Dedicated to xCheekyByotch for her amazing support to this story. She's an amazing person to talk to and I am grateful to have you as a friend here on wattpad. Plus, she's an OTH fan!
Hi!
So this chapter is almost one week late and I am sorry about that. I started my classes again and they are taking all my time. =(
But anyway, I was really excited to read your reaction about the last chapter. Thank you every one for your comments. ♥
I am gonna start posting the pictures of the rest of the cast from now. On the side is Mike---->
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I took a breath, and for the fifth time tried to apply the mascara with my shaky hands only to have it smear it more badly this time.
Damn you Sephora!
For the last twenty six hours, my mind was a mess. I couldn't focus on anything else, except on the ultimatum that my dad had given me yesterday.
Till Christmas.
I don't think any person had ever dreaded Christmas as much as I was.
Another thing that had me all anxious was the 'random' call by my grandma in which she had told dad how one of her neighbors were thinking of selling their spare apartment.
Where was the apartment you ask?
In New York City.
Coincidence? I think not.
Propping the mascara applicator on the vanity table, I made myself inhale and exhale several times. I was already late for the dance, and still was no where near ready.
Taking one last glance at the wall clock, I started re doing my make up again. After twenty minutes, I had managed to make myself almost presentable for the dance with my champagne pink dress, that cinched around my waist with flowery embellishments and then descended to my knees in layers of net.
Because it wasn't looking like my day, I decided to skip on doing some complicated hair do and settled on keeping my slightly wavy hair down with just a bejeweled clip to keep it from going completely wild.
I was afraid that dad might give Sebastian his stinky eye if he came to pick me for the dance, so I had asked him to meet at the school. And since my car had broken down in the morning, I was left with the option of asking my dad for a ride.
After making sure that my clutch had everything that I might need, I minced out of my house in my higher than usual heels, and then pelted towards my dad's car to escape the light drizzle that was growing gradually stronger.
It rained a lot in this town.
The ride to school was pretty much silent save for a few trivial topics that had the life span of only couple of minutes. The ending part of Neon Trees' Animal was audible from the gate of the school as I climbed down from the car and was exposed to the arctic wind of outside.
"Call me when you're ready to leave," Dad said, stooping in his seat to look at me.
"Okay."
Making an effort not to slip on the wet ground, I made a beeline towards the school gymnasium.
It seemed like I was extremely late because almost the entire student body of the school thronged the place, shimming up every possible corner. The over hanging decoration and lights had managed to completely transform the gymnasium to make it look like an actual ballroom.
By a quick scan of the area, it was a plethora of dresses, suits, high heels and glitter. Fake fog rolled over the gymnasium floor, completing the look of a wonderland that Shay had aimed for.
"Ah, I see my date has arrived."
I turned around to to come face to face with Mike, who had the ever present sublime smile on his face and a generous amount of cologne, which was overwhelming me with its effect.
"Did you marinate yourself in your cologne overnight?" I asked, stepping aside a little to let the people pass, who were giving both of us subtle sneers for blocking up the entrance.
"Oh, that's not my cologne, it's the smell of true love. We were destined to find each other. Come now princess, the carriage awaits us," he replied with a dramatic look, and offered me his hand.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to hit on my girlfriend before you are gonna listen?" Sebastian joined in the conversation, shaking his head in disapprobation. The vest jacket that he was wearing was suiting him well.
"A hundred more times and I am still not gonna back off," Mike replied, shooting Sebastian an angelic smile. "Besides, you let her come alone, so you don't deserve to play the boyfriend card."
"So a girl can't come alone to a dance anymore?" I cocked my head to the side. "Anyway, where's your date?"
"Who do you think will come with this joker?" Sebastian asked me, and Mike shot him a icy glare.
"Fine, Sebastian, we get it. You're jealous that Norah is actually in love with me, but like seriously your face is like turning to this vomit shade of green," Mike grimaced with a shudder, and I giggled at his expression. "Jokes apart, I have some important things to do tonight so bringing a date might have inconvenient."
"Important things? Like what?" Sebastian raised his eyebrows in a condescending manner.
"You are gonna find out soon," Mike muttered, with a mischievous smile, bobbing his head up and down.
"I don't like that look on his face," I said, knowing that the dials and gears in Mike's head were turning to invent some prank. "Should we be scared?"
"Not now," he simply replied with a little kick of his shoulder. "But you will be. I'll be seeing you."
Mike snapped his fingers and waving a two finger goodbye, he disappeared into the crowd.
"Should we tell someone about that?" I asked, leaning on to Seb.
"Eh, maybe he's just kidding," Sebastian motioned his hand in a wavy manner, brushing off the topic. "So anyway, now are you going to tell me why was I so strictly ordered not to pick you up tonight?"
I shook my head, acting as if it wasn't a big deal. "It's nothing," I said. "Let's check out the food."
"Shouldn't we like dance first?" Sebastian asked, but traipsed after me anyway.
"I don't feel like dancing," I answered, throwing a nonchalant look over my shoulder.
"Is something wrong?" he asked as we reached the food table, and started browsing through the selection that we were being offered.
I picked up a lemon cookie from one of the glass plates, and taking a bite of it, I shook my head. "Nope, nothing is wrong."
He was about to say something when his attention diverted to the phone in his pocket.
"It's Luke," Sebastian told me. "I'll be back."
I nodded and Sebastian made his way towards the gym entrance. Having nothing else to do, I leaned on the food table, enjoying the refreshing yet sharp taste of the cookies.
I spotted Shay in her bright blue cocktail dress, slow dancing, with her hands on Liam's shoulder, both of their eyes locked in an intense gaze. Now, it was all cute and dandy, except the fact that they were having a wedding style dance on the beats of Katy Perry's Dark Horse.
But if they were happy, who was I to say anything...
"Oh my god! Hi!" Before I could even have the chance to move a single muscle, I was being engulfed in a tight bear-y hug.
Only one person had this scout girl enthusiasm in them. It was like Déjà vu.
"Juliet, Hi!" I said to the gorgeous blonde girl who was now pulling away from me. "Did you come with Chad?"
I felt dumb as soon as I was done asking the question. Juliet didn't go to our school, so of course she must have come with Chad.
"Yep! Your school dance is awesome by the way." She reached past me to pick up a plastic cup for the punch. "Want some?"
"There's like a hundred percent chance that it's already spiked," I warned her, but she was already pouring the punch in her cup.
"Yeah, so?" She brought the, now filled with red punch cup, up and toasted, "L'Chaim!"
"I think Mike made his dog pee in the punch," an all too familiar spoke from our left making Juliet to spit the drink in flying blobs.
"What is wrong with you?!" Juliet choked out, still hacking, but still managed to send a death glare in her cousin brother's direction. Rubbing Juliet's back to ease down her coughing, I gave Daniel a side not-funny glance too, however it ranked nowhere in comparison to Juliet's in intensity.
"Just being a doting big brother." Daniel picked up a chocolate covered pretzel, and took a bite of it. "Hey"
"Yeah right," Juliet mumbled, and I smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.
Pulling out a napkin from its box on the table, Daniel handed it to Juliet who was trying to get her dress rid of the droplets of punch.
Since they were in the same frame of view for me, I spent a moment to praise Cohen genes in my mind. With Juliet's small frame wrapped perfectly in her ivory white dress, her mid length butterscotch blonde hair styled in a bohemian way, her bright red lips sprucing up her look, and with Daniel in a white shirt underneath a semi-formal navy blue blazer, and his hair pushed back in a James Dean-like manner, both of them looked like they had just finished their photo shoot for Vogue.
I would have dwelled more into their front page worthy looks, but like it had been doing since last night, my mind ran back to the same topic of New York.
NYC
Why was it that the more number of times I said the acronym in my head, the more bitter my tongue became?
"Noh, where's Sebastian?" Juliet asked, snatching Daniel's half eaten pretzel and chewing on it.
Noh?
"Um, he just got out to take a ca-" before I could actually finish what I was saying, the whole place immediately drowned into darkness and silence as the electricity went off.
I immediately clamped my hand on the edge of the table. It was my habit to find something to hold onto whenever it was dark.
"Okay, what's happening?" Juliet murmured, as similar questions started from everywhere.
"What happened?"...."I knew something was wrong"...."Aw man, what the hell!"..."Is this some kind of prank?"..."Oh my god, I think I just heard a squeal"..."I heard it too!"
As soon as the last comment came, the low squealing rose in intensity and after paying a little attention, one could tell that it was now coming from every direction.
An outcry from the deepest corner of the gymnasium came. "Something ran over my foot!"
And the words were enough for the start of, what could be called, a mayhem.
We were under a rodent attack.
Mike!
People screaming, yelling and shouting utter nonsense as they tried to flee from the area through the double doors, and since the gymnasium was situated deep inside the school building having no outside light coming in, it was a chaos in the dark. A few teachers were trying to handle the situation only to face utmost failure, while the others had joined the hoard of running students, screaming on the top of their lungs.
I thought I saw my Physics teacher, Mrs. Greene, being dragged by some students, with her crying tears of hysteria, but since it was almost pitch black, so I could be wrong.
I backed up against the table to protect myself from being crushed in the stampede.
"Norah, you still here?" I blinked my eyes several times to adjust to the faint glow coming from what I thought was a phone.
"I'm here."
I looked over to look for Juliet but she was already clinging to Daniel's arm, hoping once every few seconds with her eyes never leaving the floor.
"Aaah! I think something touched me!" she shrieked, her horrified face visible in the soft light of Daniel's phone screen.
"Relax! They are just rats," Daniel shouted over the loud screaming of the people hotfooting to escape.
Shifting my weight on the table, I pulled my legs up from the floor.
What? I was scared, okay? Even though I wasn't going to let them know about it that easily.
"I wanna get out from here," Juliet whined, and I her unstable voice was making it clear that she was close to breaking into tears, and within a moment her sobbing was heard.
"Alright we're going out. Don't cry." Daniel switched on the flash light of his phone, and after having the sudden shocking realization that I had a phone as well, I took out mine to make use of it too.
Taking the quick look of the place, I saw that only around a quarter of the people, that had been there earlier, were now left.
Aiming the torch straight ahead, Daniel steered us towards the doors, and I shuffled across the floor so as to not to step on whatever was running on the ground, and trying not to over-think about the fact that Daniel had taken my hand in his free hand, while he led us. I had to constantly keep telling myself that it was just an perfectly normal, friendly gesture, nothing more. But I couldn't shake the warm feeling that how safe I felt just by holding his hand.
I. Needed. Help.
My feet came to an immediate stop. I took a sharp breath in between my teeth, and then bit on my tongue to stop myself from joining everybody in yelling as something with fur scurried over my foot, and something, what might have been its tail still lingering on my foot.
"What?" Daniel pointed the torch in my direction.
"Nothing," I replied in a voice similar to the sound coming from beneath me.
"Please don't stop! I don't want to be here!" Juliet was still sobbing, covering her face with Daniel's blazer.
Not wanting to be the source of any more stress to the poor girl who was clearly terrified of the situation, I fastened my pace this time, trying not to think much about what was going on near our feet.
I hadn't realized how heavy and choky the air of the building was until the chills inducing yet fresh air of curb of the school filled my lungs. And it looked like I wasn't the only one who felt at ease, because now Juliet started crying out of relief, burying her face in her cousin brother's chest.
Daniel's hand un-linked from mine as it went over to Juliet's back to pat her gently and he kept the other one on the top of her hair, while trying to calm her down.
I tried to fight back a smile at the innocent scene in front of me. Even though she was just his cousin, Daniel held her with so much warmth and care that it was almost impossible not to feel a tug at your heart. I stood there silent and felt my smile drop slowly as I reminisced about all those times when I would get sad over the most silly things and Em would tackle me down in her hug, and would force me to tell what was bothering me, demanding that she had the right to know since she was the big sister, even though there was difference of mere five minutes in between our birth.
I blinked away the tears that had sprang to my eyes, and swiftly ran a hand over my face, facing the opposite direction of the two of them.
After a minute, Juliet pulled away, sniffed quite a few times and wiped away her tears. "I am sorry. I am really scared of rats."
"It's okay. I get it," I simply replied remembering when I had broken down in the cemetery. The embarrassment from that night was still present, and I hardly thought it was going to go away anytime soon.
"Thanks." She ran her hand on her nose. "It looks like we are supposed to go home now. Are you going to wait for Sebastian?"
"Um, no. My dad dropped me off so I'll call him to pick me up."
"No, don't do that." Juliet practically snatched away the phone from my hand. "It's still early so let's go out."
"Shouldn't you be spending time with Chad?" I rubbed my hands together to create some warmth for myself.
Juliet took a sweeping glance of the area. "I don't see him anywhere. I'll just text him that I went with Dan to grab some dinner. Come with us."
It wasn't much of a question than a instruction. I bit the inner side of my cheek, weighing in my mind if I should go or not. I looked down at my phone to check the time to see if it was an appropriate time to be going out in the time and noticed the unread text message notification blinking.
*Gonna spend the rest of the night with Luke. Will tell you later. Sorry for ditching you*- Seb
Hmm...I guess that made the decision for me. "Fine, I guess. We can go."
"Awesome!" Juliet almost jumped on her spot. No one could tell that she was the same girl who was crying because of the possibility of rats running on her skin. "Let's go then!"
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"I wanna see the fortune teller!" Juliet cried out loudly, pulling us towards the edge of the street that was where the town's boundaries ended.
Daniel and I looked at each other, having a mental conversation about the kid on sugar rush who was getting fascinated about pretty much anything and everything.
Since it was the founder's week, there were number of street performers, artists, lining up market areas of the town on both sides. Some were juggling bottles, some playing on their instrument, and some like the lady, with several beaded jewelry, over sized glasses, gypsy styled multicolored clothes, and a turban wrapped on her head, were telling the fortune of the people walking around the town in the late evening.
"Read mine!" Juliet ran to the edge of the fortune teller's table, which had a sign of LORIEN'S FAMOUS FORTUNE on it, and stuck out her palm for the lady to read.
While Juliet was getting that done, I took in the three sixty degree look of the street. The rain which had receded back completely, except for the few clouds floating around, but the wash had provided the town a new look. Raindrops dangled from the lights and the decorative strings that ran criss-crossed, overhead. Every where that a person could look was a fest of colors, lights and music.
It was spectacular.
"Should have gone with Sebastian if you are missing him too much."
It would have sounded like an accusation if it wasn't for the gentle tone of his voice.
"I can go through an evening without needing my boyfriend." I turned around on my heels to face him. "What kind of a girl do you think I am?"
A lop-sided smile twitched its way on his lips. "A pretty interesting one."
"Noh, stop flirting with him and come here!" Juliet almost yelled for me and deciding to ignore the first part of what she had said, I dashed towards her.
"She was like so right about all the things. Give it a try. I'll pay." She held my hand in front of the fortune teller, who looked like she could be in her late thirties, and ran her fingers through the bowl full of assortment of glass beads and crystals.
I swallowed hard at the soul piercing look that Lorien's heavily eyeliner rimmed eyes were giving me, which were probably part of creating a suitable aura for the business. She brought my hand closer to her to inspect it better, and after a few seconds of silence, looked up back at me.
If my hand wasn't in her clasp, I would have definitely taken a step back. That was how uncomfortable I was feeling.
Lorien pushed her massive glasses up her nose. "The time to hide your secrets is slipping. They are going to surface one by one."
Okay, this time I had to pull my hand back.
"Well, this was adequately creepy," Daniel mumbled, as Juliet, with a frown tagging on her lips, handed the fortune teller her fee for her whatever mumbo-jumbo she had just told me.
"What the hell was that?" Juliet murmured after we were out of the hearing range of the woman. "Creepy as hell."
"What else were you expecting?" Daniel stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"Too bad, I was thinking that we could get her to read your fortune or maybe spill some of your secrets," Juliet said to her cousin, with an underlying meaning to her words. My suspicions were proved right when Daniel gave her an icy glare.
"I don't have any secrets," he defended, with a slight panic in the voice.
"Yedeh harts hot soides," she simply said accompanied with a toothy grin.
"What does that mean?" I asked at the same time as Daniel said, "Shut up"
"Nothing." The smile on her face was coy. "He got what I wanted to say."
"I'll repeat myself," Daniel spoke, looking ahead. "Shut up!"
"Whatever." Juliet gave a one-shoulder shrug, wrenching open the door of the Persian restaurant that we had decided earlier, we would be eating in. "I'll keep my mouth shut for now but for how lo-"
She didn't finish her sentence, her eyes trained to something in front of her.
I followed her line of sight, and almost choked on my own breath.
Oh my god
Sitting at the table that was pushed at the end of the room were two guys, holding each other hands, laughing at something. Their mannerism and the air between them was making it clear just how much in love they were.
Sebastian and Lucas.
I dared not to look at the other two people that had arrived with me.
What was I supposed to do? Act like I was surprised? Try to make it look like it was nothing?
Or maybe I could run?
Yes, that was it. I needed to run.
Just as I turned around, with sufficient motivation to run to my house from there, a hand clamped on my forearm.
There went my chance of a successful escape.
Sheesh, the fortune teller said the time was slipping. She could have also said it was doing at such a rapid speed, because this escalated really quickly.
Time for a plot reveal.
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Finally! Now he's gonna know about Seb. But don't think that N & D are gonna get together soon. =P They still have a lot to go through a lot before that. =)
And 'Yedeh harts hot soides' means 'Every heart has secrets' in Yiddish.
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Not relevant information- Listen to the song on the side. It's amazing and I've become obsessed by it in just one day. Troye Sivan is simply great! ♥