Sealed with a Kiss ✔

Chapter Thirteen | Sealed with a Kiss

"Well, Ruby, it was certainly nice to see you after the break in our sessions, I do hope your exams went well," Mr Hibbert says, adjusting his grey tie as he closes my folder. I smile back at him, distantly thinking of how I want this meeting to end soon so I'm not caught in the rain storm that the weather forecasts have been warning about all week when going home.

"You really are such a different girl to the one I met a year ago," Mr Hibbert goes on to say. "If you think about just how much you've overcome it really is outstanding."

I smile embarrassedly, not quite knowing what to say. I feel he's right though, I've changed drastically these past few months, problems that once ruled my life have now taken a back seat. Last year things had been bad, to the point at which I needed to make a change or I wouldn't be able to cope.

I was receiving little hours of sleep, my days would leave me exhausted and drained and the night became a whole lot more unbearable. Then there was the crippling fear that's always shadowed over my life, a fear that even now I'm not sure I'll ever fully overcome. Death.

Now, I can think about it a whole lot more calmly and rationally but even now I feel a horrible rush of discomfort whenever the subject's brought up, but Mr Hibbert assures me that's to be expected.

"Well I'll see you next week, Ruby," Mr Hibbert says. I nod, pushing my chair up to stand before saying goodbye and leaving, feeling much lighter than I'd done when I first stepped into the room this afternoon. This week's meeting's gone pretty well.

I walk quickly down the corridors to the school entrance. I want to get home as quickly as possible, which unfortunately for me means at least a twenty minute journey of fast-paced walking if I want to avoid getting caught in the rain's that sure to come. Pushing the exit door open, I head outside, frowning at how grey everything looks. It's as though the surrounds are a black and white picture, things look so gloomy.

Walking down the school's front, I get my phone out to text Mum that I'm coming home. Glancing up from my phone, I feel a jolt of surprise to see Levi standing outside the school gates. He's absentmindedly nodding along to the music playing through the black headphones he's wearing and sipping a cup of coffee.

As if sensing someone's behind him, he turns around and his gaze lands on me. I immediately narrow by eyes, suspicious at finding him out here. Never on a Thursday afternoon after one of Mr Hibbert's meetings have I seen Levi out here. Well, not since the, uh... incident, anyway.

"What are you doing out here?" I ask, heading over to him as he takes off his headphones and leaves them resting around his neck. The smell of his coffee drifts over towards me and I start to want a hot drink for myself, things are so chilly and cold it's making me miserable.

Levi returns my blunt greeting with a mocking smile. "Nice to see you're as welcoming as ever."

I scowl harder. "No, really- what are you here for?"

Levi just raises his eyebrows, apparently not that bothered by my rudeness, before rummaging around in his bag. He pulls out my Geography notebook that I've forgotten all about.

"Oh," I say, feeling my face grow rapidly hot in embarrassment. "Er, thanks."

Levi hands over the notebook saying nothing, I'm surprised he doesn't poke fun at my paranoid demands as to why he's here but the amusement brightening his eyes tells me he hasn't failed to notice my slipup. I take the notebook and hurriedly shove it into my bag, hoping to turn around and leave him while I still have some dignity.

It doesn't quite go that way.

Because then the sky gives a deafening roar of thunder and the sky opens. Rain begins to hammer down on us without so much as a forewarning of a few drops- instead we're rapidly soaked by a pounding, startling torrent.