Elaine
Don't trust!
The above commitment usually comes with a great price. It always had been for me. From my childhood, to Tyler, and sometimes even my own mind.
I could feel the rough edges of aged scars and cuts mapping my skin under the hideous shirts that conceal them, to cloak the ugly truth of how weak I was. I was because now I think I have reason to grasp my sanity for.
He sat right beside me, noting down points on his leather binder. The tips of his pencil softly scratching against the once virgin page. I shamelessly stalk his every movement and tiniest of features. Like how he tapped his legs against the railing that held the sides of the desk or how his lips press into a thin line when he was confused.
He turns to me with a mischievous smile, probably aware of my creepy heated gaze. But I don't look away. Instead, I smirk. He raises a brow silently questioning my motives. I resume back to listen the class. A few minutes later I feel a hand, which I have grown to know every inch of its dents and warmth interlaces with mine.
With a reassuring pressure, I press my fingers and sneak a peek at Aiden and April sitting just to my right.
The question arises again.
What is it about them that even after so many clues and hints of their disguise, my heart still felt the need to trust them?
A dull ache clouded my judgement as I rubbed my temples.
They are in no way related to Alex, I am no fool to believe such an analogy. But why does Alex keeps playing it along? Not once had he said anything about being related to them. But neither denied.
I could straight on ask him any day, but the rational part mocked me that I won't get the whole picture served in platter anytime soon.
The bell rang for the lunch break. Food and sleep were hard on these days. And it surely has every aspect to do with a certain pen drive with a freaking password that would self-destruct the file if three trials of it went on to state error.
Splendid!
"You look like you survived an apocalypse this morning" Aiden planted his mystery ass in the front seat as Alex packed his stuffs. From the side I could see April making her way out of the class in a hurry, muttering something about a crowded teenagers in washroom
"She looks fine" Alex growled as he watched an uninterested Aiden clean his black-rimmed glasses with the corner of his polo.
"Geez, possessive dude" he looked at both of us. His eyes trained on me longer than usual.
I narrowed my eyes at him in disbelief, we both shared our extreme lack of conviction towards each other. Counting back from four days when he found out or literally poked out the drive from my pendant, he has been acting strange.
Stranger than usual.
He keeps scanning me the whole day, for what? Only if I knew.
See, all his persona screams distrust, but I feel myself smiling at him.
"Less possessive than you towards your sister" I state calmly folding my hands across my chest, the class was now only comprised of us three. Our words echoed the walls giving a frosty touch.
"Speaking of it, I want your help" his hazel brown eyes brightens. I doubt ill like what's going to follow it.
A loud resonating bang filled the room as Alex banged his fist against the wooden desk. Startled we both looked at him, our eyes wide as a saucer.
"What the hell is wrong man?" Aiden tried to be angry but his smirk betrayed his composure.
Before I know what was happening, Alex already had Aiden's collar balled In his right fist as he yanked him forward from his seat.
What the actual-
"Stop testing me, I told you to stay away from her" this was a total turn of events, I know Alex was a possessive guy. I had seen him control his anger when he saw me talking or even smiling at a boy. His jealousy was something that was initiated by the power and control over things he had because of his status. I can guess that much.
I did try telling him that he shouldn't let himself be triggered by simplest of thoughts as even of a person breathing in the same vicinity as me. I am not an entity that he can control.
Initially, his attention made me giddy and feel valuable, but now I felt the dread creeping up on me.
With each day he evolved into someone stranger than before, but deep down I was aware that this was him all along and it was just him letting his guard down.
By being his real self around me.
But the troubled part was when his inner walls were more stronger, high and colder than the fake and feeble one he had up since the day I met him.
And it scared me.
"Or else what? "Aiden challenges him with an equally menacing stare. Why was he doing this? What's going on between them?
"you can't change my mind" with clenched teeth, his anger diluted to coldness as he loosened his hold on Aiden. I don't like it, the nothingness in Alex's eyes upon me as I looked anywhere but his eyes. He waited for me to say something, regarding me coldly and yet with such intensity that it would leave the most valiant one uncertain and alarmed. When I didn't budge or opened my mouth, he got up and left.
Leaving me and Aiden alone.
"What was that?" I hissed at him while he dusted his collar of imaginary elements.
"What? Your boyfriend being an asshole? you haven't seen anything close to what kind of a person he is"
"What do mean?" I was ashamed as I cracked at the end.
"I wish I am wrong but he is just like his father. And about his dad? Let's just say once you know him, you just wish you shouldn't have" he stared at the wall with a historical map of imperialism with deep thoughts swirling in his orbs.
"How do you know so much about him?" I paused as he blankly looked at me "who are you Aiden?"
"I am no one Elaine, and neither is April. Stop worrying and help me tonight" he gave me a sad smile that didn't reached quite through him.
I sighed knowing he's not going to spill it, like every other day I had asked him. "Fine, what do want me to do?"
Like a switch in his brain went off, he was grinning from ear to ear, as if he was just not yelled upon.
"We're pranking Noah Ross".
"And why would I do that?" I bit my lips in anticipation, like a silent deal I know what he wills to offer.
"You want answers, and I don't see anyone willing to serve it to that curious mind of yours" smirking he leans back to inspect his fingers.
I duck my head to brush my thumb against my own uneven marred and destroyed nails, long nights of chewing and biting them had caused it to frown upon its slots.
Anxiety? Doubts? Paranoia?
I lift my gaze to meet Aiden's determined one, I know he might be the first key to at least something.
Noah, dearest friend of mine. Please forgive me for the immense betrayal I am going to cause. But you dumbass had to help April prank Aiden by painting his room pink?
***
"Again, why am I in Noah's back yard whispering to you guys still in a sweat soaked Walmart uniform?" Alex hissed at both of us while he stood between me and Aiden, dark bushes surrounding us.
"Because it's you who wanted to" Aiden glared from the side as he adjusted a wooden makeshift ladder that would lead us to Noah's window.
I pulled my arms over the white satin robe upon my yellow jumpsuit as Alex traded a confused frown at my actions.
His lips slightly parted as he ran his hands over his hair a few more times, the faint kisses of moonlight falling upon his white strands making him appear almost angelic. But I pried my eyes away from him. As he made his way towards me.
Stop, you are supposed to be angry with him.
But all my inner sentiments vanished once I felt his finger curling below my chin, lifting it to the angle enough to still my gaze, somehow I melted a little when his blue eyes, held sorry to the depth of a sea. It was dark and held broken promises. But I felt calm.
He breathed through his lips, a sign of nervousness.
What? After all the mental trials, I might have mastered the art of differentiating human emotions without verbal acknowledgment.
"I am clingy" out of nowhere he declared running his thumb across my jaw, ever so carefully making me shudder with bursting tingles all over.
"That you are" smiling innocently I crouched down to grab the wig from my backpack as he quickly lifted off his hands. I already missed the touch, as pathetic as it sounds.
I hear a defeated sigh from him as I adjust the waist-length raven black mane for a hair. I felt like a girl on Halloween. Except it's not and I have never been to one.
No matter how much I appreciate Alex's existence, but I can't deny the fact of how difficult he can be at times.
The cold way he regards people when he hates them has me wishing to never be on the end of it.
He requested a month's duration to open up, but all he did was built extra rigid walls around him. Extra selfish when it came to me. And extra angry about things he wouldn't tell me. For instance his fight with Aiden.
"I shouldn't have come here, I will leave you two to it" I saw him take a step back from me as Aiden shuffled his jean pocket for something.
"You can stay if you like" Aiden threw over a box which I caught with the grace of a drunken sloth. It was a set of fake fangs. He did put thought into this. I started applying the blood-red lips stick everywhere apart from the area it was intended to.
"You are not exactly in a position to order me around Beckett" there was that snappy Alex again. I rolled my eyes as the next word spilled with muffled intonations as I already had the fangs on.
"You sure you don't want to miss this?" imagine it with a heavy pillow choking me as I said it. The sight must have been not much of a sight to see as two pairs of eyes, a proud and a shocked one graced me.
Guess which belonged to who?
***