17. Wednesday Week Six
"I feel like I haven't spoken to you in ages Tor."
She gave a small shrug and peered over at me through her glasses, "yeah, I guess we've both been kinda busy."
I bumped my shoulder with hers and wiggled my eyebrows when she looked over at me, "oo, boy busy?"
She just blushed and shook her head with a smile before pushing open the doors to the cafeteria. A small chuckle was released from my lips at her response but it soon died out as I stopped in my tracks at the sight of who was sat at our little table.
"What?" Tori questioned me.
"Uh-I-um, I've got some work to do. I'm gonna go to the library," I stuttered as my gaze was glued to the sight of Eli's back at the table. Ever since our little moment on Saturday, I had been avoiding him like the plague. A hangover was my excuse for not training with him on Sunday and last night I was super lucky that he wasn't home.
Tori was just about to nod at me, giving me the perfect chance to escape, when Kyle came through the doors of the cafeteria and stopped right by us.
"What are we looking at?" He questioned with his head between mine and Tori's shoulders.
Tori jumped at his voice by her ear causing him to let out a laugh which drew the attention of our friends. Oh shit.
Eli caught my gaze over his shoulder and he raised his brow at me, if I left now he would know I was avoiding him if he hadn't already guessed and judging by his intense stare and the look on his face; he had guessed.
Here goes nothing. I took a deep breath and trailed after Tori and Kyle as they walked towards our table, clutching my art book to my chest like it was a lifeline. When I reached the table, because the world hated me, I realised the only seat that was available, was directly next to Eli.
Cautiously, I perched myself on the seat, still clutching my book for dear life.
"Avoiding me, tigru?" He breathed into my ear, dear god he smelt good.
"Pfft, why would you say that?" I cringed internally at how shaky my voice sounded as I placed my artbook down on the table.
"I don't know. You tell me."
His gaze burned holes in the side of my head as I blatantly ignored him and pulled out my Nutella sandwich. Sitting this close to Eli with all these thoughts running through my head was not good for my health. I did not want to like this guy and yet the more time I spent around him, the more I found myself enjoying, and even looking forward to, his company.
Feeling calmer after he leant back in his chair, away from me, I relaxed into my seat and began eating my sandwich. My relaxation was halted, however, when Eli casually draped his arm across the back of my chair. All of our friends' eyes flickered towards us at the action but none of them said anything about it, thank god.
Any last hopes of a relaxed lunch were thrown out the window when, out of nowhere, Lana straightened in her seat, her back going stiff as she glared at something over my shoulder. Jasper, noticing the change in her, followed her line of sight behind me and he too, straightened in his seat. I noticed his fists clenching on top of the table and went to turn around but a shout of my name stopped me.
"Rei!" Kins yelled out looking flustered, her eyes flickering everywhere and she couldn't stop fidgeting. My eyes narrowed at her as I noticed her gaze fluttering behind me every few seconds. I was about to call her out on her weird behaviour and turn to investigate myself but a deep voice that caused many of my restless nights stopped me.
"Can we talk Reillyn?"
At his voice, I completely froze, paralysed with fear. Hearing his voice was a nightmare; only this wasn't, this was real.
"Clear off, Marcus," Jasper gritted out to him, he didn't know the full story, he only knew we detested him â or at least I did.
I had yet to turn around to confront him and I had no intention of doing so. I just sat in my seat and let my friends stand up for me; like the coward I was.
"She has a mouth of her own, doesn't she rich boy?" Marcus goaded, Jasper shot up in his seat but was interrupted before he could do or say more.
"You're not wanted here. Leave." At the sound of the timid Tori speaking up for me so boldly, Kyle, Kaia and Eli realised how much we disliked this guy and Kyle stood up alongside Jasper opposite me, facing Marcus, creating a picture-perfect image of intimidation. Eli did nothing, just sat next to me, staring straight at the side of my face, likely knowing I was extremely uncomfortable.
"Seriously Rei? You've stooped down to such a pathetic level that your friends have to talk for you now?" I flinched at his words and due to his close scrutiny of my face, Eli noticed and narrowed his eyes at him but no words accompanied the movement.
Tired and wanting nothing more than for him to leave, I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around my lower belly, hugging myself all the while warding off unwanted memories.
"Look, Rei-bear, please?" He reached forward at the end of his words and touched my shoulder in a final attempt to get my attention but it was a stupid thing to do.
At that moment, multiple things happened; Lana leapt up screaming at him to back off; Jasper had to hold Lana back from throttling Marcus; Tori and Kins both shifted their gaze to me and tried to offer me words of comfort; most noticeably Eli jumped up from his chair and grabbed Marcus by the collar of his football jacket.
"Don't fucking touch her Evans," Eli growled at him before pushing him back so hard that Marcus stumbled and landed on the floor.
Finally snapping out of my pitiful state I rose up out of my chair and rushed in front of Eli, placing my hands on his chest to stop him in his steady advance towards Marcus.
"Please, stop," I whispered to him with my head down, knowing that half the eyes in the cafeteria were observing us.
Noticing my discomfort he stopped in response and I released a breath of relief. However, I was unsure if I was relieved because I wouldn't have to pull him away from a bloodied Marcus or because I wouldn't have to make the choice to.
"Aww, how cute. Rei-bear's got herself a boyfriend," Marcus taunted from his position on the floor. Eli made a start for him again but I pushed against his chest as a sign for him to back off before swivelling around on my heel and finding my goddamn voice again.
"Grow the fuck up Marcus," I sneered at him before I bent forward slightly and faced him on the ground but still unable to look into his eyes, "or should I add childish to your ever-growing list of shitty traits?"
I noticed that his brown eyes narrowed at me as he leant back on his hands, "I need to talk to you."
I straightened and my hands fell from on my waist, "I don't care what you need. Fuck off." I turned around and moved back to the table picking up my stuff.
"It's important Rei," Marcus made a start in my direction after getting up but Eli stepped in his way, arms crossed and fierce glare across his face.
"Well then. I guess if it's important to you..." I rounded to face him after gathering all my things in my arms and forced myself to look straight into his eyes as I said, "then it must mean fuck all to me."
I gave him the sickliest sweet smile I could manage before storming past him, out of the cafeteria and into the hallway. The minute I was out of the room I expelled a shaky breath but I forced myself to keep walking and I didn't stop until I was outside the front doors.
Exhausted, I slumped against the front red brick wall of the school, crouching and placing my head between my knees as I did my stupid breathing exercises to help me calm, my anger, my fear, my anxiety, my everything.
Knowing who it was, I didn't turn my head at the sound of the front doors opening. His scent invaded my nostrils as he crouched beside me. Emotional, I didn't want him to touch me and somehow he knew as he chose to just sit beside me, saying nothing, doing nothing, just waiting for me to calm myself down.
His presence was reassuring and after a while, I unwrapped myself from my own arms only to turn and crawl into his instead. Trivial things like school, class, time, all just drifted away as I sat in his lap, curled up in his arms as he ran his fingers through my hair and let me listen to his steady heartbeat.
"Can we go somewhere?" I asked him as I pulled away from his chest. His hand continued to play with my hair lazily as he nodded but he released me to stand to his staggering height, pulling me up with him and then tugging me in the direction of his car.
A frown made its way onto my face when I noticed that we were not headed in the direction of either of our houses, "where are we going Eli?"
"Somewhere," he answered cryptically before giving me a side smirk. I rolled my eyes at him and settled into the chair listening to the soft radio in the background as I picked through my past and deciphered what I was ready to tell Eli about.
It took about 20 minutes to reach our destination and when we did, I couldn't stop the excited squeal from leaving my lips.
"Ahh! You brought me to a dessert parlour?" I screeched before throwing myself into his arms after he had opened the car door for me.
His breath tickled my ear as he let out a light laugh and I ignored the way my heart fluttered at the sound and my breath quickened at the feeling.
Excited, I grabbed his hand and tugged him inside before stopping at a booth and pulling him into it. Then, wanting to take my mind off of the incident with Marcus, I diverted all of my attention towards the menu. "Oh my god, this menu is heaven. I don't know what to order. I wanna eat everything. Do you think I could eat everything? I bet I could, I'm so hungry right now. Do you smell that? It smells like melted chocolate or heaven. No, my bad, it just smells like heaven."
Eli's deep laugh washed over me as he tugged the menu out of my hands and forced me to look at him, "tigru, order as much as you like."
I grinned at him, "those are dangerous words, boxer boy."
He arched a brow and my eyes flickered to his lips as his nose piercing glinted in the light, "I'll take my chances."
The words were whispered and the air of them caressed my lips as Eli leaned forward towards me, his hand reaching up to cup my face, and I leaned into his touch.
My breathing quickened as his eyes dropped to my lips and stayed there, my tongue darted out to wet them and his cobalt eyes darkened to a navy at the sight, making my heart flutter in my chest. Of their own accord, my hands raised to rest on his firm chest and I didn't know if I wanted to push him away or pull him closer, much much closer.
The decision was taken from me, however, when the waiter cleared his throat from the end of our table and caused me to spring away from Eli. Eli's eyes fluttered closed and annoyance flashed across his face as his hand fell into his lap.
"Um, did you want to order?" The waiter stuttered out nervously, eyes fixated on the table.
"Does it look like I want to fucking order right now?" Eli growled, turning to face him.
"Eli!" I reprimanded, swatting him with the back of my hand which caused him to grunt rudely. My cheeks flamed and I was very grateful that my skin was tanned otherwise it would be glaringly obvious that I was a tomato. The waiter received a hesitant smile from me, "maybe give us a few more minutes..." I paused and read his name tag, "Thomas?"
He beamed at me, clearly happy that I wasn't as rude as Mr Grumpy who was mumbling under his breath about the rudeness of interruption, man-child.
"What do you want then?" I questioned after the waiter left, keeping my gaze firmly rooted on the menu and trying to calm my heart which was hammering incessantly in my rib cage.
"It's definitely not on the menu, tigru." He was leaning on the table with his head bowed forward so I knew I wasn't supposed to hear him.
I froze but then chose to carry on, "I'm thinking I'm going to have the Nutella brownies with chocolate ice cream and melted chocolate." I received no reply so I continued, "or maybe I want the white chocolate cookie dough with strawberries and melted chocolate on the side," I slammed the menu down on the table, "urgh, I don't know."
"Get both, tigru."
"Okay."
Eli leaned back into the booth and let out a chuckle, "that took a lot of convincing."
"What can I say? Dessert is a weakness for me." My shoulder lifted in a careless shrug as I leaned back also, turning towards Eli.
He arched a brow, "well that explains the poor fitness."
"Hey!" I exclaimed and then feeling defensive, "the lack of sweet foods in your life explains the grumpiness" I smirked and crossed my arms across my chest.
"I'm not grumpy right now, am I?"
His lips were twitching in the corners making me note that he, in fact, wasn't grumpy right now, he actually looked quite happy.
"Hmm, a rare occasion."
A full-blown smile stretched across his face at my answer and all my breath left me at the sight; he truly was breathtaking when he smiled.
"Would you like to order now?" Just like that, the smile morphed into a scowl and I chuckled under my breath at the transformation before turning to face 'Thomas' and giving him my order. Eli the Freak didn't want anything, how could you not want anything in a dessert parlour?
Silence descended over us and I knew he wanted to ask me about Marcus and what had happened at school. I had already decided I would tell him some of mine and Marcus's history and I figured it was time to put him out of his misery.
"Marcus is my ex."
Surprise flashed across his face and he arched a brow as he faced me, "you dated that prick?"
"Well, he wasn't a prick when we first started dating. But, by the end, it was bad." My gaze dropped to my hands as I fiddled with my fingers nervously.
"You don't have to tell me right now Rei," Eli murmured softly.
"I know but I want to." He nodded letting me know to continue.
"We ended during the last week before Winter break last year on really bad terms. We had been dating for about a year and then the break up combined with the crappy relationship basically took me the whole of junior year to get over. It was only this summer that I started to feel better."
"What do you mean by bad terms, tigru?" Eli's voice was the softest I had ever heard it and it comforted me to know that he recognised that this was hard for me.
"Um, I don't really want to go into details right now but it ended with Noah basically beating the shit out of him. I haven't spoken to him at all, today was the first time since we broke up that he spoke to me. Probably because Noah wasn't there and he thinks Noah is the only one who knows what really happened."
"Is he?"
"No, the girls know but only because I had no choice but to tell them," my eyes flickered back up to meet his and I held his gaze as I told him, "Eli, I don't think I'm ready to tell you everything just yet."
Eli gave me a soft smile and then leant forward to place a kiss on my forehead and I felt his lips move against my skin as he murmured, "that's fine tigru. I'm not going anywhere."
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2836 words^
Edited â
It is 1:32 am in the morning where I am and I have to be up in 5 hours for school and just thinking about it makes me want to cry ð
Anyway... I loved that chapter because of the way he cares for her and the tension ð
Marcus is a prick though, we defo don't like him. How do you think Rei handled the situation????