▲ Chapter 17 || Don't Throw Off My Groove ▲
I shoot up from my bed with a scream; my heart pounding, my breath wavering and my skin covered in a coat of sweat.
Sophie.
My mind races back to middle school and I hold my hands to my throbbing temples. I suck in a sharp breath before exhaling in an attempt to calm myself. It was an exercise in futility.
It was my fault. Everything was my fault. Everything is always my fault.
Suddenly, my bedroom door swings open, revealing a frantic Blake with a baseball bat gripped in one hand.
"I hope you didn't come in here to club me to death," I sniffle jokingly.
When Blake catches sight of me, he lets out a breath of relief, "What the fuck happened?" he hisses, "I was getting a fucking drink and then suddenly I hear you screaming bloody murder." His eyes dart to the open door and he holds his breath as he stares into the dark hall. He turns back to me after a long moment, "At least you didn't wake up my parents," he mutters, "What happened?"
"Where on earth did you get the baseball bat from?" I ask in confusion.
"Don't avoid the topic. Tell me."
I shake my head, too scared because I knew if I did I'd probably start crying.
"Bronte..." he grits out in a threatening tone as he steps towards me.
"Nothing..." I croak, "I just... I had a nightmare." I reply truthfully. Well it's half the truth, at least.
My eyes widen when Blake does the unexpected and takes a seat next to me on my bed, "You're crying," he tells me. I shake my head, patting the back of my hands over my cheeks. Sure enough, they were soaked with tears.
"No, I'm Bronte," I joke weakly before sniffling. He doesn't laugh and I roll my eyes, "I know, it was a bad joke."
"Yes, it was," he responds simply. Gee, real confidence booster. "You're crying right now and then you're trying to crack a joke like nothing even happened. Don't beat around the bush and just tell me what's going on."
"Why should I tell you?"
His mouth opens as he tries to answer my question, "W-well... Not me... But at least don't bottle your feelings. You'll go insane, trust me," he mutters, and I can tell that there's history behind his words by the tone in his voice.
Blake was certainly right, but there is no way I am going to tell him about what has been haunting me since middle school, "You're right, but I don't want to talk about it. I just want to..." I sigh and fall back in my bed, "I just want to forget about it."
More than that, I want it to never have happened. I miss her.
"I have an idea," he tells me, pushing off my bed. "Follow me," he commands, "But you have to be quiet or you'll wake up my parents." I furrow my eyebrows at him and open my mouth to reply, but he is already gone, disappearing into the darkness of the hall.
I shut my mouth and stare at the open door for a long moment. I didn't know what to do or whether I could even trust him after everything he's done. I was still angry at him, definitely, but I know I wouldn't get to sleep anytime soon and right now I didn't really care about anything besides recovering from my dreams. I was still shaken up.
I eventually climb out of bed and walk into the hall, where he is already standing. "So what's the pl-?"
"Shh.." he hushes, placing a finger on his mouth, "Mom and dad are here and we can't wake them up."
I purse my lips together and nod my head vigorously. I don't know what he is planning, but for some reason I feel as though I can trust him - Just this one time. I am already sad enough as it is and I know he's a bad guy, but not bad enough to kick a person while they're down. I'm hoping, at least.
Blake waves a hand, signalling me to follow him - so I do. "The front door is too loud, so we have to leave through the back."
"Okay..." I mumble dubiously, my fists clenching in anguish.
I follow Blake over to the lounge room and watch him push open the window closest to the backdoor. I furrow my eyebrows and give him a weird look, "Why can't we go through the backdo-?"
"Shut up, Bronte. Don't throw off my groove," he responds in a clipped tone.
I roll my eyes, "Sorry for asking."
Blake smiles back at me and hitches himself up onto the windowsill, falling onto the other side, "It's cooler this way," he states, answering my previous question, "Now come on, jump. I'll catch you."
"Blake, we are literally no more than 3 feet off the ground, I think I can manage."
"You're throwing off my groove again.." he tuts, "Come on. Quickly now: Before the house alarm sets off."
"What?" I hiss, immediately hiking myself up onto the windowsill and falling not-so-gracefully out of the house and onto the dirty gravel, "Ow. Thanks for catching me, loser!"
Blake bursts into laughter and I frown, pushing myself off the ground, "I was just kidding!" he declares midst his laughs.
"I realised that," I scowl, brushing the dirt off my pyjamas.
"Come on now," he urges me, walking around the side of the house.
I narrow my eyes at his back and hesitate momentarily before eventually hurrying after him.
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"We're here," Blake states, steering his motor bike into a vacant car spot. My eyes consume our surroundings and my heart plummets at what was standing before us.
An old, abandoned building.
"Oh god," I cry, stepping off the bike and stepping away from him, "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"
Blake stares at me blankly for a solid moment before he begins to shake with laughter and his lips quiver. Then he starts to laugh. "I'm not going to kill you, you fucking idiot," he snickers.
"Mhm," I nod, unconvinced, "That's exactly what a murderer would say to their victim."
"... Or what a normal guy would tell someone when he gets accused of being a murderer."
I squint my eyes, "Touché."
"C'mon, you'll see what I want to show you," he says, stepping off the bike. I unclip my helmet and hand it to him, "It's 12:48am" he declares, "You won't be tired at school tomorrow?"
I smile at his concern and answer with, "I'm tired on Mondays regardless of my sleep schedule. Besides, I wouldn't have gotten much sleep anyway if I was still in bed." And so I follow him gingerly to the building. Nervousness eats me up as we draw closer to the building. Even if Blake's intentions are pure, that doesn't change the fact that this building looks as if it's been taken right out of a horror movie.
"If we die, I blame it on you by the way," I assure him, and I hear a laugh escape Blake's mouth as he leads me around the side of the building into a secluded alleyway.
He presents a dangling key to me before turning back to the building, "When I was younger I discovered this building after having a run-in with the police. I needed a place to hide and I found this building so I went into here." After a few tugs and twists of the key, the door jolts open and Blake smiles at me triumphantly, "Anyway, I thought the building was pretty sick, so I cleaned it up, changed the locks, and called it my own."
"That sounds very..." I pause in thought, searching my mind for the correct word, "... illegal."
Blake grins and picks up a torch perched on a dusty table and it flickers on, illuminating the room, "I come here whenever I need to clear my mind."
"How does a dusty, dark, creepy building help you clear your mind?"
"It's not what's inside the building. It's what's on top."
"Oo, that's deep. You should create a Tumblr."
He snickers before walking into a narrow hallway where, at the end of the path, a staircase sits. The two of us climb up the flight of stairs and we eventually reach the top. Blake pushes the door at the top of the staircase and a cool breeze embraces us.
I step out of the confines of the building and onto the rooftop. "Wow," I breathe in awe. The rooftop is almost empty, with only a single chair perched by the edge of the roof. But what amazed me was the building's stunning view. Thousands of lights spread across the vast land. Lights from houses, cars, street lamps; all sorts of things. It was quite an incredible sight, to say the least.
Blake tags behind me and smirks when he sees my gobsmacked expression. He steps into my line of vision and speaks to me in a deep, wise voice, "Everything the light touches is yours," he declares, waving his hand in the direction of the city.
"It's nighttime," I point out.
"Exactly. Who do you think I am? A millionaire? I'm not buying you shit."
"Thank you, Mufasa."
Blake grins mischievously and walks over to the single chair. He takes a seat on the ground and breathes out a sigh, averting his gaze to the infinite black sky.
I follow after him and look up at the sky, too. "It's amazing."
"I know," he agrees, before looking up at me and pointing to the chair beside him, "Are you gonna sit down or what?" he asks, and I smile, taking a seat in the chair. "The view is amazing, and it's a nice place to get an escape from people and to just think."
"It's a good place for that," I agree as I stare at the view, "I'm still angry at you just so you know," I remind him.
"I know, and I still hate you."
I roll my eyes, "Yeah, you've made that pretty clear." We fall silent for a long moment, just staring out at the view, "So do you and your friends come here often?" I question curiously, breaking the awkward silence.
"No, they don't know about it," he shrugs, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. He turns to me with a faint smile on his face, "You're officially the first person I've ever taken here because I don't really like people knowing about it. Feeling special?"
"Very special," I nod with a laugh and we fall silent again.
After a moment of silence, Blake speaks up again, "But this is our spot, okay? Don't tell anyone. I don't want people knowing about it."
"Sure," I agree.
"So what happened earlier?" he asks.
I look back at him with a playful smile, "You're not the only one with secrets, Blake," I reply, recalling the night he was drunk and talked about escaping from his past.
"Okay, I'll accept that," he shrugs.
A big smile stretches across my face, "Cool," I grin. I was happy that he could accept that I can't tell him everything about me and my life.
He notices my grin and rolls his eyes, "Jesus. You find the brighter side of everything, don't you?"
"Yeah," I nod, "Is that such a bad thing?"
He ponders my question, "I dunno. I guess it's a good thing, but it can also make you miserable if you always hope for the best. If you don't expect anything, you won't ever be disappointed."
"Well there's a lot to be happy about."
"There's a lot to be sad about, too," he retorts.
"I know, but why would you want to be sad? You might as well be grateful for all that you have rather than dwelling on what you and others don't. Being sad helps no one."
He thinks about that for a moment, "True," he eventually mutters.
The two of us continue on with a casual conversation - a pleasant conversation, surprisingly enough. We talked about all sorts of things; what we would do if we were invisible for a day, where we would go if we could travel anywhere in the world, what super power we want, whether we would like to know the day we die or how we die. The list was endless.
Talking to him so casually seemed so surreal and so... not.. normal. For the past two weeks we've done nothing but fight, and now it was like we were actually friends.
"I was a bit quick to judge, wasn't I?" Blake mutters, running his hand through his hair and exhaling a frustrated sigh.
"Huh?"
The corner of his mouth tilts upwards, "You're not half-bad, Bronte," he clarifies.
"You-you..." I stammer, baffled by his words.
His cheeks redden, "Fuck," he breathes, "Don't act like I just said something sentimental," he scowls.
"I'm just surprised."
"Right," he replies, unconvinced, "Well I'm sorry for being a fucking prick over the two weeks. I just really hated you because I assumed you were this stuck-up princess who pretends she's some sort of saint."
"Hey-!"
"I know you aren't like that now, Bronte," he interrupts me, rolling his eyes.
"Oh. Okay."
"Anyway, I'm sorry for all the shit I've put you through. I don't have an excuse and you don't have to forgive me... just know that... I don't want to hurt you anymore."
I purse my lips and hesitate. The smart thing to do would be rejecting his apology, but I'm absolutely horrible at holding grudges against people and, truthfully, I had forgiven him even before he apologised to me. I really hope I don't regret this.
A grin spreads across my face and, after a pregnant pause, I speak. "Dang. If I had known that this was all it took to win you over, I would've screamed in the middle of the night weeks ago. Would've saved me a lot of pain and effort - and you money for green hair dye."
Blake cracks up into laughter and I grin proudly as I watch him chuckle.
He looks back at me and waves a finger, "Yeah. I like you," he declares blatantly and I smile. Blake's laughter simmers down and he clears his throat, "Wait. So... you forgive me?" He looks back at me, stunned.
I pause for a moment, before nodding my head, "Yeah, I guess."
"Why the heck would you do that?"
I furrow my eyebrows together, baffled. "Do you want me to stay angry at you or something? Because I can't really do that. Sorry, but I'm not good at the whole angry-thing-"
"I wouldn't of forgiven me."
I nod. "Well we are different people. We see things differently and we respond to things differently. But you can probably already see that."
"I know but... I mean, do I really deserve to be forgiven?"
"You really don't want to be forgiven, do you?" I tease, raising an eyebrow.
"Seriously."
I shrug my shoulders, "I guess we'll have to see for ourselves - if you're worth the forgiveness... for now, I trust my judgment and I forgive you."
"Am I on probation?" he arches an eyebrow.
"Nope."
"Oh come on," he complains, "Put me on probation at least."
"Wow. You take this bad boy thing really seriously. Want a punishment, too? A heated legal battle?" Blake laughs, once again, and that prideful feeling returns. "So," I begin after a moment, glancing back at Blake, "Does this mean we're friends now?"
"Yeah."
He answers my question so easily and so nonchalantly that I have to do a double take in case I didn't hear him correctly.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah?" Blake looks just as confused as I am.
"Oh, right."
He looks at his phone and his eyes widen when he sees the time, "Shit. It's 2:53 already."
"Oh no, we're going to be so tired in the morning," I groan.
Blake hops onto his feet and holds a hand out for me. I gladly take it and he pulls me up. But before I can regain my footing, he lets go and I fall flat on my bum. "Blake..." I whine.
"Come on, clumsy," he replies, turning on his heels and walking over to the building's door.
"I am not clumsy," I protest. Okay, I am clumsy - very clumsy. But I won't give him the satisfaction of thinking otherwise. I hear him laugh and I quickly hop onto my feet, hurrying after him. "You're an ass, you know that?"
"A hot ass," he corrects cheekily and I laugh.
Well I can't argue with that.
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