Saving Herself

Darian you loner

 It had been weeks of this already. Aurelia running to someone Ben barely even knew. Didn't Aurelia like Ben? Why was Aurelia with someone else? Yes, she has known Darian for longer than Ben has, but Ben was, after all, by her side for the longest. And now she was pulling away? There was nothing Ben did wrong. He, of course, had never done anything wrong. For all this time, he just tried to help his friend, as honest as he is. It was her. She was making excuses more often. She was more distant. This didn't feel right.

"Hi.", Ben smiled, "You're Darian, right?"

Darian looked up, surprised by the sudden attention he was receiving.

"Yeah."

"I'm Ben, Aurelia's friend.", Ben said.

"Ah, nice to meet you."

"Say, Darian, are you and Aurelia... old classmates?"

"Yeah, but we weren't like friends friends. It was rather a classmate kind of thing."

Ben nodded. "I see, I see..."

Darian chuckled lightly.

"Hey.", Ben leaned closer, "I have a feeling Aurelia has been acting quite... off as of late. Don't you think?"

Darian blinked confused. "Off? What do you mean?"

Ben leaned back, thinking. "Well... she's kind of pulling away from me. And don't get me wrong, I know her. For a real long time. And that's just totally unlike her. Usually she's pretty open and tells me all sorts of shit, but now I feel like she's avoiding me."

Overwhelmed by the sudden information, Darian frowns. "I... I don't really know much but I don't know... maybe she's busy. Or has something on her mind."

Ben laughed. "Yeah... maybe. Or... she might be mad about something she did – what if she frames me by feeding you some made up story about me, to make it seem like I'm in the wrong?"

Darian laughed. "Nah, she didn't do anything like that."

"Yeah, I know.", Ben leaned closer to Darian again, placing his elbows on the table. "Hey, you and I, we get along pretty well, no?"

"Yeah?"

"I mean – yeah, Aurelia is a good friend, but you, me, we seem to click from the start. Feels simple, huh? She's quite complicated, on the contrary."

The way Darian looked at Ben – something new to him had blossomed in the depths of his heart. He looked at Ben with admiration, his friendliness and smooth talk had gotten to him. A smile bloomed on his face.

Ben smirked. He has brought Darian exactly there where he wanted him to be.

As they were talking, Aurelia had rushed into the room, seeing Ben and Darian in a conversation. Darian was smiling broadly. Aurelia's smile slightly faded.

Her idea of running away from all the lack of care Ben had given her, wanting to turn to someone else, it was all gone. It was frustrating. Why couldn't she get to Darian as easily as Ben did? How could she get to him without making things more awkward as they already were? Why was it, that in the end, Ben was always there? Truly, Aurelia was blind to his manipulations. He had coaxed a lot of things out of her that she didn't want to share in the first place. But she wasn't too blind to understand that it hurt being around Ben for just a day longer.

Aurelia put on a smile, got closer to them and sat beside them, quietly listening to their conversation about violins and flutes.

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