The Distance Between Us

Four.

You look so good right now."

Elle had just finished curling the last strand of my hair as I was finishing up my makeup. I looked up to her reflection in the mirror as I smiled and replied, "Thank you, but I'm so nervous I need a fucking cigarette."

Elle let out a laugh as she said, "You'll be okay Lily, it's just a date with a guy you've had a crush on for like three months now."

My stomach fluttered as the thought of Cillian popped up in my head. After our first performance at the bar, Cillian and I had developed our friendship and began to hang out a lot more often, and it wasn't until earlier this week that he had asked me out to dinner during the weekend. Now that the weekend is here, I have become increasingly nervous for the outing.

I remained standing in front of the mirror, examining my entire look, growing more self-conscious as the seconds passed. The more I stared at myself, the more overwhelming my thoughts grew, tempting me to not go out at all and just hide under the covers.

Before I had the chance to give into my thoughts, my phone started to ring, and my heart fluttered once I saw Cillian's name across my phone screen. I took a deep breath as I answered.

"Hello?" I heard some shuffling in the background before Cillian responded.

"Hey Lily, I'm leaving my dorm right now, I should be there in about three minutes."

"Okay, I'll just start to make my way out until then," I nervously chewed on my bottom lip as the call ended and Elle gave me a reassuring hug, along with her infamous line:

"No fucking on the first date please!" I snorted out a laugh as I playfully rolled my eyes at her as I walked out of the dorm and out of the building.

Just as I reached the door to exit the building, an arm pulled me harshly to the side, causing a slight whimper to escape my lips as I winced in pain.

I whipped my head around to look at who had pulled me, and my heart started to beat faster as my eyes slowly widened.

"You don't seem too happy to see me, Lily."

It took me a beat too late to respond, earning a smirk from Joel.

"That's what I thought you stupid bitch."

I flinched at Joel's choice of wording as I tried to find a way to escape out of the building. Since Cillian and I began hanging out three months ago, Cillian was kind enough to walk me to the majority of my classes, even though most of his classes were on the complete opposite side of campus. However, Cillian walking me to my classes meant that Joel always grew increasingly annoyed that he was not able to walk next to me. I still remember the first encounter of Joel noticing Cillian walking with me, and Joel had been so agitated that he had punched a wall, leaving him bruised for 2 weeks.

Since then, Joel's facial features have turned dark. His eyes were dull from what was once a light brown color, his smile never making an appearance (unless it was a sarcastic remark of his). I was also not the only one to have noticed this, as other classmates have been talking amongst themselves, saying that he may have been doing some drug to be acting and looking like that.

Joel had become increasingly aggressive, so when he pulled my arm just now, I feared for the worst since his strong hold on me was going to definitely leave a bruise.

I tried to tug my arm back, but Joel's grip tightened around it, causing a deeper agonizing pain.

"Let go of me. I mean it." Joel let out a sarcastic laugh as he held on even tighter.

"You really think you can go hang out with that prick and just leave me hanging like that? Do you know how much you've been torturing me for the past three months?" I frowned as my blood began to boil within me as I became annoyed with this encounter.

I scoffed as I replied, "I've told you multiple times that I am not interested in dating you, and I don't think I can make myself any more clear than that."

"Is everything alright here?" The sudden question made me turn my head around so fast that a jolt in my neck made me flinch, but I immediately relaxed as I saw Cillian standing right by the entrance, a worried look on his face.

However, that did not stop Joel from loosening his grip on me. I tried to push away, but once again, Joel's grip only tightened.

"Hello Cillian, fancy seeing you here. I hope you're not taking my Lily out, we have made some plans for tonight." My face clearly showed the disgust that I felt from Joel's lies, but thankfully Cillian was smarter than that to believe him.

Cillian calmly looked at me before looking back at Joel and replying, "I believe she just told you loud and clear that she has no interest in being with you. I believe if you stopped snorting all of that cocaine and whatever other drugs that you're doing you might be able to think clearly."

I glanced between Cillian and Joel, watching their interaction unfold as Joel was fuming in anger.

Cillian stool out his hand for me, which I almost instantly grabbed with my hand, and with one last pull, I was free from Joel's grasp.

I did not dare to turn back to look at Joel, rather my eyes looked directly ahead towards the exit, still holding onto Cillian's hand like my life depended on it. If it hadn't been for the altercation that had just occurred, I would've been more anxious at the fact that Cillian and I were holding hands. However, now that we were outside walking away from the building, I couldn't help but feel my cheeks become a deep shade of red as I became self-aware that I was actually going on a date with him. As if he read my mind, Cillian turned to look at me and asked,

"Are you okay? We can go out another time if you're shaken up. I only brought you outside so he won't see where your actual room is."

At this point, we had stopped walking since we were far enough from my dorm that Joel wouldn't be able to find us, so I looked at our entangled hands, then bac up to him as I replied,

"I'm okay, I feel better now that I'm with you. Thank you for that by the way, I didn't know how else I would've been able to get out of that situation."  Cillian nodded as I then continued, "And to answer your question, I do still want to go out. But, I will need a cigarette to calm myself down from whatever the fuck just happened."

We both let out a laugh as Cillian had already taken out a cigarette in compliance. I watched as he put the cigarette in his mouth, watching the way he brought his hands up to his mouth, one hand covering the wind from reaching the flame of the lighter, and the other hand holding the lighter, swiftly igniting the cigarette.

The sight in front of me had me feeling some type of way, something I couldn't even explain. All I knew is that he just looked so hot even if he was just lighting a cigarette. I must have been staring for too long because I then caught Cillian's attention as he looked down at me and asked, "Is everything alright, Lily?"

The skin between his eyebrows creased with concern as the cigarette was still in his mouth, his jawline and structured cheekbones being more defined under the dim lighting that was above us. I was stunned. It felt like with every single second I looked at him, the more stunning he looked. How a man like Cillian would ever notice me out of all of the prettier women on campus was beyond me.

"Yea, everything's fine," I gave him a small smile as I began to feel my cheeks flaming red from all of my thoughts. I was so glad I didn't say all of these things out loud, otherwise I would rather jump off of a cliff if Cillian knew the way I thought about him.

He asked me if I was sure as he passed me the cigarette and placed a hand on my arm for comfort. I felt a slight shiver run through me, the source coming right from where Cillian's hand was placed. I let out the puff of smoke into the night sky, watching the smoke slowly fade out as I looked back at him and smiled and told him that I'm completely okay.

"Good."

Cillian returned the smile as his arm snaked around my waist and we continued our walk down the walkway to wherever Cillian had planned for our date to be.

This was one of the last memories that I had that night, until Cillian had dropped me back off and my vision went black.