I have a feeling you guys will extremely enjoy this chapter, so have it! Happy Reading!! xx Ü
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“Will you accompany me on an outing today, my sweet love, Coraline?”
This was ridiculous.
“Why of course, yes. How could I ever deny such a wonderful offer, my dearest, Theodore?”
And just like that ladies and gentlemen, Theodore Hayes has asked me out for the very first time ever. Let’s please take a moment to remember this important moment in history. He told me that he couldn’t ask me normally, because he would mess up and it wouldn’t feel genuine, hence the reason why he went all Shakespeare on my ass.
Theo and I were “practicing” how to be a couple during our lunches. I tried not to enjoy it, but what can I say? I really liked touching him.
I remember in the beginning we told Nina it was fake, and pretty much everyone else too, but since then, people have been making up their own stories, as I previously mentioned. I guess the fact that Theo and I were friends before and still are friends now really didn’t help that. People sort of just assumed that we were seriously married or at least were a couple. Granted, in the beginning they were all still making fun of us and our marriage was a hot topic for the rumor mill around school, but I can see how they would all think we were a real couple still. It wasn’t like we were doing anything to stop the lies.
But now, now we were seriously playing the part. We were faking it to make it real. It was extremely enjoyable on my part. I couldn’t count the number of times that it actually felt real, and sometimes, my head gets so delusional, I start to hallucinate that Theo also thinks it’s real. But every time I do feel that, some fucking freaky force of nature decides to explode on us, causing anything that was going to happen just blow up. I think the universe was trying to tell us something.
And at this rate, I’d be lucky to graduate high school also. We were yet again ditching school, well, just Theo and I. He promised me and himself that it was the last time before graduation, but I let out a big fat snort at that. I knew that this was really bad, but he said that it was the only time we could do this.
“Why couldn’t we just do this like tonight or during the weekend?” I complained, but still getting into his car anyways without hesitation. What can I say? We were badasses at heart, and still gave no flying flippers. It still shocked me until this day how easy it was to ditch school. You literally just walked out the doors and poof, you’ve just ditched school.
“For one, the date is on Saturday, which is the weekend, and second, you’re grounded. Do you really think your parents are going to let you off the hook another night?” Theo reasoned.
“I guess,” I grumbled.
Secretly inside of me though, I was doing jumping jacks and bouncing off the walls with joy that we were spending the day together. Theo insisted that we go on a real practice date before the actual triple date thing we were planning. Part of me was hoping that he was just saying that as a coverup and really did want to go on a date with me, but the rational part of me knew that it was for James. Subtly, I did question why he was putting so much effort into James’ plan that he completely flat out rejected in the first place.
He gave me a very vague answer, saying something like he didn’t want James to have a reason to complain later on. I was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but I didn’t complain. Theo was taking me out on a date whether it was fake or not.
“I love this song,” I said, turning the volume higher to the car radio.
Not thinking, I began belting out the lyrics like a complete lunatic, throwing in hand motions and everything. It was a spectacle, let me tell you.
“Out of control but you’re playing a role. Do you think you can go ‘til the eighteenth hole or will you flip-flop the day of the championship? Try to go it alone on your own for a bit.”
Head thrusting, check. Screaming lungs, check. Off key snaps and claps, check. Embarrassing the living crap out of myself, double check.
I looked over at Theo who was not paying attention to the road but smiling in complete amusement at me instead. An apology was already forming on my lips, but it died before it hit the air when Theo opened his mouth and sang just as horribly, but in a much deeper and smoother voice, “If Diane Young won’t change your mind, then baby, baby, baby, baby right on time.”
My jaw dropped open and I began giggling like crazy. “Oh my god, I can’t even right now. You’re giving Ezra a run for his money.”
“I try.”
You can imagine how mental we looked when the chorus came on and we just sang along, repeating the word “baby” more times than Justin Bieber. I prayed for the people in the cars next to us. The instrumental part was probably the worst as the both of us air guitared and air drummed like we were trying to recreate an earthquake in his car.
“Take it away Theo,” I half-sang, banging on my invisible cymbals.
“Nobody knows what the future holds and it’s bad enough just getting old.”
“Live my life in self-defense, you know I love the past, ‘cause I hate suspense...”
And at that moment, Theo turned his head and sang the last line straight to my face, and I swear the whole world just stopped at that moment. The lyric hit me so hard, I almost thought that we were in an actual crash instead of me just having an emotional girl moment.
If Diane Young won’t change your mind, then baby, baby, baby, baby right on time.
It was as my whole life flashed by my eyes. The truth scared me more than I thought, because I would do anything with Theo, even if it meant putting my whole life on the life. Not like dying, no, not like that. But I’ve always felt like when you love someone, you devote every piece of you to them and that’s dangerous, because now they have the power to lift you higher than a kite or drop you so fast that you become unrepairable. That’s what it felt like right now as Theo sang the lyric to me. I wouldn’t mind doing anything even it if it means risking my own life and sanity if it was with Theo.
Flushing randomly and oddly, I turned towards the window and focused on the passing environment instead. Theo read the energy and we settled into an easy atmosphere, the music just swirling around us. He didn’t comment on my sudden silence, but just tapped his fingers against the wheel and kept driving.
We finally reached a random warehouse that looked eerily familiar to me, but there was no way I’ve ever been here before. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I got out wordlessly, following his suit. I raised an eyebrow at him as he rounded the car and popped the trunk open. Taking a few plastic bags out, he handed one to me and a clinking noise sounded as I shook it.
Opening it to take a peek, I saw a variety of spray paint cans in several colors in the bag. “Spray paint?” I questioned as he shut the trunk and started walking towards the warehouse.
“I hope you didn’t expect me to take you to a movie or something stupid like that,” he said.
“Oh right, because doing something illegal is way better,” I exaggerated in sarcasm. I followed him, swinging the bag anyways.
“Yes. Because one day, you’re going to look back and say, ‘That was the coolest first date I’ve ever been on,’” he agreed.
“Actually, you took me to a cemetery and a jail on our official first date, so...I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that now you’re taking me to an abandoned building. Are you trying to send me a message or something? Murder me?” I teased.
“Pffft,” he retorted. “Please, where did your past boyfriends take you?”
He walked around the warehouse and totally skipped the entrance and instead began climbing the ladder on the side of it, bags dangling at his elbow. Instead of following him, I just stared after him like he was the craziest motherfucker out there. I was not about to follow him up that ladder. Two minutes later, I heard a bag drop and Theo reappear at the top of the ladder to climb down it.
Jumping off, he gestured for the bag and I gave it to him.
“Well, I’ve only had one boyfriend before and he took me mini golfing. It wasn’t bad,” I recalled, thinking about when Ben Westwood asked me out and I totally shot him down, because I told him I wasn’t going to just be another one of his conquests. To my utter surprise, he went up to me during lunch one day and deleted every single girl’s number off his phone in front of me and tried asking me out again for the twentieth time that week. Apparently he couldn’t take a hint, but then again, I said yes. I want to say it was from shock, but that really was one of the sweetest thing that anyone’s done for me.
He took me mini golfing and it was comfortable and it was nice spending time with him. He wasn’t exactly a mirror image of Theo. He didn’t have any tattoos, and he had darker brown hair, but he definitely had that badass image down, he also played football and lacrosse, and he was one of the top students at our school. But he was also notorious for sleeping around, which is why everyone was so surprised we dated for a whole three years before we broke things off.
I flinched remembering our breakup, shaking my head, I returned back to reality.
Theo rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, I’ll give him props for taking you somewhere that isn’t a movie, but that’s it. The point is, we are not going to do anything normal. So climb this ladder.”
“UGHHHH,” I groaned, but began climbing the rungs anyways. I heard Theo get on the ladder and climb it too. I used all of my nonexistent upper strength to hoist myself up onto the roof of the warehouse. Theo climbed up next to me and set the bag next to the others. It was then that I noticed the giant wall of graffiti.
It hit me then. Turning towards him, my jaw dropped. “This is the first day we met. When Lana threw blue slurpee at you! Holy shit.” I ran towards the wall and touched the artwork that collaged the wall.
“Good job, Einstein,” Theo commented, carrying all the bags now back to us next to the walls. He opened the bag and the cans spilled out. “Grab one and I’ll show you the basics.”
Snatching a pink one up, I followed him towards the blank side of the wall as he picked two cans up. I watched in awe as he began applying the colors together on the wall, forming an image of swirls and twirls and whirls before my eyes. After a second, he stepped back and a distorted flower was looking back at me.
“Cool,” I breathed. “Can I take a picture?”
Theo chuckled and shook his head. “Help yourself.” After that, I got down to business. We spent an hour just messing around, spraying random stuff onto the walls, trying to pretend like I was a good artist. He helped me and showed me a bunch of techniques. My fingers were super sore by the end of it. He signed a T at the bottom of the wall and I placed an & sign and a C next to it. It was wonderful.
We were now sitting on the rooftop, staring at the colorful wall in all its glory. I snapped a few more pictures and of myself with the artwork, careful not to touch the wet paint. I even made Theo take a few pictures with his hard work. By this time, we were doing an impromptu photo shoot, and I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face at how hilarious our poses were. When my phone told me I reached maximum memory storage, I just stood there on top of the roof next to Theo and stared up at our masterpiece. This was the most fun I’ve had in awhile.
“I think that we’re good. I think we didn’t even need this practice,” I said, a little out of breath.
“I know,” he replied simply, and my jaw dropped.
“What? You took me out of school even though we could’ve just winged it and been okay?” I asked incredulously, turning my body so I could face him.
“Yep, basically.”
“What?! Why?!”
He sighed loudly. “Do I have to spell it out for you?” I stared at him blankly. “Oh my gosh, then you don’t deserve to know.”
It wasn’t because I was stupid, I just didn’t want it to be true. He just wanted to take me out on a date? How can that be? This was the time to start freaking out. And that’s exactly what I did. At first internally, but then a little bit of it escaped out and I was a little mad at him. I punched him in the shoulder.
“Oww, what was that for?” he whined.
“Because you are evil. How could you do this to me?” I complained, punching him a million more times.
“Stop, you’re acting like such a girl,” he argued, clutching onto his arm. “It’s no big deal.”
Oh that did it. “I am a girl! And it’s a big deal for me, you stupid idiot.”
Collapsing back onto my back, I rolled over so my back was towards him and I was facing the wall of art. I ignored him. For awhile, it was just a small silence between us as I studied the wall of art and thinking about how beautiful it was.
In a span of a nanosecond, I felt a pair of arms wrap around my back until his front was flushed against my back. Reflexively, I flinched and instinctively, I sort of shoved him away from me by trying to unclasp his hands from my front. I was uncomfortable, because the contact was so sudden and I hated how much I liked it.
“What are you doing?” I yelped.
He mumbled into my hair, “Stop fidgeting, Cora. Relax.”
My heart was still hammering in my chest, but I just became deathly still, not really comfortable with his arms this close around me, because it just didn’t make sense what he was trying to achieve at this point. I concentrated on his breathing instead. It was at first a little rapid and hot against the back of my neck and then I realized he was murmuring something to me. I was going to turn around and hear what he had to say, but then I caught the tune. He was silently singing a song.
Now I was completely melted against him since my focus was so much on trying to decipher the song. I realize that I didn’t get the song right away, because he was singing a made up acoustic version, a slower version that he was just winging.
“I get carried away, carried away from you and I’m hoping and I’m praying, cause I’m sorry, sorry about that, sorry about things that I said. Always let them get to my head.”
I could feel bittersweet tears swelling up in my eyes as I let his velvety voice sink into my mind. Emotional was an understatement. It’s like someone sent a thirty-two ounce can of red bulls to my ovaries and gave them wings to fly and attack my poor heart. I’ve never felt like such a girl in awhile.
“Well, she’ll have something to say about it but we all have problems. We’re all having problems and we’ve all got something to say.”
Without thinking, I intertwined our fingers and a jolt of electricity shot up my arm as I listened to the song he was singing fade a little with his last breath. I was not sure what the hell we were doing, if we were even doing anything, but it felt alarmingly amazing. He didn’t reject me, so I gripped a little tighter, just in case his conscious kicked in.
And of course there was a cherry on top. I thought that this was a perfect moment, but I just about suffered from angina when the long overdue words came tumbling out of Theo’s mouth without any restraint, without hesitation. It was completely natural the way the words rolled off his tongue and into my ears. It was more beautiful than any song I’ve ever heard in my life.
“I really like you Cora,” Theo murmured in a hoarse voice, the unnecessary roughness sending shivers through my spine.
The world around me froze and everything I thought I knew about life came crumbling down around me like a released dam. Breath caught in my throat, hands sweaty from nervousness, and heart under heavy anxiety, I literally couldn’t even breathe at this point. How embarrassing. So I did what any other rational person would do: I bit him on the arm.
My teeth sunk into the arm that was wound around me, closest to my mouth, and I squeezed my eyes shut, releasing all my energy into trying to forget what just happened. It took him a full minute to understand what was happening before he attempted to yank his arm away, but I released just as he pulled, causing us to bounce off and back into each other.
Right as I landed face forward onto his chest, he caught me again, but this time, he kept a mere inch in between us. I knew he was going to be pissed, so shyly, I looked up, in utter stupefaction to his grinning face.
“Not really the reaction I was expecting, but I guess it’s good enough for me. You always surprise me,” he commented lightly.
“Ummm,” was I could manage at the moment. “Uhhhh.”
“You don’t have to say anything, but I thought you’d figure out by now how I felt about you, but I guess you needed a little help,” he continued, his grip on my upper arms slipped up onto the sides of my neck, my hair a bunching and forming a barrier between his palms and the skin of my neck. My hands immediately flew up to cup his hands around me.
Out of everything I could have said, I asked the dumbest thing you could after someone confesses their feelings for you, “Why?”
He didn’t seem to mind. “Well, I guess after I took you to that first date of ours, I kind of developed this embarrassing crush on you.”
The gods had answered my prayers and I finally found my voice. “I don’t understand, you can’t like me. That’s not okay.”
His hands were still around my neck and I feared that if I let something else stupid slip out of my mouth, he might just strangle me. Eyebrows furrowing, he gave me a funny look. “What? What do you mean I can’t like you?”
“You can’t like me, because I like you,” I sputtered. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The guy never likes the girl back, it just doesn’t happen that way.”
Theo’s warm laughter filled the air around us just then, and it just seemed to emphasize everything that was being exchanged. He liked me?! Oh my gosh, this isn’t happening. I couldn’t even look him in the face, because I was bloody confused and my whole heart was betraying me. This was too much information to digest.
“Stop laughing. This isn’t funny. How did this happen? We are just friends, we aren’t supposed to like each other. Are you just saying this because of the marriage? Please don’t tell me that you’re forcing yourself to like me, because that’s mean, and I like you so much, it hurts, so I can’t really take your lying. Oh my go-”
You know that really cute thing that people do to shut the other person up? Yeah, Theo has obviously been doing his research, because his mouth did something extremely naughty: that being it was on my mouth. My eyes were wide opened like fucking saucers as I stared at his face a breath away from mine, not even being able to concentrate on the action happening on my lips.
My vagina reacted faster than my mind as it totally went girl mode on me, but enough to make me realize that Theo was kissing me. This information that my brain finally processed blew me off the universe. In a swift second, my hands still on top of his, I clutched both of his hands and ripped them away from my neck and eventually him away from me. My face was absolutely bewildered as I stared at him, my hands still forming fists around his knuckles.
Oh my Lord, why did he have to look so fucking beautiful in front of me, breathing a little heavy, eyes twinkling like he’s just seen the northern lights for the first time.
“Excuse me. What are you doing? You are not allowed to just kiss me like that. You can’t just come up to me and kiss me like we’re some sort of couple and -”
He did it again. Using his hands captured in my own, he pulled me back flush to him, freeing his hands out from my clutch to weave themselves back around my hair and neck. Protests were already spilling out of my lips.
“Shut up, Cora, you’re ruining it,” he mumbled against my lips.
So I did the next best thing I could, and bit the shit out of his bottom lip. I guess he took this as eager foreplay, because he didn’t mind. He deepened it and I was a goner. Like poof, gone. Bye-bye to my sanity.
My hands found their own accord and splayed themselves across his cheek, clinging onto them, trying to move it closer. Happily, he responded with just as much force and my heart exploded into butterflies when he opened his mouth. I swear I was seeing stars behind my eyelids as we kissed the living daylights out of each other. It was like we’ve never kissed before. Not long after, I felt my back collide with the art wall behind me, our mouths never parting. Except this wasn’t a normal kiss and without thinking, I rolled over so Theo’s back was slammed against the wall now.
I pulled away first, trying to keep my balance because I felt completely dizzy and breathless and our legs were a tangled mess. Not really sure why, but I felt a little flustered and couldn’t meet his eyes, so instead, I held onto the neckline of his shirt and buried my face in the crook of his neck, listening to our heavy breathing mixing with each other.
His arms wound around my waist and held me close. I was in heaven.
“Now what?” I asked, still a little breathless.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
With an ounce of courage, I brought my face a little closer towards his neck and placed tiny repeated kisses there until I settle my face back down and whispered, “I really like you too, Theo.”
“Fucking awesome,” he mumbled.
And for a second there, we just stood like that, in each other’s arms, figuring out what the hell just happened between the two of us. It was so random. So...quick. It was almost too good to be true. Millions of thoughts were running through my head and all of them were different and colliding with each other at the speed of light. I couldn’t keep up and all I wanted to do was just enjoy the moment of being with Theo, but all I could think of was what if this doesn’t work out? I was scared.
All this time, I was crushing on Theo, but that’s all it just was, a crush. And now that it’s reality, I’m scared of what’s going to happen, what’s not going to happen. The fact that we developed these life changing feelings for each other just scared the fucking shit out of me. And even more? We vocalized them to each other. Feeling these emotions was one thing, but actually telling them to the other person was another. This made it real, this made it known, and you can’t take it back.
I was scared.
Gently, I loosened my grip on him and tugged him off the wall until we were facing each other, a foot of distance between us. Instantly, I felt cold without his touch.
Theo gave me a sad smile, as if he was thinking the same exact thing I was. “It’s going to take a while, isn’t it? For us to get used to this idea?”
“Yeah,” I replied softly. “It’s a little too fast.” My heart was both flipping for joy that he knew how I felt, but at the same time, it was breaking knowing that we were yet again breaking up in a sense. We couldn’t catch a break.
“At least we know now, and now that I know, I can wait,” he said.
“Can I ask you something though?” Shaking my head, I corrected myself. “I mean, can you explain something to me?”
“I’ll try the best I can.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier? We spent all this time arguing, and thinking that the other wanted a divorce and stuff like that. It’s just kind of hard to understand you chose now to tell me,” I said, hoping in vain I made a little sense.
He took a moment to think about his answer, how to form it. I watched as he dug a hand through his wind tousled black hair, paying attention to how the giant skull tattoo on his arm looked like it was talking when he moved his muscles. I took in what he was wearing, his standard black jeans, scuffed up Converses, and his favorite band tee. I read as many of the words on his body as I could, Mischief boldly stated on his knuckles, another cryptic saying splayed across his forearm.
I took a moment to wonder what he would think of his image fifty years from now, but then again, Theo wasn’t really one to live for the future, but rather the moment.
Sighing, he kicked the bare ground and said, “Well, like I said at first, I thought I made it pretty clear lately that I thought of you,” he paused, searching for the right term, before settling with, “in, you know, that way, but you really didn’t take the hint.” I scrounged my face up. “I tried talking to you in certain way, and I did things that you wouldn’t really expect, and you sort of dismissed them. I mean, I did punch Noel’s face and got suspended for you, I don’t know how much of a sign you want.”
I wanted to protest, and he could see it, so he rushed through before I could speak. “And other reasons too. Like constant interruption after interruption, and James dealing with his girl problems and your parents putting us through counseling and stuff. It was just all too much.
And I don’t know why I chose now. It just sort of felt right and it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. It wasn’t like I spent all day planning out this confession or anything, you just gave me a reason to tell you, and so I did.”
I frowned a little. “Oh. I see.”
“And I think that it’s now only fair that you explain to me why you never told me that you felt the same, because clearly I wasn’t the only who was feelings something,” he challenged.
Letting out an exasperated groan, I threw my arms in the air as a distraction and also a prayer to the heavens above. “It’s like I kept my walls up, because I kept thinking you wanted that stupid divorce since the very first day, and while you think you did a good job of showing your affection towards me, I just kept thinking that you were just so uninterested and whatever. I don’t know. I’m just really bad at showing my feelings.”
“Well, I’m sorry it took so long for us to figure this out, but at least we did. Yeah, there’s still a shit ton of problems we have to go through, but I think that we’re in a good place right now, yeah?” I nodded with a smile. “Hug?” he suggested.
Rolling my eyes, I accepted his warm embrace and squeezed him tight.
Our moment was interrupted, again, when Theo’s phone rang. He told me to ignore it. After it rung three more times, I told him to answer it. Standing there, watching him pick up the call, I traced the outline of the rose tattoo he had on his arm while he talked. I was midway through a petal when he went silent.
He asked a few things and repeated a few things so quickly, I didn’t catch what he said and he hung up. Completely frozen, my finger stopped moving on his arm and grabbed it instead.
“Theo? What’s wrong?” I asked.
His sunny blue eyes darkened as the words slipped from his mouth. “My Aunt’s in the hospital. Something happened to her. She forgot something and something happened to her. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, but I have to go see her,” he responded frantically, already picking up our belongings at a rapid pace.
“I’m coming with you,” I said adamantly.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll drop you off at home before I go.”
“No,” my firm tone making him listen. “I’m not leaving you. Theo, I’m here for you.”
He peered down at me with an incomprehensible look on his face, but I knew that behind it spoke a million things. Without a second thought, I grabbed his hand in assurance and looked him in the eye, hoping he could read everything I was trying to convey to him, that I wasn’t going to abandon him when he needed me the most.
“Thank you, Cora.”
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a message from a spaz of a lover: OH MY GOSH, I BET YOU GUYS ARE SQUEALING LIKE CRAZY RIGHT NOW. AM I RIGHT? AM I RIGHT? Hahahaha. The story is not over yet my friends, there is still a shitload of shit that Theo and Cora and friends still have to go through, so fear not! Many chapters to come.
Sorry it's not as long as my other chapters, the timing was off for all the plots I want to put in and leave it at, and while we're dishing out apologies, sorry I've taken so long to update lately, school is just a major pain.
Question for this chapter: Can anybody name the two songs I listed in this chapter without looking up the lyrics? Two of my favorite bands and two of my favorite songs. Comment down below the songs in this chapter and your favorite song and I will send a HUGE shoutout for you (and your story if you have one) in my next chapter for someone! Good luck :]
Mine: Too many beautiful songs out there that I love. But at the moment, I am crying over the song "Don't Save Me" by Haim. I will link it on the side. (If you are feeling adventurous, the Cyril Hahns remix of this song is just so great, I love that too.)
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