𖤓 - 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧.

DÓDEKA.

Felix had never had the desire to date.

For when you're constantly serenaded by suitors that practically catapult themselves every which way in your direction, the concept of obtaining love no longer becomes a dreamy delicacy that one looks forward to potentially finding.

Because almost everywhere he went, the opportunity for love, a relationship, was handed to him. As was everything else - in Felix Catton's favour.

Lyssa, on the other hand, was virgin to this kind of pure, puppy love that had seemingly become more abundant around her at Oxford.

Along with raised sex drives, Lyssa grimaced at the sights of all the affectionate couples that haunted the campus.

After all, how do you appreciate something that you've never experienced? To her, being in love at this age may as well qualify as putting yourself up to a suicide mission.

Yet, she knew in the depths of her calloused soul that if she were ever to unravel in the presence of a proposition of giddy teenage love, she wouldn't mind it.

She also felt fearful that maybe, she'd like it too much. Dive in head first to a temporary relationship - invest feelings too intense for a connection to only be plainly disposed of after a couple of months.

And Lyssa would be a nightmare in an intimate relationship.

For to her, it was all, or nothing.

She was also the stubborn type who had a tendency to collect grudges like bricks - hovering them over the people who had rubbed off negatively on her's heads like a pending, silent threat until she never were to see them again.

She knew that if she were to get her heart broken, it would take quintuple the time duration to replace this emotional deflation as it would be to get over never experiencing a teenage relationship.

But she did commonly feel the sickening ache of deprivation.

Of love, of being able to trust, to touch unafraid of wether this person will neglect you like her mother had in times of desperate need.

Could shoulders had become her comfort, her familiarity, and her norm.

For she'd never felt what it was like to lean on a warm one.

A shoulder like Felix's, she thought - as he were the first person who came to mind.

It had gotten to the point where watching her classmates as she passed by the pub windows as they shared hugs and kisses during pathetic evening dates had began to make her feel like there were something wrong with her that made her unable to experience this yet.

To contrast, on the other end of the spectrum - Felix Catton swore that he had now lost the ability to feel completely aroused.

Farleigh had joked, suggesting that "Maybe it was time for him to try shagging a man".

However, Felix knew that the reason he'd become void to any sort of female contact recently was because he didn't actually want any of them.

Their kisses peppered from his lips down to his abdomen felt like damp nothingness - like his skin became ignorant and numb the moment the situation had started to advance.

Obviously, he felt enough to finish what had started every time, however sex had begun to feel like a chore instead of a pleasurable activity.

But now, the longer she remained within a reachable vicinity of Felix, the more he struggled to compose himself around her.

Sure, he was unsuspected - good at playing bachelor, still continuing to plough through Oxford's female population like there was no tomorrow.

Felix had never found himself so affected by a girl standing above him relaxed in his dress shirt.