My Christmas Miracle

Chapter 14 - Alone Together

Cassandra

The rest of the day seemed to drag on forever until it was finally time to go home.

I practically skipped out of the school doors ready to pick up Eva from her school.

Taking my phone out of my pocket to play my usual playlist when I walked home, I heard someone calling after me.

"Cassandra, Wait up!" A familiar voice yelled, getting louder as it got closer.

Looking back I saw it was Andrew.

I smiled and waved at him "Hi Andrew!"

He caught up to me panting and out of breath.

"Hey... I've been calling you for about a minute now and you didn't respond, what happened?" He asked inquisitively.

I blushed in embarrassment and broke eye contact while pushing up my glasses."Oh um, I was just distracted... what are you doing here?"

Now it was his turn to blush " Well I was wondering if you would uh... walk with me to pick up my brother because I assumed you were going to pick your sister and since they go to the same school it would make sense if..."

I put my hand on his arm.

"It's ok you don't have to explain to me," I said calmly trying to sound understanding and reassuring.

But all he did was look at my hand on his arm then look at me and back at my hand wide-eyed.

I realized what was wrong in an instant.

I, a girl he barely even knew, was touching him, and he had a girlfriend.

I jerked my hand away like his body was on fire and held it close to my chest.

"I'm so sorry I didn't mean to, I...I'm sorry," I stumbled over my words, extremely embarrassed.

"It's ok don't sweat it" he replied, trying to sound casual like it was nothing but I still felt like I was slowly dying inside with embarrassment.

After a while, an awkward silence settled in between us and I realized 2 things.

Realization #1: Me and Andrew were walking side by side; alone together

And Realization #2: This situation can only go 1 way, either good or very very bad.

After a couple more minutes of this deafening silence, I couldn't take it any longer and blurted out randomly "hey," just when coincidentally he said "hey" at the same time.

"Jinx!" We yelled in union, soon after, laughing at ourselves and each other at our circumstances.

After we calmed down a little he said: "you can go first if you want, cause you're a girl and all, ladies first."

I smiled at him and his kind gesture "well that's sweet of you but you can go first, I don't mind."

He cocked his head at me "you sure?"

I waved my hand at him to show that it was ok "yeah it's fine, go."

"Sooo..." he started "maybe you could tell me a bit about yourself, now that we're friends?" Andrew asked. I sucked in a breath in surprise and a soft smile sprang onto my lips. Andrew thought of me as a friend.