[COMPLETED]
❝Death is inevitable. It's a promise made to us at birth.❞
Arielle is a studious young woman striving to be a chef. Her life is full of going to class, reading textbooks, and hanging out with her friends, until she meets Zayn. Zayn's an...
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➳ ARIELLE'S POV
"Yeah, okay, I totally saw you dancing with that dude. He was practically dry humping you," Zoe crosses her legs and leans her back against the tree, eyeing me up with skepticism.
Jesus, for someone who desperately wants to get laid, she can be really judgemental . . .
I think back to that night—to feeling his hands on my skin, feeling his hard dick against my ass, the hickey he sucked into the soft skin of my neck. Reaching a hand up, I brush my fingertips over the fading bruise.
I pick at the stray pieces of fabric that have separated from the blanket we're sitting on. Suddenly it gets really bright and I realize that the sun has poked out from behind the clouds. I have to shield my eyes from it as I look up at Zoe, who's covered from the sun by the tree. "It was nothing," I state, not even believing my own lie.
"It didn't look like nothing." The sounds of her slurping the remnants of her juice echo in my ears, and when she pauses, it reveals a deafening silence.
What do they say? Silence speaks volumes.
"I was just into the music." I shrug my shoulders, telling her, "I don't know, I guess I was a little drunk. It's not like I was purposely trying to attract his attention," I'm still lying through my teeth and I honestly haven't a clue if she's buying it or not. I wasn't even close to drunk, I'd had the equivalent of like a shot and a half.
If anything, I was drunk off him.
"He sure did like you. I watched him leave that other girl to dance with you once Jonah left." She rests her empty juice box onto the blanket, and sits there staring at me. How in the fuck did she see all of this? I didn't see her a single time after she handed me a drink. Apparently she was somewhere—like the mom from Mean Girls, filming while living vicariously through me—as I danced with him.
I can't help but cringe at the mention of Jonah. He's been avoiding me for the last few days and I'm positive it's because of what happened that night. I admit that I led him on, and of course he wasn't happy with it. The worst part was that I couldn't give him a logical explanation. I didn't want to tell him about wanting to impress the dark stranger, so I'd just told Jonah that I was a little drunk and made a mistake. I know he has feelings for me, and I know I shouldn't have done it, but something just came over me once I saw the hot stranger's car in front of the house. It was like I was suddenly a different person, more like my old self, when I was spiralling out of control.
"What'cha thinking about?" Zoe asks, staring off behind me as fellow students go about their business all around us. I follow her gaze to find a small man, arms filled with books, as he speed walks across the campus, clearly late for a class.
"He's dangerous," I blurt out randomly, lost in my own thoughts. I'm not oblivious to who exactly the guy is and what he represents, but with that brooding mystery comes an electricity, a fire that—like a person driving past an accident—I just can't avoid because I'm so undeniably drawn to him.
