GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 27: THE START OF OPPORTUNITIES

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays, my little shooting stars ✨

'Paint a picture

Choose your colors extra wise

Especially what you put on my mind

Imagine what it be like to touch the sky'

'The start of many opportunities.

Now that we have learned all the lessons and received all the tools, we are ready to go out into the world–'

A creaking of branch drew my gaze to the window, the sound echoing in all my insides like a call from the world. Yet when I was met with the floral patterns of my curtains, I went back to the paper in front of me.

It was surely the wind, or my imaginative mind craving an escape after hours of being stuck between those four walls.

"Where was I?"

Right, going out into the world.

I clicked my ballpoint pen, ready to write more words that appeared more like wishes than plans when a tap on my window made me jump, and I just had time to catch my breath and frown at the crossing-out right over the word 'rules' that new knocks echoed, this time more intent and impatient.

My legs reacted instantly and automatically, pulling me up and into movement, while my eyes were more hesitant, trailing to the pile of papers I was supposed to finish for tomorrow before narrowing to the window as if it could help me pierce through the pink fabric. As for my heart, it seemed torn between the two, taking up a patchy rhythm.

A robber wouldn't knock, of course, and there was only one person who had ever climbed here.

Yet Spencer wasn't here. We were the last Sunday of the month, which meant he was at the Colt granparents' house, unless he'd abandoned this tradition too?

I took a breath, preparing my hardest expression to scare off whoever was here, hopefully, a robber.

But it fell down with a gasp when I risked peering behind the curtains. "Blade?!"

I put my hand over my mouth, not only to prevent my jaw from crashing on the floor but also to not let the whole neighborhood know about his presence, his dangerous and sharp presence.

He was really here. When he gestured for me to open the window and his unique intoxicating perfume reached my nose and quickly my lungs, there was no doubt, although it looked surreal to see him here, perched between a branch and the lattice.

"What are you doing here?"

Had I wished it that hard?

"Last night, you said you were stuck at home, so I thought I would visit."

"You're crazy! My parents are just downstairs. What if they see you?!" I whisper-yelled, although I wasn't sure if my hands lifted in the air to slap him or to jump at his neck.

"I know, that's why I climbed here," he replied flatly, as if it had been the most obvious and casual thing in the world, and he as easily slid in through the window I kept open for him.

Well, something told me he would have found a way to get in anyway.

"By the way, really practical the lattice there." He pointed his thumb to the window behind, that devious sparkle lighting up in his eyes and looking for mine, which surely peeked through my best innocent expression.