Haunted | Daryl Dixon

9. Look of Love

"-and this will be graded as if it were your final exam," The teacher continued, ignoring the synchronized groans that floated around the class at her words, "I will be spilitting you all up into groups of two."

Evelyn and Daryl shared identical looks of annoyance. It was their final task of senior year- all their other classes had been wrapped up- and of course, it was a partner project.

The girl began tapping her fingers on her desk, nervously looking to the front of the room as the teacher prepared to read off names.

She hated when the teachers picked her partners. She always got stuck with the worst people- people she didn't want to talk to, let alone work with.

Daryl glanced her way, his eyes quickly flitting down to her fingers before he gently tugged her hand under the desk and entertwined his fingers with hers, giving them a squeeze of reassurance.

Right away, her muscles relaxed and she shot Daryl a thankful smile. He always knew just how to make her feel better.

"Catherine, you and Nico will be together. Evelyn and Julie."

Evelyn sagged in relief, eyes moving over to where Julie, a quiet but kind girl, gave her a small wave, which she gladly returned. At least she wasn't with someone insufferable.

"-Caleb and Daryl."

The side by side best friends both stiffened automatically at the name of the boy.

As far as Evelyn knew, neither she nor Daryl had interacted with that boy a single time since Evelyn's failed date with him just over two years ago.

Even though they had this class together with him, Caleb avoided them like the plague. Clearly he was still a bit traumatized from that date. Good.

Uneasily, Evelyn glanced at Daryl, who had his jaw clenched and knuckles in fists under the desk. His eyes were trained straight forward, but she could see the rage in them. Her best friend obviously hadn't forgotten her talk about the shitty date.

"Dare," She said softly, making sure nobody around could hear her, "You can just talk to the teacher, I'm sure it's-"

"These partners are final." The teacher then spoke loudly, as if reading Evelyn's mind, "I don't care what you have to say, this is the last time you'll ever have to interact with these people, so get over yourselves."

Evelyn winced, "Sorry, spoke too soon."

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"Let's make a deal."

Daryl glanced over at Evelyn in curiosity, wondering what she could possibly want to strike a deal about.

"Let's come back here every year," She said tiredly, lulling her head to look out the window at the dark sky full of stars.

The two of them had come out to the treehouse after school and stayed there for hours, just talking.

His eyebrows furrowed, "To Dart street?" He asked in confusion, wondering why she would was brining up coming back to the street they lived on.

Evelyn rolled her eyes, a small yawn escaping her lips, "To the treehouse on Dart street." She replied, "It's our place and- and even though we're gonna be leaving soon, I don't wanna lose it."

Daryl softened, knowing exactly where she was coming from.

The girl had applied to multiple colleges that would further help her become a published author, almost all out of state, and was just waiting to hear back from them. Daryl though, was set on finding a garage to work at as soon as high school was done.