All The Way

CHOCOLATE CAKE

A/N: Apparently my WattpadWeb ain't working, so here's what I had to say in a longer version. I dedicate this chapter to HarshitaNirban for being not only an engaged reader for so long and keeping up with my late publishing, but also for interacting with me and giving me the experience every writer craves ♡♡♡

|12|

I may or may not have ignored blondie for almost a week now. Let me tell y'all how it all even began (yes, I'm aware that I'm a fictional character and you are just bored-outta-your-minds folk laying in your bed and reading all the 100 ways I could fuck up my life).

It all started with that goddamned note. Spectral line my foot, that single piece of paper kept me tangled with my thoughts for a whole damn week. It still does. It's not that I haven't had any past relationships (yes, I'm counting the week-long thing I had in 5th grade. Oh, and that time a red-haired boy asked to marry me in pre-school), or past dopamine fluctuations. Of course I have. But after being focused on my studies and the future I've been planning for so long, something like this seems quite surreal. Never would I have thought in a million years that James, out of all the people in the world, would be able to break through the barrier I've created around myself. So, after moping around and utterly denying my childish crush for the whole night, I decided to try out a hack that never actually ends up working but was still worth a try.

ESCAPE.

ELUDE.

SHUN.

AVOID.

Did it work though? Partially yes. It's not like we had a publicly known friendship anyway, but looking away every time I caught him staring, or mentally smacking myself when I was the one staring became a part of my routine. Cassie was all but amused after being worried sick for two days straight. She knew me too well, the rose tint that covered my cheeks at randomly timed intervals, or the way I not-so-cautiously ignored her endless questions by changing the subject. She knew me too damn well.

Additionally, I didn't show up at the library for our study sessions, like I've been doing for about 2 weeks now. The first day after, James looked at me with concern in his eyes and worry evident in his posture. He wanted to ask, I could see that, but he couldn't. Or wouldn't. I didn't dare try to look too deeply into it, even though that worked for no more than 20 minutes before it was all I could think about for the rest of the day. That day, I wrote a simple note on the last page of my notebook, tore it off, and placed it in James' bag when he wasn't looking during our physics class.

Got something important, won't make it tonight. Or a few days maybe...
-NAJ

The next day, James gave me the cold shoulder. No worried eyes, lingering stares, or even the witty remarks he used to throw at me to brag. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, I figured it was for the best. After all, where would this have led me anyway? What was I even hoping for, if he ever liked me back and that's a big if? To be in a relationship with James, AS IF. I can't even bear his over-dramatic ass for an hour (might've been changing for some time now, would never agree to it though), why am I even wasting my time on it? I hadn't imagined all those movies with girls going mad because they like someone could ever be somewhat real. And even without all my looming dopamine, how long would we have stayed friends? Until it served our common purpose, or perhaps when he's back to the stone-cold bastard he always was.

We are like water and ice, two states of the same composition yet entirely different. One a striking ice-cold soul that doesn't bother with the affairs of the world, and the other whose life moves with the flow of the world. Even so, it does feel interchangeable at times. One intertwined with the other until there is no way to tell them apart, so alike one another that they could be one and the same. The boundaries of their differences fade away until you can't mark the land anymore or imply what lies where. That's the problem with the two people so opposite in demeanor yet made of the same gear.