𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 ▷ Stiles Stilinski¹

51|something bad

And we're back
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As I passed between Scott and Stiles' seats I felt both of them look towards me, I managed to make it to the desk behind Stiles without looking at either of them.

Sitting my books down on the surface of the desk and grabbing a pen out of my bag I opened my book to prepare for the lesson. As I grabbed the first text for this semester, I tried to concentrate on it alone. Unfortunately, Stiles was making that impossible. He kept trying to peek over his shoulder at me, but he wasn't being very inconspicuous about it.

At all.

I managed to keep my cool and read the first page of the book. I had already read it over the summer, but I needed a distraction.

Just as I was starting on the second page Stiles finally decided to speak up. "Riley?"

"Hey, Stiles," I mumbled as I read my book.

"Riley, can you at least look at me? Please?"

Clenching my teeth, I anxiously looked up at him. His facial expression conveyed confusion and I didn't blame him. I probably would've been confused as well if he had left me unanswered for as long as I did to him.

"I have so many questions right now and I can't for the life of me pick where to start," he sighed, running a hand through his grown out hair. He must have stopped shaving it over break.

I liked it on him. He looked older; more mature. Swallowing my silence and biting the inside of my cheek, I responded to him for the first time in three months. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" he repeated, confused. "That's all you're going to say?"

Rubbing my neck, I avoided eye contact. "I don't know what else you want me to say."

He scoffed a little as hisl eyes widened. "Everything that happened that night, then the funeral, then you leave for three months and ignore Scott and I, and then you come back without even letting us know, and all you have to say is 'sorry'? We were so worried about you Riley, and you didn't even bother to let us know if you were okay. Hell, we were beginning to wonder if you were even alive."

"I understand," I replied quietly.

He began to shake his head slowly, his eyes searching my face. "No, Riley, I don't think you do. And I think that's what makes it all worse."

We sat there staring at each other for what felt like an eternity. His brown eyes were focused on me so intensely and I didn't know how to escape them.

As if answering my prayers, every phone in the classroom pinged with a text. It took a few more moments before he swivelled back around in his chair and pulled his phone out of his pocket. I grabbed my out of my bag and unlocked it to read the message that everyone had apparently received. The text was sent from an anonymous number.

'The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.'

This was a passage from the novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. I had read it over the summer in preparation for the class. Since it was the first book we were reading, it was the only one I got around to in between mourning my mother and practising how to control my powers. I wished she was there to teach me.

A woman walked into the classroom, her heels clicking on the floor as she read the passage aloud to all of us. She smiled as we all looked up at her, glad she had been able to grasp our attention. "This is the last line to the first book we are going to read." She was obviously our new English teacher. "It is also the last text you well receive in this class. Phones off, everyone."