He lowered his head towards me, a cocky grin spreading across his lips as he raked his eyes across my body before landing them back on mine.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance before averting my eyes, ignoring the blush that threatened to run across...
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CHAPTER TWELVE LOST SHOES!
I GLARED AT THEODORE'S SMUG FORM.
We stood side by side, watching as the rain continued to hail down. Moments prior I had laughed in his face before pulling out my phone and calling my parents, sibling, friends—anyone. I called every single one of my contacts, even my aunt that lived nowhere close to Manhattan, but to no avail, no one was available.
My father was stuck at work, busy with his job as a physiotherapist; I was silently glad for it. It's been awkward being in the same room as him, especially after he'd lectured me about how disappointed he was that I had sneaked out to go to Takahashi's party and in return I blew up in his face. I didn't know how to act around him—how to behave.
Crying is something I have yet to emotionally come to terms with. It's healthy to cry, a person needs to cry; humans need to let out the heavy weight of emotions and the easiest way is to usually cry your heart out. Yet every single time I want to, the name 'crybaby' makes itself known. Crybaby; heart too big to fit into my body. I was too sensitive, too kind, too easy. And yet that night as I came home stumbling through the door, drunk and sad, tears welled up on my waterline and I just cried.
I cried as my father scolded me, voice harsh as he looked at me with the same colored eyes as mine. Disappointment spilled into his voice as he rambled on and on and all I could do was cry and cry and cry.
I was so easy to prick, so easy to hurt.
Maybe that's why I tried so hard to be tough; to harden my skin into steel. How would their words prick if I couldn't feel them?
"Earth to Mara," I was shaken out of my thoughts by the sound of Theodore's voice. I looked up at him only to find him with his back against the school walls. He was leaned back, legs crossed by the ankles as a nonchalant look spread onto his face. When did he move? "It looks like your brain is wandering everywhere but earth, Mars."
My heart freezed at the sound of my nickname leaving his lips. My ears stingged with heat as I regarded him from far away; the name fell off his lips like honey. So sweet. I swallowed down the urge to request him to say it again and instead opened my mouth to respond. "Mara, not Mars."
He hummed as if pondering my words before waving it away. I took the opportunity to trail my gaze down his figure, from the way his arms contracted as he moved to cross them to; the form fitting shirt he was clad in was doing its job inhaling any free space between its crevices. He was tall for a seventeen year old, muscled too. No wonder people considered him a need to have. He definitely sold the look; hair always windswept, curly yet never too messy; his locks had the boyish look his body lacked.
I looked away as I scraped away at the loose thread of my jeans, my fingers twitched to pull it out and ball into a little net of fabric. I was itching to do something, anything, as the wind continued to come in from every direction. Droplets of rain scattering across my skin.
