fool (lester averman)

chapter twelve

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chapter twelve: the aftermath

a/n:

tw(s) -- none really.

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When Rory wakes up, she's warm. Almost too warm, actually.

For a moment, she lays there, unmoving, and lets her eyes adjust to the wisps of light that pour in from the window. Her entire body aches with the aftershocks from her injury, her jaw aching and her knee throbbing in protest as she, even though she dreads the throat, stretches her leg out just to see if she can. Moving jostles this weight draped over her waist and she freezes in place as she becomes aware of it.

Turning her head, she finds that she isn't in her own bed, but in Averman's.

He sleeps like the dead as she tries to recall how she got from the lounge to sleeping in a boy's bed (a habit Oliver had 'strongly discouraged' after a night that she'd been caught napping with a male companion, swearing that the then eight-year-old, who had yet to have her first period, would get pregnant if she wasn't more careful.)(This belief would affect her every action until a girl from Canada and a boy from France each did their part to, through their laughter, correct it.) Her eyes dart around the room as internal panic sets in.

Her father, who was already furious with her, is going to lose his mind.

Averman doesn't wake up when she slips his arm from her waist and sits up. He just rolls to face the other side of the bed and mumbles something incoherent in his sleep.

Rory slowly curls her knees to her chest like some little kid, wary of the purple bruises that splotch her skin, and rests her chin on her knees as she recounts everything from the previous night. She got hurt, she yelled at her coach and got kicked off the team for it (though that's not a guarantee), she told Averman she liked him--

She told him she liked him and he told her he liked her, too. And he'd meant it.

He genuinely meant it.

After everything, he likes her.

Him. Lester Averman. A boy untouched by the world she grew up in, who makes a fool of himself just so the people he loves will laugh.

Rory sits there and waits for the other shoe to drop.

The loss of her warmth eventually rouses him from his slumber. He wakes just as silently as he slept, and she watches him rub his eyes as he looks up at her.

"Hi..." Averman croaks, a silly, sleepy smile on his face.

"Hi." She breathes, and then tries to smile back. "I'm freaking out."

His expression bars on confusion as he stretches languidly, like a cat in a patch of sunlight.

"What are you freaking out about? It's too early to freak out."

It's never too early to freak out.

"I slept in your bed." She says and feels frustration in the back of her mind when he doesn't look any less confused. "I'm not supposed to do that."

"You're not supposed to do a lot of things."

Rory opens her mouth but then closes it as she realizes that he isn't wrong. Her gaze lands on the alarm clock that's on one of the boys' desks.