Rose Thorns & Love Letters

15 ➪ Love, Oliver

•Camilla•

5/5/1872
Darling, will you come home? Please?
Love, Oliver

_________________

"Call him." Aisha says before taking a long sip from the straw of her strawberry milkshake. The slurpy sound that indicates the end of a drink snaps me out of the trance I did not even know I was in. I had been staring at my phone for God knows how long deciding whether I should make the call or not.

It has been two days since Phoenix left me the note and three days since I had seen him. I am stressing.

I'm not even sure why I am so nervous to call his line. I've seen him in person, I've talked to him in person, so there is no reason I should be procrastinating. Maybe it's the fact that talking on the phone seems...intimate.

Not that there haven't been intimate moments between the two of us.

I do not understand this whole thing between Phoenix and I. One minute he's hot, the next he's as cold as ice. One minute he's kissing my forehead and attending to my cuts and bruises, the next he's bruising me internally with the help of his hurtful words.

Not to mention that nothing about how we met was normal. He kept going on about my Father and how I am whore. Then I got kidnapped by him and nearly shot. Gosh, just thinking about it all makes my head feel like its going to explo—

"Call. Him." Aisha says again, this time with authority and determination. I slightly glance up to see her gaze fixed on me but I cannot bring myself to meet it.

I have been doing the same thing - staring into my cellular device like its some fortune teller ready to tell me about my future - for the entire lunch period and it's almost time to get to class.

I let out a heavy sigh and recline into the creme coloured leather seat I am resting in. "I can't. Not in here. It's too loud." I argue. Pathetic. I already know the solution to my little dilemma before Aisha fixes it for me.

"Go outside?" Her upper lips curls up as if to say that was too obvious. I try to think of something— anything to say to counter her but nothing is deemed worthy enough to escape the barrier of my lips.

"Listen, darling." She forges a British accent and closes her hands over mine. I cringe at the sound of it. "I am going to be completely honest with you. When you first started here, I was convinced he was your boyfriend even though you told me he wasn't."

"So..." Aisha wriggles her eyebrows and slightly smirks. "Not your boyfriend, huh?" She asks in an all-knowing tone.

I roll my eyes and suppress the smile ready to grow on my face. "He's not. He's just...someone I know." We turn a corner and Aisha points out the science labs.

"Pff. Just someone I know my ass." She laughs. "He kissed your forehead." She elongates the last word and pushes open the door leading to the Literature Department.

My eyes bulge out of my head at the sight. The smell of a freshly opened book infects my insides and I cannot help but inhale it all up. There are pages of presumably different books stuck to each corner in the huge hall creating heart shapes. It is a wonderful, artistic masterpiece.