Labels│simon minter / ashley marie surcombe

XVII. "too late"

^^^vik's ex😭😭
this was going to be "vik's adorable gamer gf" but then they announced they broke up on the 26 of February💔

+Vik+

"Thanks for getting the books, Vik," Kay says shyly and I smile, melting in the inside when she says my name.

"No problem." She flashes a grateful grin and shuts the trunk of her car, where the books I had toppled over with in the corridor are neatly stacked in even rows.

"What made you decide on that series?" I ask her as we walk back to the campus.

"I saw the first book just laying on the ground of the library. It was open to a random page, and when I picked it up, the first arrangement of words I saw written on it were enough to convince me to read it." She smiles at the memory.

"What was it?"

"Hm?"

"The words."

Her eyes light up as she looks at me and recites the sentence, "'But now maybe I need you the way the earth needs the sun to see another day.'" I swear her eyes were glittering like light against a diamond.

"Lovely analogy, isn't it?" Kay sighs dreamily, breaking her gaze into my eyes and fixing her own on the doors in front of us. I almost walk straight into them, caught off guard.

She laughs at my clumsiness, which only causes a brighter shade of red to appear on my cheeks that would last until we reached my classroom.

"We should get back to class, I think. See you around," Kay says, flashing a smile once more before walking down the hallway to her own class.

God, Wordley was something else.

•••

Kay's words resonated in my thoughts. It's so hard to think without hearing her voice replay over and over. Her analogy is probably tattooed into a wall of my mind.

"Vik, man, are you listening to me?"

I blink and stare at Josh's face with a blank expression.

"No, sorry...I was thinking about something else."

"You mean you didn't hear my entire ramble about Simon?"

"Nope."

"Fuck's sake, Vik, I thought you were as concerned for him as I am," he groans and chucks an eraser at my arm.

"Boys in the back, I hope you're paying attention because you're going to need to know this for the test tomorrow," the lame-ass teacher barks before resuming the irrelevant lesson.

I bend down and pick up Josh's eraser and notice two little initials and a heart inscribed on his wrist as I try to hand the object to him:

FN

"What does FN stand for?" I inquire, reaching for Josh's wrist and inspecting the ink.

Josh's face imitates the colour of a ripe tomato as he rips his arm away my fingers, "Nothing."

A cheeky smile creeps into my face. "Freya Nightingale?"