With Love, Étienne | ✓

Chapter Seven

"YOU LOOK EXHAUSTED."

Louella leaned over my desk with a curious expression and winced at the dark bags that lined my under-eyes. She was right; I was exhausted. After spending an entire night keeping a watchful eye on Milo and consequently dealing with him throwing up everywhere on the street, it was past five in the morning before I returned home. I knew I would have regretted going out with him but at the same time, there was a sense of responsibility that I felt with Milo. As though, if I weren't with him, something bad would happen and even though it might not have been my fault, I knew I would feel the guilt all the same. So in retrospect, I didn't mind coming home too late if it meant that no-one was hurt by the end of the night.

"Sorry, I had a long night," I sighed in response while Louella shuffled into the seat beside mine. She dumped her books on the table and angled her head towards mine.

"Anything in particular happen?" she asked to keep the conversation going.

Aware she was familiar with Milo's partying ways, I didn't mind talking to her about it, knowing she would understand.

"I was out with Milo last night," I confessed with a blush – although I didn't know why I felt so embarrassed to admit to that, "It didn't go so well, I guess."

Louella's face scrunched up and I blinked when the colour seemed to drain out of her face. An alarm bell rang out inside my head at the strange reaction. She seemed to curl up within herself in her seat, making herself look incredibly smaller than she had before. I watched the response with narrowed eyes, taking in every detail.

"Hm?" she hummed and blinked in rapid succession, "What happened?"

"Don't get me started," I ran a hand over my tired face, "I don't even know where to begin. He wanted to check out a new club in town and convinced me to go with him. Let's just say he's a little pissed at me right now."

She noticed the evasiveness of my words and I was struggling under her probing eyes. They flickered back and forth between mine – almost like she was prying the truth out of them. I squirmed under the sheer intensity of her stare. It wasn't that I wanted to keep this from Louella – it was more I was struggling to understand what had happened and there was a small part of me that was in denial. Milo wasn't that kind of person – he would never force or push himself on to anyone.

At least I thought he wasn't.

Milo was a childhood friend. We had grown up together. I knew him better than anyone and we had experienced everything together. It had never dawned on me that there could be this darkness to him that I had never seen. Perhaps I had been blind to it or maybe I was blowing the entire situation out of proportion.

"Did something happen?" Louella seemed almost hesitant to ask the question, "With anyone?"

The last part of her sentence made me freeze and I stared at her with a blank expression, trying to figure out what was going on inside her head. She seemed to be hiding something from me and this time, it was her who averted her eyes to the ground when she felt the heat of my gaze.

Thankfully, I didn't have to answer her question as the lecturer picked that exact moment to strut into the class and call out over all of us to settle down. I breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing how I would have explained the situation to her. My brain still wasn't able to process anything and I was going back and forth between whether I should take it further with him or leave it and never bring it up again.

Louella's eyes were trained on mine and I knew I had opened up something I shouldn't have had but I needed to talk to someone about – for them to tell me I wasn't crazy and going insane.