r e s i l i e n c e

|6|

(Dazed and Confused - Ruel)

-

Conscious about the sound of every step that I took, I silently opened the door. It's creaking sound made me internally cringe. I freezed for a second and looked around me. The hallway was clear, no one in sight. I immediately let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

-

A FEW HOURS LATER, after the bell rang, I walked over to my locker to go fetch my things and then leave. As I was placing my books in my bag, I heard a 'ding' that indicated that I received a notification. Expecting it to be a text from Marwa, I was a little bit taken back when I saw that it was from Elijah.

Unknown

Are you free to meet up tonight
for the project?
(btw it's Elijah)

Can we do it at your house?

Yeah, sure. Meet me in the parking lot
after school, we'll go together.

Okay, sounds good.

Like the mature person I am, I acted as if I didn't hate his guts and accepted his invitation. On the brighter side, the sooner we finish this paper, the sooner he'll be out of my sight. As soon as the bell rang, I went to gather up my things at my locker then I headed outside to the parking lot. I dramatically kicked the entrance door to open it and I walked down the stairs to find Elijah already waiting for me at the bottom, leaning on his alluring motorcycle. If he wasn't my sworn enemy, I would totally say that he was attractive in that position with his dark and soft hair covering a little bit of his stormy eyes that were staring right at me through his laches. His t-shirt was on the verge of ripping because of his voluminous muscles. The shirt is so stretched out that we can even see the limitation of his abs, one, two, three, four, five, six, SEVEN, EIGHT, wait what? Why am I counting his abs?

"Aurora, darling, I'm not an english essay, no need to analyze me like that." He said with a smug look. I scoffed and responded:

"By the way, you have a little bit of drool right there" He pointed out, motioning towards the corner of his lips.

I almost fell for his little joke, good thing I didn't bring up my arm to check if I actually had drool, I would've been even more embarrassed than I am right now.

"I hope you didn't expect me to ride with you" I stated motioning towards his motorcycle.

"Yeah, I kinda did. I thought we agreed to that earlier?" He questioned.

"I thought we were going with my car?"

He stared at me with an eyebrow raised. I took it as a sign that he didn't want to argue so I caved in.

"Fine."

He smirked and got up. He then threw me his helmet.

"You're not going to wear one?" I asked in confusion.

He chuckled then he straddled the motorcycle. I put the helmet on hesitantly but I stayed put. He waited a moment to see if I was going to do the same and when he understood that I wasn't following him, he turned to me and he motioned his hands in my direction then to the motorcycle to show that he wanted me to get on it. I walked forward and got on it behind him. I took a deep breath as it was making me remember some old childhood memories. I washed up my mind, not wanting to think about these painful moments. As soon as he started the motor, my hands immediately went around his waist as if he was a magnet and I was a random piece of metal. I felt him chuckle on top of the roaring engine by the way that his abdomen moved upwards and downwards.