Wilder

7.

Six months ago:

I trembled in the cold, my muscles involuntarily clenching, and I raised my eyes just to be rewarded with a dark sky. The reflex reaction reminded me of how much of a fool I was to wait for Wilder in such weather. It wasn't exactly cold, or at least it wasn't at first. But it snuck up on you, until, in one moment, you realized you might actually fall into hypothermia.

My phone rang just as my teeth started clattering against one another.

"I'll...be late, a bit more", Wilder's voice was heavy, annoyed, "I ran into...some trouble. Go inside somewhere, and find a table for three"

BEEP.

I held the phone in my hand, barely feeling its weight from how my fingers were. Wilder's such a fucking asshole, always attracting trouble and leaving me hanging like that.

"Fucking moron", I cursed the cold and damn concrete, turning around and heading to the closest coffee shop, in search for a table for three.

~~~

I slowly regained sensation in my limbs as the tea in front of me grew colder, and my mood darker.

It's easy to get pissed off when someone sends you off to wait, and then blows you off for another full of fifteen minutes. And also brings a person Q with them. I glared at the waiter who gave me a weird look in return, and I held back from flinching when someone suddenly plopped down next to me in a rough manner.

Wilder's elbow grazed my skin, and a chill made its way up my arm and into my system. My eyes wandered off to his tense figure in a stance that was falsely relaxed, and I noticed his veins were more prominent and eye-catching than before.

A blue that sent off a bad feeling, like the color of eerie.

Wilder raised his eyebrows at my untouched tea, and then reached for it, nodding to the right meaningfully before gulping down a few times.

I raised my glance to see a girl awkwardly shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and Wilder's voice broke the silence.

"Cas, this is, umm, Kara", his voice was one straight line, a static. He appeared to be in one of his moods, so I just tore my glance away from him and gestured for the girl to sit.

"It's Kierra", she said, suddenly sounding annoyed but not even earning a glance from the skinny boy next to me, "I already told you"

She was short and curvy, her eyes a soft brown and her hair strawberry-blonde. A pretty face under smeared make-up, she was obviously upset as she tried to fix her hair with shaky fingers, but she pretended she was fine.

What a weird crowd has gathered.

"Ah...are you okay?", she asked, and I traced her glance to Wilder who was staring off into the ceiling with a slightly displeased expression, his cheeks lightly blushed from warming up.

"I..It's bleeding", Kierra said, and my eyes searched for something that could trigger the worry in her voice. A droplet so round, so perfect, was forming on one of Wilder's knuckles.

"Oh..It's nothing", he shook his hand, and the surreal picture dispersed when the drop fell down and dragged a trace of red across his skin. So, he really did run into some trouble.

"I..uh, I'm so thankful...", Kierra sighed, bringing her hand up just to let it fall once she saw how much her fingers were shaking.

"Ummm", she bit her lip harshly enough to draw blood, and I saw tears fill her eyes to the brim, "I...I was.."

And so the tears started.

A waiter that was close enough to catch up on what was happening, froze up in half a movement and then just turned around and left. The sound of slight sobs filled the dead silence, the waiter bringing a bunch of tissues a second later. The blonde girl buried her face in the paper towels, and I just frowned before turning to Wilder.

He didn't even move an inch.

"So, you gonna explain any of this?", I said, and he crooked his head to the side in a fashion that was just a tad creepy.

"Ah...well, Kara here, ummm, she had trouble with her boyfriend..Ex boyfriend. So I helped. That's it, Cas", he responded as if he was commenting on the weather. Then he just averted his eyes back to the ceiling and stared off into the distance with a disinterested glance.

As the sound of weeping hung in the air.

~~~

And that was how I met the living fire, a girl named Kierra. To cut a long story short, at first she fell in love with her savior, Wilder. She loved him in a manner a rabbit could love a fox. And then she realized he was a little too off for her tastes.

And then she tried to love someone else. Again and again. And it failed time and time again, just how you know the sun is bound to come down and kiss earth at the end of each day. Her eyes became less lively, less vibrant, less alive.

You might say she became like the one she loved. It was a sad tale from the beginning, something that I just watched and knew the ending. I knew Wilder was not capable of something as vulnerable as love. I knew he was the worst person to fall in love with.

So, tell me, why don't we ever listen to ourselves?