Her Dilemma

[11] c l o s e r

To GreyPoppies . Thank you so much for always being the first one to read my book and vote for it. Though my updates were always slow, you still bothered to read it anyways. I cannot thank you enough, really. You're a source of motivation (:

Felicity

My jaw dropped at the complete turn of events.

Maybe a little look of lost or gloom would have been more appropriate, considering he had just broken up with his girlfriend. But he didn't seem bothered at all.

I crept up behind him and smacked his head lightly to get his attention. "Christopher! What are you doing here? Why didn't you go to the hospital today?"

He jerked and snapped his head up to meet my eyes. "I should be asking you that. What in the world are you doing here?" He glared but his lips were twitching.

I opened my mouth to argue but I paused and stared at him, hoping I could decode whatever that was written all over his face that I couldn't fathom a thing out of.

I crossed my legs and sat down next to him, not letting my eyes leave him, just in case something I could actually read flashed across his face. Chris placed his controller down on his lap.

"You okay?" I tried to sound a little offhand so that it wouldn't seem like I was being too nosy.

He lifted his controller in the air and smiled, "Just needed a break from work. I'll go tomorrow."

"Anything happened?"

I couldn't spot that usual glint in his eyes that would tell me he was truly fine.

Instead, Chris was staring at me with a blank expression that looked icy and rather distant. "I just got a cold, that's all. I'll be alright." His eyes refused to meet mine while he stood up, walked over to his study desk and pulled out a tissue from a tissue box and blew his nose.

A cold.

My gaze shadowed him around the room. He didn't looked like he was sick, he just looked extremely tired and probably mentally exhausted as well. Why did he have to lie? I had to knock some sense into him and I felt the need to release all my restrained anger for him for letting Natasha cut him so deeply. I had to force it out of him; what happened before Natasha and why he had to pick up drinking. My tongue felt prickly and my head kept spinning from all the millions of things I was going to say next.

But "Oh" was all that came out of my mouth.

I frowned when he started chirping about how Natasha and he were going out later and how he'd loved Natasha. He talked about her kisses and her hair and her eyes and her personality. He told me how he met her and how they became lovers.

But unmistakably, I noticed the usual light in his eyes weren't there at all and the smile he gave every now and then, didn't quite reach his eyes. I frowned. I couldn't understand why he would go so far to hurt himself deeper and deeper.

"She's amazing, Felis. We talked a while ago before you came and-"

"Chris," I interrupted him as I couldn't take it anymore.

I stood up and walked over to his bed and sat down on the soft white covers that sank deeper into the bed as I let it hold my weight.

He stared at me, looking baffled.

I patted the space beside me, gesturing for him to sit down.

He sighed defeatedly as though he already knew what I would ask next and dragged his feet to the edge of his bed and sat down, leaving a wide gap between us with his back facing me.