LIMERENCE ⇥ KAI PARKER

FOURTEEN

He'd even allowed himself to spend a shameful amount of time thinking about her before going to bed, in an attempt to induce his mind into reliving one of the best nights he'd had in a really long time.

He just wanted to see her again, in her little lilac dress, so he could kiss her the way he'd been wanting to all night.

But he didn't.

Instead, he found himself back at the tree house, all alone, surrounded by nothing but pictures and drawings of what he quickly deduced were memories of the many days they'd spent there together. Something he had no one to blame for but himself.

He knew no good could come out of reminiscing about the past and while nostalgia seemed to be the key to getting through to her – at least enough to convince her to let him back into her life – he'd been hoping it wouldn't stir any unwanted reactions from him.

Clearly he couldn't have called that one more wrong, it even made him regret not listening to the voice inside his head that kept warning him not to let himself get too comfortable or be too honest with her, throughout the evening but she'd made it impossible for him not to.

He'd fucked up, big time, to say the least because now that he'd dared to take a peak inside the good ol' Sophie memories box inside his head, he found himself struggling to come up with reasons why he couldn't just... keep her around.

It became painfully obvious when he caught himself thinking of ways he could stall his original plan to spend more time with her, after dropping her off on Saturday night... because as much as he'd relished the victory of finally getting Sophie to be the most at ease she'd been with him since she'd come back, he hated how it led to him becoming deeply aware that the feeling went both ways.

Truth was, he couldn't remember the last time he felt so at ease with someone other than his own shadow, so much that he didn't feel the pressing need to be the one in control every waking minute of it like he usually did.

It wasn't like that with her. She made him feel like he could be just some... teenager... who didn't have to keep his guard up all the time or look over his shoulder every five minutes to make sure his father wasn't there ready to incendia the life out of him.

And he liked that, he liked that there were no fucked up Joshua mind games or coven rules to worry about when he was with her, because it made him feel like he could finally breathe and take a much needed break knowing he was safe enough to do it... something that'd become nearly impossible to do in the past five years.

But he knew it was just an illusion and that's what made her so dangerous because of her ability to make people believe life could be as good as she saw it fit and maybe that's why he made the night last for as long as he could, he just wasn't ready to let her go and nor did he want to miss out on the opportunity to get to know more about the girl who'd carved her way into his head, an achievement no one else had been able to accomplish to this day.

Though, he kept trying to tell himself it was all part of his plan, that it'd all worked out the way he'd initially intended it to from the very beginning and it was true, because Sophie trusted him now more than ever. Not only that, they were also past any barriers that were stopping them from getting closer to each other and in exchange, he'd gotten to spend as much time with her as he could and now he didn't even need an excuse to do it again.

It was a win-win situation but he knew the reason why he wasn't currently skipping instead of walking to class, was because the better side of him knew there was a problem and it wasn't willing to keep ignoring it, not like the voice in his head would let him either and it was warning him understandably so.