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So here is the next chapter. Enjoy!
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After our confrontation on Monday, Daniel ignored me completely the next day. I tried talking to him but he managed to dodge me every single time. After practice, he got into his car without wasting even a second.
I was sitting at the school cafeteria table on Wednesday, playing with the pasta on my plate, twisting the strands around the plastic fork to create a huge mass.
His words still rang in my ears.
'You'll just be wasting your time.'
Why did he say that I would be wasting my time? Did he mean that I would be futilely trying to save him while he would eventually do something like the bridge again and succeed this time or that I was taking things way out of context by over thinking about the situation?
His cryptic words were making my brain work over-time.
I kept asking myself if I wanted to believe his excuse that he was drunk and that had clouded his judgment of what he was doing, but I never came close to accepting that. I had seen his eyes at that night. I remembered well the sorrow that I had seen in them which were still haunting me.
"You okay, sweets?" Sebastian who was sitting beside me asked. "You seem off these days."
"Yeah, no, I am fine. I just have all these assignments and tests coming up so that's just stressing me out a bit," I lied.
The semester had just started so how much assignments and tests could I possibly have but Sebastian let it go. He knew I wasn't going to tell him the truth about what was bothering me. We had this silent pact that I would help him whenever he wanted and in return, he would never pry for answers from me.
"You don't have to lie to him Norah," Mike interjected with mock seriousness. "Tell him what you told me last night when we were together. Oh, what a magical night it was after you told me that it is me that you have always craved. Tell Sebastian how you feel that he is not enough for you any more. Tell him how you think about me all the time when you're with him. We don't need to hide our love, Norah. Tell him."
By the time Mike was done with his speech, he was almost standing up on his chair. Sebastian got up and gave Mike a slight push making him wobble on the seat. I laughed at both of them along with everyone sitting at the table.
Liam snickered lightly and went back to talking to Shay who was almost sitting on his lap. It seemed like they had sorted out their issues. Although everyone knew that they will soon find something new to fight about but until that moment they were undeniably the cutest couple of the whole school.
"Daniel!" Chad shouted over the noise in the hall.
My eyes immediately shot up to the cafeteria door to find Daniel. He had a grey sweatshirt on and his eyes were busy with his phone's screen until he heard Chad's voice and tracked it back to our table.
It took him a moment to realize that I was sitting at the table too and when he did I thought he was going to run away from me like he had been doing for these past couple of days but proving me wrong, he walked towards us. A familiar nervousness settled inside of me as he settled down on the seat next to Liam which was the spot directly opposite to me.
He and Sebastian exchanged a heated look but neither of them said anything. I made a mental note for myself to ask Sebastian about him and Daniel later.
"So Daniel, I talked to Lily today. She has been looking for you," Chad said in a teasing tone.
"Well stay away from her the next time you see her. She is crazy, like Jeffrey Dahmer level crazy. She almost spoiled my car the other day." Daniel shook his head, a smirk tugging on his lips.
They were talking about the girl who was banging her shoe against Daniel's car on Friday.
It seemed like such a long time since that happened when actually it had been just 5 days.
"Recalling the conversation, she did actually mention something along the lines of chopping something off if you don't call her. So what's the deal with her?" Chad asked, chuckling.
"The usual. Just a random hookup at a party and now she thinks that I betrayed her after she caught me with another girl. When I told her that there was nothing between us in the first place, she went all crazy and has become my stalker." He smirked arrogantly. "It’s like some girls don't know the term 'self-respect'. No matter how much you push them away, they just don't seem to get the freaking clue."
I got a strong feeling that the last part was meant more for me than it was for Lily. My thought was validated when Daniel's eyes flickered towards me for a tiny fraction of second while talking.
"Is that why you left the party early on Friday? I think she asked me about you there but I was way too wasted to answer. I think I can still feel the hangover," Mike said with his mouth full of the sandwich that he was eating.
The smirk which was on Daniel's face dropped in a flash and his eyes travelled to mine, a fear evident in them.
Was he afraid that I was going to tell everyone about the incident at the bridge? What kind of person did he think I was?
I frowned.
His composure told me that he had relaxed a bit realizing that I had no intention of saying anything about Friday night.
"Yeah, that’s why I left." All the arrogance and playfulness that was there in his voice earlier was now gone.
"Alright, enough with the Lily talk," Shay broke in, finally coming out of her and Liam's bubble. "Daniel, will you be coming with us to my parent's cabin this weekend?"
Shay's parents had this wooden cabin in the woods which was around a drive of 2 hours from the town which in fact was too large to be called a cabin. It was a freaking house in itself. Every year, Shay's parents allowed her to invite her friends to the cabin for a single weekend. I had been there 2 times already but Daniel never came with us and given the circumstances, I highly doubted that he was going to accompany us this time.
"I can't. I have this huge Physics assignment due on Monday," Daniel replied with feigned disappointment.
I mentally chuckled at his excuse which was almost similar to mine which I had given to Sebastian a few minutes ago. I knew he wasn't going because of me but if he thought that he was going to get away so easily then he was completely wrong.
"I can help you with that," I offered Daniel flashing him the sweetest smile that I could conjure.
Everyone's eyes shot up to me, surprised and Sebastian whispered keeping his head low, "What are you doing?"
With a movement of my hand, I mouthed him, "later" and shifted my gaze back to Daniel. If I say that I wasn't amused seeing the reaction that I had provoked from him, then it would be a enormous lie because I was. He obviously wasn't expecting this. He gritted his teeth together subtly to control his frustration.
"Great! Now you can come with us," Shay chirped with excitement. "Also, it's our last year of high school so no more excuses."
"I guess I will be coming with you then," Daniel remarked with a tight smile, his dark blue eyes never leaving me. I smiled back at him, victoriously.
"Are you going to eat that or not?" Sebastian asked referring to the pasta on my plate.
I pushed the plate towards Sebastian telling him that he could have it and without wasting any time he started stuffing his mouth with the pasta. He leaned towards me and kissed me on the cheek, leaving pasta sauce on it.
"Yuck!" I exclaimed, wiping off the sauce with a paper napkin.
Just to annoy me even more he kissed me on the lips, leaving even more sauce this time.
I reached out to Shay's tray to grab another napkin and my eyes travelled to Daniel who was having a stare down contest with the table top with his jaw all tense.
Boy, he really was pissed at me.
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"Yeah, so I will be leaving for the movie in half an hour then," Sebastian informed me over the phone.
"Alright. By the way you have told Luke about the cabin trip, right?" I asked. I closed the door of my car, locking it behind me.
It hadn't been even 2 hours after school was over and yet I was back here.
"No, I will tell him after the movie. And there might be a slight chance that I won’t not be able to come. You will handle everything alone if that happens, right?" he asked with few background noises making it hard for me to make out his words.
"Of course, I can handle a little trip to the woods on my own. Don't worry about it." I rolled my eyes at my friend knowing that he couldn't see me. "You go and enjoy your time with Luke at the movies."
"I am so lucky that I found you as a friend. What would I even do without you?" Seb proclaimed with all the seriousness in the world.
"Sit under a tree and cry like the little 5 year old girl that you are?" I replied, teasingly.
"You know you should give out lessons on 'How to ruin a moment in 5 seconds'. You would be great at it," he retorted back with a playful voice.
"That actually sounds like a nice idea. I might actually make a fortune out of it," I continued our little bickering and then added, "Okay, listen I gotta go now. I'll talk to you later. Have fun at the movies."
"Alright. Bye RaRa," Sebastian said using the ridiculous nickname that he sometimes used for me and then ended the call.
I put my phone in the front pocket of my jeans and proceeded to walk towards the clearing.
Visiting it again after so many years because of Daniel had moved something inside of me. It was almost dreadful to see what had happened to the place. I used to come here everyday after school hours. The swing used to be my favorite spot where I would sit and read or practice playing the violin for hours during which no one else came there. It was my own little world, away from all the chaos of the reality. I could easily say that it was my safe haven. It was kind of like my own oasis.
I sat down under the tree placing my elbows on my knees. Looking at the broken swing filled my heart with sadness and nostalgia.
My reminiscing was rudely interrupted by the sound of rustling of leaves which was followed by Daniel's figure emerging from the shrubs.
He looked a bit surprised at seeing me there, while I waited for a much worse reaction from him.
"Hey" he gave me a small smile and sat down on the spot where he was standing.
He smiled? Well that’s a first, I thought.
It was the first time he had actually genuinely smiled at me. It was not a full bloomed one, but maybe it was a start.
"Hey," I started, "I can go if you don't want me here." I rose up from the ground.
"No, no, it..umm..alright. You can stay. It’s not like I own this place." Daniel's tone was friendly, which was obviously not something that I was used to.
I sat down back on my place with quite a lot of distance between us as he sitting where the clearing almost ended. I noticed that the grass there was quite tall and it must have been uncomfortable for him to sit there but I let it slide.
"Thank you," Daniel grabbed my attention back to his face where a faint smile was still intact, "for not telling everyone at the cafeteria about the bridge. Though I suppose you must have told Sebastian about it."
I could feel his nervousness which was making his voice tremble.
"No, I haven't told anyone about Friday night, not even Seb. And don't worry I am not planning to tell anyone either," I informed him calmly.
He nodded his head while looking directly in my eyes. I looked down at my hands feeling slightly uneasy.
"So are you really coming up with us to the cabin or are you planning to bail?" I asked changing the topic to a more comfortable one.
"Shay is going to drag me from my house if I don't come. And besides I don't really have a reason not to go. All thanks to you for that." A smile adorned his facial features that directed my attention towards the dimple on his left cheek that I had never noticed before. Maybe that was because I had hardly ever seen him smile. Most of the time he smirked in place of smiling so this was a rare event and I found myself smiling along with him.
"Daniel, I didn't mean what I said at the party. I had something else going on in my mind. It was just bad timing. Trust me," I apologized in my trembling voice. I wanted him to forgive me. I couldn't deal anymore with the guilt that had been gnawing on me since Friday night.
"Don't use that tone, that your 'oh-you-poor-guy voice' like you know anything about me." He was now looking up at the evening sky, his tone rising with every syllable.
"I don't pity you or anything." Alright, maybe I did even though I had no clue what had happened to him but I wasn't going to tell him that. "I just wanted you to know that there was no truth in my words that night. That's it."
He didn't say anything. A moment of silence passed between us before he broke it himself, "I really hope we could start over." His fingers linked with his hair and ran through them. "Without the night at the bridge, without the party and without you thinking that I might kill myself any minute."
He didn't show much emotion but I could still sense the truth in his words and the hope in his eyes.
"Maybe we can." I stood up from the ground and walked up to him. Smiling, I extended my right arm to him. "Hi, I am Norah Bishop. It's a pleasure to meet you."
His dimpled smile returned and his eyes lit up. "Hi, I am Daniel Cohen," he said standing up and linking his hand with mine, he shook it. His hands seemed so much larger than mine but they felt warm and nice.
"So no more weird looks like I am a clinically depressed, suicidal person, right?" He asked me while we were walking towards my car.
The sun was almost gone and the sky looked like an exotic assortment of colours.
"As long as you promise me that you're not going to harm yourself."
I still was not convinced that nothing was wrong with Daniel but I was grasping at straws here. I was willing to accept any other reaction from him that I can get instead of the ice wall that he had been keeping up all this time.
"I promise." He placed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. "Oh, and by the way I wasn't lying that I had an assignment. So you do have to help me with it."
"Sure, I'll help you," I said meaning it in every sense.
"So see you soon then. Bye Daniel." I got inside my car and started the ignition.
"Bye Norah," he said and then I drove away from there.
I smiled to myself realizing that it was the first civilized conversation between us and hoped that it wasn't the last.
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