The Halo Effect | ✓

04 | sweetheart

E P I G R A P H

❝All hearts have love,
some just have trouble finding it.❞

☾ five | sweetheart ☽

I walked over to Holt, my hair blowing behind me due to the wind as my white and dark blue skirt blew up slightly, thankfully I had spandex on and the short cheer top which matched the bottoms left my mid-drift feeling exposed as I tried to look as confident as possible.

Quirks of having a cheer uniform. Not.

Holt looked confused-shocked as he saw me nearing him beneath the tree, though he tried to conceal his confusion by plastering a cocky smirk to his lips, whilst he straightened up his leather jacket.

"Can I help you?" he asked rather rudely.

I rolled my eyes, ignoring his rude remark, "I just wanted to apologise for my dick of a boyfriend," I stated, "What he said to you back there. . it was kind of-"

"-Insensitive?" he butted in.

I nodded, running a hand through my curly caramel coloured hair, my fingers getting stuck in a knot half way down.

"Yeah," I sighed, "I know it was wrong of him to bring up Everest-"

"-Don't fucking talk about him," Holt seethed, his words dripping with anger.

It hurt saying his name.

After Everest died, I refused to talk about him, I only thought about him but even in my head I tried to use his nickname I used to call him; Ever. Though even that hurt to say, well in my head.

He always used to call me Lo, which was different cause everyone just calls me Halo or Hals. But I learned to love it, it was his signature name for me, and me only.

"I'm sorry," I said bluntly.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he pulled another cigarette out of his back pocket before placing it between his dusty pink lips, shielding the cancer stick with his right hand as he lit it with the lighter being held in his other hand.

He placed the lighter back in his pocket before inhaling a deep breath then blowing out a cloud of smoke.

I coughed, waving the smoke out of my face.

He raised an eyebrow as he blew out yet another puff of smoke, "Something wrong?" he asked mockingly, followed by a smirk.

I screwed my face up, "I mean. . yeah." I said obviously, "You're smoking. I don't know why you'd want to do something like that, it's unattractive." I said. I was half teasing, half being serious.

I know it's a coping mechanism for a lot of people, I have nothing against it though it may seem like I do, I just don't like seeing people that I personally care about, doing it.

"So, you think I'm unattractive, angel?" he said with a cocky smirk plastered to his lips.

That damn nickname.

I scoffed, rolling my eyes, "No comment."

He chuckled, still seeming pleased with my answer.

Of course, he's attractive. He's Holt-freaking-Stone. He's well known for his charming looks, just as his brother was.

I always found it so strange how different him and his brother looked compared to each other.

Holt has the most mesmerizing grey orbs, they're so intriguing, yet they hold no life. They're like a storm, I can only imagine the hurricane going on behind them.