Right There || Dylan O'Brien

chapter eight; 2/2

The brunette stood up when he saw the girl walking away from Jesse, leaning against the door frame to wait for her to open the front door. He followed her inside, closing the door behind him before talking to her. "Is it more fun to talk to him than to meet my friends on Wednesday? There has to be a reason why you can't come. He must've asked you to do something after school."

"Oh, of course he did," she turned around, dropping her bag on the floor and pulling of her shoes in quick movements. Sarcasm was heard in her voice, annoyed by him starting about it like that. "We like each other so much, we can't get enough of each other."

"Well, it did seem like it," he defended himself. "You were smiling and laughing, talking. He was freaking touching your arm to make sure you crossed the road safely."

"And what if he did?" in some way she calmed down, sitting down on the couch as she sighed. "I mean, it's not like you nor I can do anything about it. I didn't know what to do, what am I supposed to say to him?"

It went quiet in the living room. Dylan was standing there with his mouth open, possibly thinking of something to say back but he couldn't. Yeah, what was she supposed to say? He didn't know how she felt about him. He only knew how he felt about her.

"As I said," she shrugged her shoulders, looking into his eyes, "I had no idea what to say. I'm naïve, I didn't even get why he touched my arm until you told me. Me and guys, no. Not a good combination, never even thought about dating anyone." She paused, before  continuing quietly, "And so no, it's not because Jesse and I are doing something after school. I just can't come."

He watched her as he sat down next to her, noticing how she played with her fingers. She didn't look relaxed, like yesterday and the day before.  "Can you at least explain-..."

"I want to, but I can't."

"Are you in danger?"

"This isn't a freaking action movie, Dylan," she snapped when looking up at him, but it didn't last long until she smiled a little. "Nobody is stalking me or threatening me. There's also nobody eavesdropping our conversation in the other room, to bring out a gun to shoot me if I tell you why."

It was contiguous, because in a second he also found himself smiling. "Why do you always make it seem like I'm dumb? First you react you get all sarcastic on me, now you snap at me when I ask you if you are in danger. I care, okay? I care about you."

"Okay, but..." she giggled, shrugging awkwardly. "I don't know. I can't help it."

"It's fine," he promised her, carefully caressing a pieces of hair out of her face. "And if you can't come, you don't have to explain. We can do something else this week, if you want to."

"I want to, it's just-..."

"Hey, it's fine-..."

"No, Dylan, let me talk," she cut him off, shaking her head. Now they were being all serious with each other, she could tell him. It was fine, he wasn't going to laugh at her. "I'm just afraid, it's hard to explain why. I want to meet your friends, of course, but... I'm just this girl-..."

"You are a woman."

"Dylan, stop it. It's hard enough for me to talk about this," she blushed, letting out a deep sigh. "I'm probably not even going to be able to say anything because-... It's because I'm afraid. I'm just afraid to do something wrong." She frowned, trying to avoid his gaze, "Your friends are probably very nice and all, they're fun. It's just me."

"What if I say we meet up with Tyler, Seana..." he thought about it, stopping after a few seconds as he continued to caress her hair. "Tomorrow at their house, I'm curious to see how everything looks like. I'm curious.  And well, you know Tyler, he's a cool dude and Seana is his fiancé. She's nice. We'll see what happens from there."

Dylan was absolutely sweet, understanding, not to forget caring. He wanted her to be okay, to be happy and to feel comfortable. And he succeeded, because she didn't want to be anywhere than with him.   

And that was incredibly scary.