𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧 ☾ 𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

six

"Just because we're almost done doesn't mean that we have to be done," she reassured him, the boy perking up at her mentioning of them as a unit rather than two separate people; progress. "I'm not going to stop coming around once the assignment is done, we're not going to stop hanging out. You're my first real friend, ever, that means a lot to me."

He partially deflated at her word choice, the word friend causing his shoulders to slump. He didn't notice how hard it was for her to let the word slip past her lips, though they both offered one another smiles as not to show their true feelings. "Yeah, you-it means a lot to me too, Noa."

She removed her hand from his to pass over his notebook, urging him to finish the last line so that they could finally be done with it. His hand still hesitated, hovering over the page, and Noa sent him an encouraging smile as she said, "think about it, once we're done, we can finally enjoy our break. Though I did ruin a lot of it for you by forcing you to do your homework." Seth laughed, quickly scribbling down the last few words to fill the space, not bothering to think too much about what he wrote. Noa's smile faltered a bit as she hadn't been joking. "What's so funny?"

Once he was finished he closed the notebook, tossing it to the side haphazardly before he turned to her with an endearing smile that made her heart beat faster. "The fact that you think my break was ruined because of you. This is probably my favorite break ever, besides the one time we went to the water park and Leah skinned her elbow on one of the rides, but it's a close call; you made it great."

Noa laughed as she tried to imagine the siblings at the water park, trying to hide the fact that her insides were doing cartwheels from his words and his smile that just wouldn't leave his face. She averted her gaze so she didn't have to look at him, focusing her attention on the way her fingers brushed up against his dark gray comforter, stopping when Seth reached his hand over and intertwined it with hers. Even though he couldn't hear, she felt embarrassed by how fast and loud her heart was beating in her chest and how hot her entire face felt.

It was such an odd feeling and she only ever felt that way when Seth was near her; Jacob had described it as a crush, comforting her with the knowledge that he himself almost peed the first time Bella touched his hand. He gripped her hand with a bit more force, just enough to get her to look him in the eyes and she noticed that he was closer than he was before her eyes left his initially, and he only seemed to be getting closer. Once she realized exactly what he was intending to do, she inhaled sharply and turned her head, the idea of kissing him suddenly terrifying to her as she had never done it before. She couldn't lie, she had thought about kissing Seth on more than one occasion and often wondered what his lips would feel like on hers but actually seeing him so close to her, his lips only a few inches away from her own, she was scared. She didn't know how to kiss, and he seemed known enough around town that the possibility of this being his first kiss was hilariously low and that made her even more embarrassed.

Once he noticed she had turned away from him, his eyes widened and he quickly backed away, his cheeks red from embarrassment. "Oh my god," he mumbled underneath his breath and Noa couldn't help but feel bad, struggling to find the words to say but they got stuck in her throat, too ashamed to say why she didn't want to kiss him as now, it felt silly. "I-I'm so so-"

The door opened without a courtesy knock and Harry poked his head in, his eyes darting from Noa to Seth, then back to Noa before settling on his son again. He hummed to himself, obviously amused by their demeanors as he misinterpreted the situation. The old man tilted his head to the right, indicating it was time to go, "you got five minutes or we'll leave you." He left them with that, the two back to their awkward silence.