Pieces [Wattpad's Editor's Choice]

18: wEaK kNeEs

Thursday Morning, February 26

Isaac's words did something to me, and I suddenly hated him for it. It was like that time Phil forced me to watch this graphic video on YouTube of a guy who fell off a cliff and had his face completely split open, and the guy's friends recorded it all to show why you shouldn't jump off cliffs. I didn't know if the guy lived or died, but the video scarred me for life and I hated Phil for showing me something I could've lived happily without ever seeing. I was only eight years old at the time. It had nothing to do with choosing ignorance and everything to do with protecting your mind from something traumatizing and psychologically damaging.

Now, Isaac planted a seed of doubt in my mind and I didn't know the location, otherwise I'd try to uproot it. How come Arrow didn't have any flaws?

I started searching for them. In the mornings when he poured a bowl of Cheerios for himself. During classes when he alternated taking notes with his right and left hands (he was also ambidextrous). During lunch when he spun Ramen noodles on his fork. Late at night when he pulled off his shirt to change and ran a hand through his messy hair, already grown down to his cheekbone where the top of his scar started.

My stupid mind wouldn't turn off. But...neither did the rest of my body.

All this watching strengthened a magnetic pull towards him, and I felt this budding attraction the more time we spent together. I wanted to touch him like Isaac said. I wanted to put my hand on his bare chest, feel his heartbeat. I wanted to pull him in for a hug, lean into him during class, run my own fingers through his hair. I wanted to sit on his lap, wrap my arms around his neck, share the same breath with him, and kiss those plump red lips.

I wanted him to want me the same way.

Crap. This was how the attraction always started. Not just the feelings-but knowing I wasn't in control of the other's feelings. I thought it would be different this time around; my creation, my lover, was supposed to love me automatically, without being prompted to. Yet once again...I was left trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces were scattered.

How did Arrow really feel about our relationship?

Unfortunately, my scientific eye caught up to me. I always eyed guys with a speculatory gaze (new word by me, Frannie V) before Arrow came into Being, but now I was analyzing him like a foreign specimen. It was making me doubt. It was making me question. And questioning meant distrust, which was how any beginning relationship was set up to fail.

I tapped my pencil against my paper; a page of my notebook with the list I was still working on. The list I wouldn't share with a living soul because if anyone saw it, any kind of dignity I had left would be blown far away, set to pollute the air like everything else.

I was in my dorm. Aside from our ceiling fan spinning, the room was utterly silent. I almost put on some music, but when I was deep in thought, I needed complete silence so my thoughts had room to manifest.

With a fist barely grazing my mouth, I leaned back in my seat and narrowed my eyes at Arrow. He sat across the table from me hunched over his book of Latin words. He also had a pencil in his hand as he circled words and took notes in the margins, a piece of his brown hair falling into his eyes.

When he looked up, he didn't bother brushing it away. I would've done it for him if he weren't so far across from me.

Arrow was beautiful. His skin nearly unblemished, his scar so...fitting. His gray eyes a dangerous mystery. And that dimple...

"What's wrong?" He furrowed a brow.

Crap. Staring. "Nothing."

"You sure?"