The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

2.6: When The Languages You Know Are Limited

2.6: When The Languages You Know Are Limited

It's been around 10 minutes and 55 seconds since the last time I touched anything or anyone.

I know... I know... even if I deviated from my psyche and touched something, anything, there would be no reason for Ryder to notice it. But then something in the way he texted me made my whole insides burn whenever I re-read the text (FYI, I was on the count of 264 re-reads). It wasn't even a plea. It was an order. I felt like I was once again reminded by Ryder Black the Bad Boy from two years ago, not Ryder Black the (gentle and loving) Precious Person.

It was, surprisingly, a perfect amalgamation of good/bad/scary/fluffy feelings.

I even wished if I could levitate in the air so that my feet didn't touch the ground. It didn't feel right to say to him that 'yes yes I heed to your words' while I was probably still touching all kinds of germs and bacteria and probably some year-old gum under my feet. Wait, when Ryder said 'don't touch anything or anyone', did Oxygen and CO2 from the people around me counted too?

My darned Stars, this was all so confusing. All this stress definitely wasn't good for my skin and now I would definitely age prematurely.

Alex's house was huge enough to gather more than 50 people, and sure enough, there was probably a total of 68 to 76 people (people kept coming and leaving). I avoided all of them as I stood just outside of the door. Trisha and Lauren had tried to hard to make me come in, and I didn't particularly like standing in front of someone's house while facing the street, but I stood still and said to them to go ahead without me.

Finally, after 14 minutes and 33 seconds of totally zero interaction with anything or anyone, I could see Ryder's truck pulled over the street.

He immediately ran to my direction.

"What are you doing outside?" he asked, and then he saw that my feet were practically shaking because I couldn't sit still since my bladder was acting up and he clenched his jaw. "Okay, just get in. I'll scare anyone who's queueing in front of the toilet."

"I'm probably two minutes away from peeing involuntarily," I said honestly. "And I didn't touch anything or anyone beforehand."

"That's... okay... that's admirable, actually," he almost put a hand on my back, but I swatted his hand away.

"Don't give me any surprise touch because 95% of my concentration is holding my pee!"

And whenever he touched me or just simply within around my personal space, Ryder always made me function way less than I'd preferred.

After the toilet, I could finally regain a bit of my balance. The house was full of people, and as the night went on, I felt like the original amount had almost doubled. True to my hunch, there were way more liquor than what high-school parties ever offered. And way-way-way more trash kicked around on the floor.

Ryder held my hand and then guided me to find a spot that wasn't occupied.

"What were you thinking April? They dragged you here and you just said yes?"

"Yeah..." I nodded hesitantly. "Trisha mentioned that the guest-list doubled after she said that I'm coming, so...-"

"There you are!" Alex's blonde hair appeared and before long I could see his green eyes glinted at me. That was when I realized that he was sticking out his head so close to my head. "We've been looking for you."

In a split second, Ryder had already had his hand around Alex's collar. It was scary to see Ryder losing control like this. His dark eyes were glinting with a promise of pain, and his breathing was jagged. "What the hell were you thinking, fuckface?"