The Veil

Chapter Eleven

This was the man I'd liked since I moved into this house, embarrassingly cried myself to sleep at night when he'd brought a girl home, if I couldn't sleep I'd left and got drunk, most of the time finding Ronan to have meaningless sex with to stop myself thinking about him here with a girl.

I'd tricked myself into believing I'd gotten over it. 

I had been slipping more and more recently, getting frustrated with myself and wishing my parents were still there to talk to about everything, especially my feelings for Tom, I was confused and hurt all the time, but Tom could've helped, did help. 

"I can't sleep." I looked down at my bare feet, "Can I sit with you for a while?" I asked. 

This had not been my intention as I'd left my room. 

I didn't know where I was going to go but I hadn't planned on coming to Tom's room.  

He stuttered slightly, gulped loudly, his Adams apple bobbing and said 'Um, sure." 

He budged himself over on his bed slightly, making room for me. 

He shook his hair out of his eyes by shaking his head back and forth, before giving up when that didn't work and pushing it back with his hand. 

I crossed the room, finally letting go of the door handle behind my back, and crawled onto the bed next to Tom.

"What are you reading?" I asked, not having looked at the cover of the book. 

"Nothing." He said, his voice shaking. 

He was nervous and he put the book under his back. 

"Oh my god what are you reading?" I smiled, trying to grab the book from under him. 

"Shit, Lily, it's nothing!" He wriggled further away from me. 

I grabbed hold of the book underneath him and pulled it out. 

"I must know, now." I laughed as he tried to grab the book back from me as I turned over, away from him, to read the cover. 

"Wh-why are you reading this?" I whispered, turning to look at him with a shocked expression. 

"I just am, okay." He huffed as he grabbed the book back and placed it on his bedside table. "It's not a big deal."

"If you liked me this whole time why didn't you just say something? Why did you let what Jade thought stop you from saying anything?" I blurted before I could stop myself. 

I'd needed to know, why had he not said anything. 

I knew why I hadn't but I wanted to know if it was real or if it was just a passing thing he felt in the moment. 

Because he was reading Jurassic Park. He hated it. But I loved Jurassic Park. 

"I'm not reading Jurassic Park because I like you." He said, his voice soft. 

"So you do like me, like now and not just before?" I sat up to face him, trying to look him in the eyes, but he wouldn't look up at me. "Hey, Tom. This is serious. You can't just mess with someones emotions like this." I pulled his chin so he was facing me. 

"Fuck! Yes Lily, I like you. I already told you that alright. But nothing can come of this! I couldn't tell you I liked you! Then I did tell you and fucked everything up. So I'm sorry, can we just drop this and pretend nothing happened. I won't make you feel uncomfortable if you just stay here, ok, we can still be friends?" His eyes widened, reacting to something on my face. 

"I wasn't just going to tell you I liked you Tom. You're beautiful and intimidating and I'd just moved in. You always had girls round, I thought you just thought of me as a roommate, like Jade and Andrew. I didn't know you even saw me most of the time" He was blushing slightly, and I could feel I was definitely doing the same.