Spoilers! (Mavi)

Chapter 6: Lord

With no help from Scott, I simply refused to read on the train again. I stayed up a little later at night to study Beauty and Sadness and ended up finishing it before the next workweek started. I decided on standing, since I had free hands and watched the people around me get on and leave the train. I noticed Avi sitting tucked in the corner of the car with the first Lord of the Rings book in his hands. His face was so far in the book I thought he was eating the pages. Was he... Was he obsessing? Oh I had to ruin this.

I waited for the train to stop again, walked over, and sat down right next to Avi. He refused to look away from his book. I crossed my legs and folded my arms.

"Hey, Avi. What're you reading?" I was mocking him. I had to play dumb. I needed to know just how obsessed he was. He didn't move. He had been absorbed by the theoretical world of Mordor. "Avi?"

He looked at me for a fraction of a second, back down to his book, and gasped before looking back over at me. I smiled and stuck a piece of gum into my mouth. "So, I see you're reading Lord of the Rings. You read it before?"

"N-... No... I haven't. Please don't do this."

"Don't do what? Its not like you've been spoiling my books for, what? Two months now?"

"Please, no. I love this so much." He was holding the book in his hands like it was the ring itself. He became a smeagol.

"Funny, I read that book in my Creative writing class while we studied world building. I wonder if I remember how it ended."

"Go out with me!"

I stopped for a second and looked over at him clutching the book against his chest like a Hollywood schoolgirl. "Excuse me?"

"Go out with me."

"Were you spoiling my books in an attempt to start fucking conversation?"

"Yes... I'm sorry."

"And you think I'm just going to drop all this pent up rage and aggression and just... go out with you?"

"That's what I'm hoping..."

I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. I got a good look at him then. I had noticed how pretty he was before, but would I want to speak to him over food after the horrible things he's done? As far as I was concerned, we already had an abusive relationship, mostly because I'd like to behead him half the time. If we dated I could spoil the entire LotR series over dinner though... at least if he pissed me off.

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"Yeah. All you had to do was ask. You're my aesthetic."

His face light up like Christmas lights on a rich person's house. He reminded me of a child, easily excitable and probably just as easily crushed. We came up on my stop and I stood up to leave. I stopped and turned around to face him.

"Gandalf dies." I had never seen a man crumble so fast. I ran off the train and waved back at his wild-eyed gaze. Payback had never felt so sweet.