the strings

:: three ::

Her little face lights up as she takes them and she all but shrieks in joy.

"Laurel!"

The little girl looks up at the sound of someone calling her name and raises her hand, "Over here!"

I look up as a familiar face comes around the corner, carrying a bag full of books. He sees Laurel first and then his gaze travels from her up to my face. 

An immediate smirk takes over his features, "Dang, ginger-girl, you stalking me now?"

I pick up another book to reshelve, "Well since I wokr here and I've never seen you here before, I'd say it was probably the other way around, Hudson."

He shakes his head, "See, that's not fair. You know my name and I still don't know yours."

Laurel runs over to him and jumps all around in front of him, "I know her name!"

He raises his eyebrows at her and bends down next to her. Uh-oh. "What is it, L?"

I shake my head at the little girl who looks fit to burst with the information, "Don't tell him!" I say, a smile trying to force its way onto my face. 

Hudson's eyes twinkle with mischief as he says, "If you tell me I'll buy you an ice cream cone on the way home, L."

She looks back at me, looking torn. I just shake my head and she throws her arms up, "But ice cream!"

I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. 

After a second of what looks like a six year old's internal struggle she finally stamps her foot in frustration and says, "It's trolley without the T! I'm sorry!" She says looking at me.

I just smile at her little disappointed face, "It's okay."

I get it, ice cream is a hefty bribe.

I turn around to shelve another book that's too tall for me to reach and end up on my tiptoes. I can't quite reach it and struggle with it for a second before there's a weight on my back and a hand reaches up and plucks the book from my hand and shoves it, shelving it with annoying ease.

It's him, of course it is.

I try to turn around to thank him for shelving the book for me, but he's way too close and he's not moving. 

He lets go of the book, leaning his head down to hang next to my ear. My face is in the shelves of books, and his arms are trapping me on either side. I can't go anywhere. He has me right where he wants me and he knows it. 

"Raleigh, huh?" He whispers in my ear, and an involunatary shiver runs down my back like ice. His chest is pressed into my back and I can literally feel his muscles tightened from the way he's standing.

"Okay, we know each other's names, now we're even," I say to the books in front of me, and Hudson chuckles low from behind me, and I feel it reverberate in his chest.

"Far from it, ginger-girl. Far from it."

He pushes off from the shelves and by the time I gather up my wits and manage to get my face back to its original pale color, he's gone.

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By the time I get home from the library I'm exhausted. But it's a happy exhaustion. I haul my bag of books up to Ellie's room, and set it next to her bed. She's asleep when I walk in, but she fell asleep with a book.

I take the book out from under her hands gently, sticking a bookmark in it and setting it on her nightstand. I pull her covers up around her chin and flick off her lamp. She stirs a little as I nudge the bag closer to her bed so she'll see it when she wakes up in the morning.

I kiss her on the forehead gently, and then back out of the room. 

I walk back down the stairs towards my room and see my mom and dad sitting in the living room talking about something. 

I stand in the doorway and raise a hand in greeting, "Hey," I say, making both of them startle and look up at me.

I feel like I hardly ever see them anymore, since they're both working full time to pay for Ellie's medical bills and I'm either at school or at the library.

"Hey, Rae," Mom says, patting the space next to her on the couch. I walk in and sit down with them, noticing the muted football game on the television and the uneaten sandwiches on the end tables.

"What are you guys talking about?" I ask, folding my legs underneath me.

Dad shrugs, "Money."

I bite my lip, "Ah."

It gets quiet and awkward very quickly. Money has never been much of a problem for us before, not that we were rich, but we weren't poor either. And then Elles got sick and everything kind of got turned on its head.

I sit in the uncomfortable air of silence for two more minutes before clearning my throat and standing up. "Well I've got a lot of homework, but I love you guys."

They both wish me goodnight, and as soon as I leave I hear them pick up where they left off. They didn't want to talk about it in front of me, I guess.

It shouldn't bother me, but it does.

I walk into my room and boot up my laptop, the familiar sounds of the TARDIS greeting me as it turns on. I pull up a Microsoft Word document, ready to start my lit paper, when all of a sudden one of my open windows on Chrome dings.

Sighing, I pull it up, knowing once I do so I'm going to be distracted for the next twenty minutes by the internet. 

There's a "1" next to my Facebook window and I pull it up only to see a friend request. I open it to see the name "Hudson Laurence" in the box. 

Rolling my eyes I click on his name and it takes me to his page. Contrary to what I figured, there isn't some random chick in his profile picture, but it's him and Laurel.

I click down his page for a minute, not being able to see much since I still haven't accepted his friend request.

Sighing in annoyance I remember Nat crying to me on the phone at one in the morning over a guy, and I click off his page and back to the home screen. 

I won't be a victim of high school love. Now or ever.

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