12 am { ON HOLD }

Ch. 12

    † warning † warning † warning † warning † warning † warning †

Days passed after the party and soon it became weeks as she heard and saw bits and pieces of the things she had done whilst intoxicated on Facebook and in the hallways, and whilst Emily spent those days doing her best to keep clear from the schools’ notorious bad boy, the said boy spent it looking around and trying to find ways to speak to her.

Apparently, even with two classes together and the fact that their school wasn’t necessarily big, Tyler still found it hard to ever come in contact with the girl as the second Emily set eyes on him, let alone heard his voice from a distance, she was gone.

He didn’t really know why he made it his mission to find her, to talk to her, but considering they had finally – somewhat – made amends after all but hating each other for the past three years, no one really questioned him at all; not even his friends who were quick to laugh and throw insults at him. Yet the one thing that he couldn’t exactly get out of his head was how much she’s changed again – something he noticed even from afar.

And it wasn’t a good kind of change either, even he knew that. 

And when he finally did manage to find her, he was unsurprised that she was, of course, in the school library – a place he never thought to look in but merely glance inside of up until now. What did surprise him, however, was the fact that she wasn’t actually reading a book, but rather had her head in one folded arm against the furthest table of the room, delicate fingers above the closed book she had her head turned toward and tracing unseen patterns on it.

“Emily?” Tyler asked tentatively, approaching her table and finding himself even more surprised to have her look up at him, startled, with watery and blood shot eyes – an obvious sign that she’d been crying.

“Hey, are you okay?” he frowned pulling a chair out beside her and sitting down without even asking, eyeing her face and wondering what could be wrong even as she flinched away from him and he readied himself for an attack of insults.

Instead he found himself a little dumbfounded as she forced a weak smile and waved him away with an embarrassed laugh, wiping her cheeks clear from non-existent tears. “I’ll be fine,” she dismissed avoiding his inquisitive gaze as she pulled the book she’s been pretending to read toward her and fumbled with the bookmark.

“What's wrong?” Tyler rephrased instead, not giving up as he reached over and placed a single hand over the both of her fidgety ones, making her glance up at him through shiny blue eyes and stopping her momentarily. She jerked at the sudden contact, but not enough to remove his hand, and for some reason she didn’t make a move to snap at him or hit him for touching her for once.

“One of the characters in my book died, that's all,” she lied, voice low as she tried again to smile only to find that it hurt too much to do so and was so obviously not fooling anyone. “Really Tyler, I’m fine,” she tried again, finally pulling both hands away from his and putting the bookmark into the novel randomly as she turned and put it in her bag, only to turn around again to find that he had shifted even closer to the point where his knees brushed her thigh and she could smell his minty breath that blew against her neck and cheek slightly, the smell of nicotine faint in his breath.

“I’m going to ask again,” Tyler started softly as he slid his hand over to hers where it rested against her thigh, but this time curled his fingers around it gently, “and I'd very much appreciate it if you didn’t lie to me, okay?” he said in such a caring manner, so unlike-Tyler, that it made Emily's eyes start to water again to the point where she had to drop her gaze since she could barely see him through the blur. “What’s wrong?”