The After Effect | ✓

T H I R T E E N

•C H A P T E R  T H I R T E E N
T H E  A F T E R  E F F E C T•

moving on from

someone you loved

is a constant battle

it physically and

mentally drains you

-F R A N C E S C A-

Once upon a time, I was completely and utterly in love. My eyes lit up when I saw him, my smile widened and my shoulders felt lighter. He was my everything, I lived because of him. He was the only reason I wanted to wake up everyday, because I could see him.

Now when I catch a glimpse of his hazel eyes -with green specks- I mentally glare at him. When he smiles at me, I force a grin, just to make him believe.  I had changed in just over a year. But so had he.

He was really a lying cheater. Redundancy I know. I mean if you cheat you are liar. But he was even worse, that you had to call him a lying cheater.

"Hey how ya' feeling?" Camila says, placing her hands on my shoulders from the side.

"Never better," I reply through gritted teeth.

She lets out a soft laugh. But I don't laugh with her. I glare as I see Lara and Leon talking. Okay maybe I'm overreacting because after all, it's not like exes couldn't be friends. I take a deep breath and plaster a smile across my face. I walk over and link my arm with Leon's and I turn to face Lara.

"Hello," I say in a fake sweet voice.

Lara could easily see through my act. Leon -being the absolutely idiot he is- didn't notice anything. He merely kissed my cheek. As Leon kisses my cheek Lara mouthes bitch. I just give her a smirk. Lara smiles again at Leon.

"Well I'll be gone. See you later Leon...Francesca," She says with my name with pure hatred in her voice.

"See you later Lara Bear!" I call after her, she stood to pull the middle finger and I laugh.

Leon -being blind whilst idiotic- didn't see anything. He wraps his arm around my waist and lulls me into a hug. He kisses my neck softly and smiles against it.

"Hey," Leon whispers.

"Hi," I mumble, trying to not glare through my tone.

"Do you want to go out?" Leon asks, bring his face away my neck.

"We've got school," I point out, and he gives me a do you think I'm stupid look. "Later," I add on, my mouth in the shape of an 'o'

"You are adorable when you're clueless," Leon muses with a playful smile.

"I was not clueless!" I protest and Leon throws his head back laughing.

Now I really wondered how we looked to everybody. We looked like two people having a couple moment. I knew what came next. I pulled Leon's face to mine and kissed his lips. I could feel the eyes on us, which made me kiss him harder. We pull away after a while, and Leon runs his fingers through my hair.

"I think we need to get to class," Leon mumbles against my lips.

"Do we have to?" I ask.

SAY YES!

"I think so, but we've got a date later," He replies kissing my cheek.

Oh right, forgot about that.

I internally groan and take his hand. I lead him to class and we take our new seats next to each other. It wasn't hard to get  seats next to each other again. Leon told the person sitting next to me to piss of and they scurried away. If we weren't fake dating I would've found that cute.

*~*~*

"Are you sure I look fine?" I ask Camila nervously.

I hate it when I would be so confident to go on a date, but when I looked at myself in the mirror, all the confidence drained out of me. Camila squeezes my shoulders, telling me I look great, non-verbally. I nod trying to believe her. I don't know why I was so nervous to go on this date, after all Leon and I had gone on many dates in the past.

Think of it like it was the past

Nope, that's not helping me.

The doorbell rings and I gulp. I walk downstairs hesitantly, each step slower than the last. I turn the brass knob, and see Leon. He had dressed casually, but he admittedly looked amazing. A light blue button up, paired with blue jeans and some black converse. He looked like he had grabbed things from the bottom of his cupboard and just threw it on.

I was dressed in some black angle grazer jeans, and a plain white shirt, and a black leather jacket thrown over it. Leon kisses my cheek, complimenting me on me outfit. I thank him and return it, telling him how amazing he looked -which unfortunately wasn't really a lie-

"Okay so last time I kinda took you somewhere, um different, today I was kinda just going for a restaurant?" Leon says and I nod.

"Perfect,"

When we step out the car, I look up at the restaurant. There weren't any other restaurants around it, or anything really for that matter. You could hear faint music and chattering coming from the place. Through the windows I could see a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the whole room had a yellow glow, from all the lights they  had.

Leon's had clasps around mine, and he leads me to the door. There were a few waiters standing at the door, and one behind a podium. Leon tells them his surname and he crosses it off on his list. He grabs two menus and leads us in. It was a secluded booth in a corner, and light shining right down onto it.

Leon  pulls out the chair for me, and I sit down. The waiter puts down the menus, and I take mine and open it holding it in front of my face. I peek over the edge and see Leon looking at me with an amused smile. I blush and hesitantly put the menu down.

"What's up?" Leon asks, putting his menu down and placing his elbows on top of it.

"Nothing, everything is perfect,"

-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-
I don't really know what I'm writing, honestly. Chapter 15 or 16 I'm revealing who the unknown was. I can't do this, I need something to write.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I mean I have this inspiration, but not enough for chapter 14;15, so I have to reveal in 16. I just have to.

~Lexy 😈