𝙊𝙝 𝙈𝙮 𝙈𝙮 𝙈𝙮 | 𝘈𝘭𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘮

10: Her Feelings

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PAST

"Kaveh," you call as you poke him in the arm. "I need your help."

The two of you, along with Alhaitham, sat at your family's dinner table, doing homework together. You were having a bit of a hard time with your vocabulary words, which frustrated you since your teacher had weekly vocabulary quizzes. You were convinced your second grade teacher purposely picked the hardest words for the class to memorize.

"What do you need?" Kaveh responds.

"I'm having trouble with this one word. I don't know what it means," you say, pointing to a word on your homework.

"Oh, 'peruse'. It means to read," your brother responds.

"Then why not just say 'read'?"

Kaveh shrugs. "Some people just want to sound smarter, I guess." You furrow your brows.

"So 'peruse' is different from 'pursue'? I thought they meant the same thing since their spellings are pretty close."

"They're not. 'Pursue' is like chasing someone."

"Oh," you say. "Could I have an example then?" Kaveh racks his head, trying to think of an appropriate example.

"I have one. While I perused my favorite book, Kaveh stole it, so I pursued him until he gave it back," Alhaitham says in a joking manner. You chuckled at your silver-haired friend's words.

"Thank you, you two. I think I get it now," you beam.

"That's good to hear," Alhaitham responds.

Kaveh smiles. "You know you can always come to us if you need anything."

"I know. That's why I bug you all the time!"

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

PRESENT

With exams a few days after girls' night, you had more than enough to occupy your thoughts and Alhaitham's essay slipped your mind. It wasn't until the weekend after your exams that you remembered what he had said on the phone.

You sat in your room, relaxing on your bed as the afternoon sun streamed through your window. Despite the calmness of your surroundings, you tried to sort your thoughts. Alhaitham not only wrote about you in his essay, he wrote six pages about you. He put so much thought about you into his essay that he had to cut it down to meet his assignment requirements.

Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. I haven't even read the paper yet. What if he forgot about it? 

A ringing sound cuts you out of your thoughts. You fumbled for your phone, which was sitting at your study table. A sigh escaped your lips as you read the contact name.

"Hi Kaveh."

"I wanted to check up on you. How were your exams?" he asks.

"Terrible, but I'm happy they're over," you reply.

"You and me both," he laughs. "Hey, are you free today? I thought it would be nice to relax with you since my engineering project is done."

"Sure," you beam. "Is, uh, Alhaitham coming too?"

"No, he's got other plans," Kaveh pauses. "Did you want him to come? I'm sure we can wait till he's fre-"

"No!" you blurt out, cutting off your brother. "Not exactly. I'm just a bit confused right now."