Spades and Angels

Starlit Suspicions

Lolita

The minute I manage to make it out of the shop I'm running. Mad's words looped endlessly around in my head, worming into my heart. Making the already confusing feelings there all the more complicated to sort through since I don't know if he meant to say what he did. But he did. He did and now I can't get the words out of my head.

Be careful and get home safe Lo. See you Monday, mi querida corazón. My darling heart.

Why had he said that? Had he meant to say that and if so was it supposed to go to me, or was it a slip of the tongue meant for someone else? Like maybe the girl he'd had his arm around the other morning, the relative - at least that's what it looked like given the similarities between the two. I couldn't - can't- work out if he means it and that makes my feelings all the harder to dissect and explain since his seems to keep appearing and disappearing.

And even if I discounted the words themselves his tone messed with me too. Throwing new light on the ways I'd kept catching him looking at me all week. Making me re-evaluate the reason I kept seeing him watching me in the days between our last words and what just happened.

Whatever the fuck it was.

Shaking my head as I run I try to use the action to dislodge any lingering thoughts about what just happened - about him at all - but no matter how hard I try it never happens. Instead, I'm left gripping my bag strap and running across town in a desperate attempt to avoid the words still buzzing around my head. As best I can that is.

However, it's no use since the longer I run the more soaked I get from the rain but the more the words he left me with seem to echo around inside my head. Warming me in ways I never thought possible, places never imagined. Spreading through me faster than I can handle or work out what to do with. Ripping through me as hard as if he'd pushed me off a cliff and I was in freefall toward the ocean. Consuming me even if just for a moment until I got them under lock and key like before.

"Come on Lo, focus," I mutter as I run as fast as possible through the rain, despite some new feeling inside me wanting to run back. To go the other way and ask Mads what he meant by what he said when I left. Why he sounded so worried but also so sad and...and alone? As if he was trying to shoulder something too heavy to carry alone and no one else knew. To go back and just talk to him. To feel that electric current again that hummed to life under my skin when he'd touched me. Trapped me gently with a hand on my arm, fingers around my wrist, and looked at me with those gorgeous aquamarine eyes that seemed too much like trapped sunlit water to be healthy. Occupying too much of my attention to be safe for either of us if my slowly developing feelings from hate to whatever this is, is an indication. That or the addictive current that seems to sing to life under my skin when we cross paths, argumentative or otherwise.

"Get it together Alcaraz, before you end up in trouble," I mumble to myself, trying to hold onto the anger from Monday's detention when he'd pissed me off enough I'd snapped. However, even that was getting harder the more my mind and, more disturbingly, my body seemed to ache to see him again. To argue, talk or....god forbid do that instead of either of the previous options. The kiss seems to take up more space in my brain next to the words. Lips tingling as the feeling whacks me around the head again. How good it felt. The dizzy feeling of falling that Connor never gave me, despite three years of dating. Almost.

Shaking my head one last time I slow my run and stop at the edge of the trees, spying my rickety old southside house across the road. A difference from where I know Mads and his friends are on the north side of town. The bigger houses with enough space and food. Light, heating and hot water. Families that care and spend time together. That are normal, I think dejectedly as I slow to a walk and cross the road to the porch. I hear it creak and then crack under my weight, my boot heel getting stuck for a moment before I can wiggle it out and step inside. Sighing at the sight of the hole in the porch steps that would no doubt cost more money to repair than we could afford.