Nadine's Stuck.

ELEVEN

Nadine's POV:

No matter how much I want them to, my eyes don't leave Riley. He's barley given me a glance.

I wonder if Riley has a freshman and if it's a girl. If he does and they are, I feel bad for her. And if anything were to happen to her, then it would be my fault. My fault because I didn't tell anyone what he did to me. If I did, maybe Riley wouldn't be allowed to room with a freshman girl. Or a freshman at all. Maybe he would even go to jail.

Who am I kidding? People like Riley don't go to jail. Who are they going to believe? A poor immigrant's daughter or a white man that comes from high power family? Not a hard guess.

I'm not telling anyone anyways. I need to ignore what happened just like Riley is doing.

I really don't want to look at Riley, but I really can't help it. Everytime I try to look away, my eyes find there way back to his unfairly handsome face.

I feel like I need to cover up more.

"Uh, Rosewood," Cade starts, breaking my eyes away from Riley. Finally. "What happened to all your...stuff?"

I shrug. I was hoping he wouldn't bring that up, but why wouldn't he?

"You okay?"

I nod and he moves away from the subjects and my eyes move away from him, back to Riley.

. . .

The others are all sitting on the floor teasing or talking about something I couldn't care less about.

Akiko laughs, looking over at me. "Riley, looks like you have a little secret admirer, huh?"

My eyes snap away from Riley. Had it been that obvious, the way I was staring at him? How long had it been? But Akiko was wrong. I'm not admiring him. I am anything but a Riley admirer.

Riley smirk. "Appears so. Get in line, Nadia, was it?"

I feel my body go stiff. I need to cry the kind you can feel. The kind that you notice. The kind that makes you want to scream. The kind that makes you want to run away. Makes you want to fight. But I do nothing. What's up with me and freezing?

Flight, fight, or freeze, isn't it? Why does my body always choose freeze?

I could have ran away from what was happening, but instead my mind ran from toddler to teen, exhaustingly.

I could have fought my way out of it, but instead I fight with myself.

I froze. My body froze and I couldn't do anything about it.

"Speechless are ya', bunny?" Riley says, and I finally feel him recognize me. That's what he called me that night, after all.

Maybe he called me that because I can be quite energetic when I'm regressed, always jumping. Or maybe because I had Zara with me that night and I told him bunny facts.

Bunnies are social creatures - which is ironic. They're proven to have a better quality life when they have a buddy. I have Zara and Zara has me. We improve each others quality of life. She's all I ever needed and it was and would be silly for me to think otherwise.

I'm a bunny and Riley is a wolf.

I want to go to my safe space that, perhaps, isn't so safe anymore

Diffently not safe with Riley here.

Or Cade. Or the other guys.

I have to remember my promises and most importantly, I need to keep them.

"You guys are, like, so insenstive. It peeves me." Elana says, promptly.

"It peeves you? Who the fuck says peeve?" Akiko raises an eyebrow, teasingly.

"I do."

"Yeah, 'cause you're a freak."

"I'm not!" Elana scowls and the whole group laughs. I don't understand why they laughed or why it's funny to make people angry or upset. It's insenstive, like Elana said.

I feel a wave of relief as the conversations moves away from my stares at Riley. I feel someone staring me as well - not Riley.

I feel Cade staring at me. Who, strangely, hasn't talked much. I look back at him, not in they eyes. Eyes are scary. The window to a persons soul. To their true self.

His look feels like he's concerned for me, but if I looked him in the eyes, I could see his true self. With Riley, I ignored the soul I saw in his brown eyes. The soul of lust, ignited by me. By something I did.

If Cade's concern is so fake, why does it feel so real?

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Check out the first chapter of my new book 'In His Eyes' on my second account KeepingKeroppi!

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[Ahh, we made it to 100 upvotes by the time my birthday came!!! Thank you, thank you!! Also, sorry if I don't update as frequently, I am going through writer's insecurity (I don't know if that's a real term, haha), and I basically feel like everything I write is trash :(. Anyways, hope you all enjoy this chapter, and thank you again!!!]

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Word count: 843!