In This Moment

Chapter 9: Double Dates

It had beena week since the coffee shop incident, and Elliot had managed to avoid me the entire time. I was used to being ignored, so it didn’t affect me very much. I had to admit I did enjoy the feeling of not being alone. I continued to sit at my lunch table alone, hoping he would come and sit with me, but every time I looked up to see where he was, I could never find him. I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of disappointment settled in the pit of my stomach.

I was worried about Elliot, and he probably knew that. I didn’t want to feel anything for him, but if I was being honest, I could feel myself wanting more and more of Elliot James. Just looking at him from across the room as he wrote in class made me want to look more. I was utterly fascinated by the way he lightly nibbled his lip and furrowed his brow as he worked hard on his masterpiece of a paper. Eventually he would look up, and I would have to look away very unwillingly.

Though we had only known each other for a couple of days, I felt like it had been years. I guess this is what I got for feeling anything towards someone at all.

On Wednesday, I went to visit my brother in the hospital. He wasn’t doing so well, but something was different about him. He seemed happier for some reason that I couldn’t quite understand. Maybe, Sawyer wanted to die.

As I entered the cafeteria, I searched for my brother. I finally spotted him sitting in his wheel chair with his hands wrapped around a pair of girl’s hands. She was beautiful, in a sickly sort of way. She was very petite and had short blonde hair that was just growing back. She had huge blue eyes that looked like they could tell the greatest of stories. I could tell she was a cancer patient, I just didn’t know what type she had.

I walked up to my brother and said “You go Sawyer! I knew you could get a girl with that scar.”

He gave me a quick wink and said, “Q, this Amber Raine. Amber, this is my sister, Quinn!”

She puled her hands from my brothers and said, “Oh Quinn! It’s so nice to finally meet you. This dork over here talks about you all the time. He’s quite interesting. I hear you bring him the best comic books!”

“The pleasure is all mine, Amber! So why are you here?”

I heard my brother cough as if telling me I was being rude, but amber simply aid, “Its okay, Sawyer. I’m her because I was diagnosed with brain cancer.”

“Oh well you two have something in common. I think I’m going to grab some food. I’ll be back in a few. Make good choices,” I said and gave them a wink. I leaned in close to my brother and whispered in his ear so only he could hear, “She’s a keeper.”

I chuckled to myself as I walked to the salad bar. Just as I was about to head back to the table where my brother and his little lady friend was, I felt someone’s stare on me. I wouldn’t have known it was Elliot if I didn’t feel the hairs on my neck stand up slightly. I turned away from the salad bar, and searched the cafeteria to his warm brown eyes. I couldn’t find you anywhere, so I turned back to the food shaking the feeling off thinking it was just the air conditioner. He proved my assumptions wrong when his hand reached for the same spoon as mine did. Our hands met for a moment, and I could hear and feel my heart speed up. I didn’t want your touch to leave mine, but all good things must come to an end.

“Hey Elliot,” I said awkwardly. Part of me was really happy to see him, but the other part was angry with him for walking out on our meet up thing, then not talking to me for a week.

“How you doing, darling?” he asked with your perfect charm.

“I think I should be the one asking that question,” I replied continuing down the line further away from my brother so he wouldn’t see.  I noticed that Elliot had a nasty looking cut on his forehead that had several stitches in it.