Get A Room!

~:*:~ Sixty ~:*:~

Jedson

Leona texted me shortly after I left the bar. She said she went to Bright's room to bring him dinner, but he wasn't there. No one has seen him since.

I went to his favourite place on campus and found him after a good twenty minutes of scouring through the endless stacks of books. He was on the third floor of the library hiding in the back corner of the city planning section, which was poorly lit and rarely visited due to lack of interest. It was a genius hiding place for anyone trying to avoid an entire campus of bullies and gossipers.

He didn't notice my approach at first, too engrossed in his copy of The Three Musketeers. I sat on the floor across from him, using the bookshelf as a backrest as I pulled my knees up and rested my arms. He must have finally seen my shoe at of the corner of his eye, but he didn't look up at me.

"Go away, Jedson."

"I've been worried about you. You know how much I care-"

"If you really cared about me, you wouldn't have put me in this position in the first place." He remarked bitterly.

"I'm sorry." I really did feel like shit about my public confession. "I thought I was doing the right thing! I wanted to squash their doubts head on so they'd just leave us alone already! You know, use their game against them and create an irrefutable moment to post online. Calling them bullies out right and stating my feelings for you as an absolute fact was supposed to shut them down, but I underestimated just how delusional these people are! Like, how the fuck could they still think you were trapping me or putting me under some kind of spell?! It's just ridiculous! You're not forcing me to love you-"

"What did you just say?" He finally put his book down and looked at me with wide eyes.

Oh shit. I said I loved him... I wasn't supposed to do that yet!

I had to divert his attention, and fast.

"Leona brought you dinner, but you weren't in your room. Given everything that's happened, I'm going to assume that you didn't grab something to eat on your way here. Too public, right?"

He shook his head to confirm my query.

I held out my hand for him to take so we could help each other up. "It's getting late, so you must be starving. Come with me. I know a place where we can eat privately."

He looked at me wearily, probably wondering if he'd imagined my slip of the tongue since I covered it so well. Too hungry to refuse, he carefully slid his hand in mine and let me lift him to his feet. When he tried to pull it back, I squeezed his hand gently and locked our fingers together. I had no intention of letting him go.

"Someone will see..." He muttered sadly as he tried to disentangle his fingers.

"It's late, Bright. The campus is practically deserted and the night sky will offer us cover. We'll be fine... just trust me." I pleaded softly with a small smile of hope.

He tried to muffle his words of complaint by lowering his head and speaking into the fabric of his jacket, but I still heard them as they slipped out, "That seems to be the problem... I do."

There's no way he doesn't love me too.

~*~*~*~

After so much negative blowback surrounding my popularity as of late, it was nice to finally see the perks of being in the spotlight; it reminded me of why I enjoyed being so friendly with everyone in the past.

Thanks to my new senior friends in the culinary department, I was able to talk my way into the building and into getting permission to use one of their kitchens. They were staying late anyways to prep for some big breakfast event they had in the morning for returning faculty, so they were cool with us hanging out as long as we didn't get in their way.