erik menendez // if you love me..don't let go

chapter thirty-one

Scarlett's POV

As much as I wanted to live in the moment and soak up all the goodness and love, we couldn't stay here forever. The rain was now harsh and it pelted down so hard. Our clothes were completely soaked through and my hair basically just got a free wash.

"Want to go back to my place?" I blurted out to Erik.

He looked to the school and then back to me. "I mean, I'm not going back to the school so I'm definitely not going back home. Your place it is."

He got up and then used his hands to pull me up with him.

***

"Don't worry, my dad isn't home yet." I reassured him as we stepped into the house. Hopefully by the time Dad did get home, all the wet trials we left behind would be gone.

Pulling his arm, I dragged him with me up the stairs and to my en suite bathroom. "We need to get out of these wet clothes before we get sick. And preferably shower." I giggled.

Without warning, Erik yanked off his shirt in one swift motion. I gawked at him, finding myself not being able to look at his gorgeous torso. "Damn." I muttered to myself.

He looked at me and laughed, but then quickly looked away. I could see the redness creeping up on his cheeks and it was so cute. Knowing that he still got nervous around me made my stomach fill with so many butterflies, it almost hurt.

"You can go first." I decided to break the heated silence. I walked over to the walk-in shower and turned it on.

"Towels are here," I pointed to the shelf full of fluffy white towels. "And you can dump your clothes in the hamper. I'll dry them while you're in the shower."

Erik's POV

As soon as the door closed behind Scarlett, I started pacing the floor. If Scarlett didn't leave for another minute, I'm one-hundred percent sure I would've asked if she could shower with me, to "save water bills".  I wasn't thinking of anything in that way, but for some reason the words wanted to slip out of my mouth. Maybe it was genuinely because I wanted to save her water bills, but something was telling me it wasn't that.

All of a sudden I felt self conscious of myself, standing fully naked in a girl's bathroom. The door wasn't locked, meaning she could full on walk in on me. I thought of Jose, and the after-practice-showers. A shiver was sent down my spine, but then it quickly went away at one thought. There was a reason I didn't make a play of locking the door, because I knew that she wouldn't do that. And I wouldn't do that to her.

***

While Scarlett was taking her shower, I decided to snoop around her room. I've never been here, and I was quite curious.

Her room was like a reflection of her and her mind. When you first looked at it, it looked clean and set up nicely. The furniture was in respectable places, and nothing scattered the floor. But when you looked closely, you could see the little cluttered parts. Like on her vanity, different types of jewelry scattered one shelf while hair stuff scattered the other. She probably had it organized at once, but then as she worked it in, it got more cluttered. Like when I first met her, I didn't see all the parts of her that made her who she was. I just saw her beauty and kindness. But then as we explored our way through each other, I slowly found out the bits and pieces that she kept inside. For example, she may seemed like a people pleaser with her classmates or friends, but in reality she was actually really stubborn and wouldn't just got along with everything. Or the fact that she was actually a huge procrastinator, yet she always managed to get good grades on exams.

When my eyes focused to her desk, something caught my eye. It was a book. I walked over to it and picked up. I hesitated at first, not wanting to go through her private stuff, but something about it reeled me in. The cover of it was plain leather, and it seemed to have been through a lot. There were many parts where the cover had been bent or torn. It felt like If I dropped it, it would completely rip in half.

A string attached to it was located somewhere in between the pages. Slowly, I opened to the page, surprised to find long paragraphs and such good handwriting. Letting my mind get the better of me, I slowly started to read each and every word.

10/24

I wish I could say it was a good day. But it wasn't. Nothing about today was good. Except maybe the chocolate chip pancakes I had this morning. But everything else was bad. No, horrible. I saw Erik today in the hallways, just like every day. I thought by now that I would get used to having to ignore him, but I hadn't. I see him and notice how he tries so hard to keep his eyes trained ahead of him. It hurts so much. And I can't tell if he feels that way too. But I feel like if I did know that he was hurting too, it would make me feel even worse. Because I know that I would be the source of that pain. I almost talked to him in lab. Our arms brushed and I felt so alive that I got a surge of adrenaline. But then that immediately went away when he made a point of being as far as possible from me as he could. Felt a bit immature to me, but who was I to talk? I was relishing in the moment that he would finally talk to me, but I wasn't even talking to him. Maybe tomorrow I will. Maybe he'll make the mistake of looking at me and realize all that he lost. But I'm not going to get my hopes up.

Scarlett

She signed her name off with a heart, one that wrapped around the cursive script of her name. And all of a sudden, I felt like it was wrapping around my heart, squeezing it so hard. I knew she was experiencing hurt, but I just didn't know it was like this. When I stepped away from her in lab, I didn't think about how she would feel of that. I just did it because I couldn't stand touching her but not talking to her. I felt like a fool reading that, and I almost wish I never did. But I'm also glad that I did. Because now I know, if something like this ever were to happen again, I wouldn't be afraid of talking to her. Over here, I was terrified that she didn't want to talk to me. But apparently she had that same longing feeling that I had. And as I thought more about that, my heart slowly started to lose that pain and loosened from the grip. It now fluttered with new beginnings.