The Thief of Hearts

Chapter 3

Keith's pov

I walked as slowly as I possibly could towards my first class for the day. I had no zeal to face my obnoxious French teacher and I also did not wish to tell him that I didn't complete his assignments.

The day was warm and partly cloudy, cool wind blew my perfectly combed hair all over the place, making me even more frustrated. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my black hoodie and suddenly remembered something.

The tiny silver purse I had placed inside with the intention to return it before it's time. You see, I never really do stuff like this, stealing, I mean. What I usually do was take on dares that my best friend Ashton would throw at me every once in a while. Which led me to how I ended up with the cute little silver purse in my pocket.

I remembered the day perfectly clear as if it was yesterday, but it was actually only two days ago. We were sitting idle on a wall overlooking a small pond at the extreme back of the University campus. I was sipping a can of soda while Ashton kept offering me weed, which I kept refusing.

"Come on man, try it." He insisted.

I looked at him as if he was crazy. "I said no. What part of no, do you not understand!"

Ash sighed, "ok fine." He looked disappointedly at the Lilly covered pond, then a grin suddenly appeared on his face. He faced me with a challenging glint in his eyes. "I dare you..."

"No." I said before he finished his sentence. I refused to let him cohears me into smoking weed.

"Dude!" He exclaimed, "I wasn't even going to say anything about it."

I shrugged, "whatever."

Ashton paused for a while, as if pondering something. He then perked up again like a light bulb was turned on in his head. "Did you know," he said, "that marijuana is used to treat Cancer patients?"

I laughed at him knowingly before I made my comback. "Did you know, that the smoke alone can give you lung cancer?"

"Ugh!" He sounded so annoyed that it made me laugh at him some more. What's the point in having a best friend that doesn't make you laugh?

He looked at his watch and sighed. He said something about five minutes to class and jumped off the wall. He began to walk away, but he stopped after a few steps and turned around.

"You still have a dare to do." Ash said

"Name it, I'll do it." I challenged boldly.

He smirked at me, satisfied that he would actually get me do something crazy that day. "Meet me by the library's locker room in a hour and half."

With that said, he ran off, leaving me with a slightly confused and suspicious expression on my face.

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Five minutes past the set time that Ash gave me, I found myself pacing near a picnic table in front of the locker room. I was waiting on the asshole to show up, but he seemed to have forgotten our little arrangement. He was probably being cornered by a group of girls who could have sworn they saw him on the stripper poles in some club, half naked and completely wasted.

The usual. Ashton always does shit like that, and then swear on his ancestor's graves that it wasn't him. I had a wild and distinctively crazy guy for a best friend. The only guy I knew who would actually smoke weed right before entering a classroom, and he did it so regularly, that the instructors stopped turning around to see who it was. They just knew it was him.

The only reason he never got kicked out of uni was that his dad had a lot of influence and also funds most of the school's activities. You would think Ashton should be greatful for what his father does for him, but, truth be told, Ash was actually rebelling against his Daddy's best wishes for him to take over his company - car dealership business passed down from generations from father to son.

Anyway, I was pacing at picnic table when Ashton finally arrived. He leaned against my shoulder, panting as if he'd been running for days.

"Keith, man I told you those cheerleaders are crazy." He managed to say.

I looked at him puzzled. What the hell was he talking about? "Are you forgetting why I'm here, dude?" I asked instead.

Ashton ignored my question. He said instead, "I told them I was not the guy in the Mrs Claus costume Saturday night."

I rolled my eyes, thinking, here we go again and trying not to laugh. "My dare, you idiot, what is it!" I almost shouted at him.

"Oh." He said, as if just realizing our 'mission'.
"Here."

He handed me a small, crushed up piece of paper with his poor hand writing all over it. I squinted at the single sentence that was hardly visible and let out an exasperated sigh.

So I did the dare, and that was how I ended up with a girl's possession in my pocket. Ashton claimed he wanted me to do something delinquent and I ended up doing just that. The plan was to keep whatever I stole for a week, and then get it back to the owner without he or she knowing it was I who stole it.

I thought about it for a while. It sounded pretty easy to do. I would get the loot, then bring it back in a week. It's just a dare, I told myself, the person will get it back soon. What's the worst that could happen? Well, the answer to that was I got a little obsessed.

So this morning I decided to put back the purse before the week was over. Not apart of the dare, but I had a conscience and it didn't like what I was doing, so it forced me to return the loot.

The paper I found on the locker door was not there the last time I was there, which was the same day I took the purse. It had a short note written on it in beautiful cursive writing. I read the message and smiled, an idea coming to my head instantly.

I took out my pen and wrote on the paper in the small spaces that were left: Hi there!

I then followed her and placed the date below my words. I left the locker room quickly before anyone saw me.