Guardian ✓

frost

Three Months Later

IT WAS FAR TOO COLD.

"Emma!"

Emma didn't like the cold. Well...she used to once upon a time. She loved the frost on top of windows and leaves and having hot chocolate with little marshmallows but the cold was bad. For her brother. It made him have severe headaches.

So Emma hated the cold.

Noah hadn't contacted her ever since she moved to Valeria Solomon's house three months ago but that did not mean Emma forgot about him.

Or forgot about that night.

Because Noah Crawford III was nothing like Kevin. No. She absolutely refused to believe that. What she felt when he kissed her... it terrified her – made her lie.

There had to be an explanation for why he did what he did. And...there had to be an explanation for why she felt the way she did. But she didn't want to touch that topic with a ten foot cattle prod and Noah...well, it seemed like she wasn't permanent to him after all.

"Emma!"

Because he had completely forgotten about her.

"Emma look! Hansel and Gretel!" She blinked, looking up from her lunch box to see Conrad sitting in front of her with a suspicious frown on his face. She looked around the cafeteria before scowling at the boy who now had a shit-eating grin on his face.

"I don't like it when you do that!" She hissed, taking a blueberry and chucking it at his head.

"You don't like most things I do to you," he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

Conrad had met a fair share of quiet people but Emma Solomon was a whole different species. Everyone complained about how rude or blunt he was but Emma was the only person in CAAS to take all he said in stride and not get offended by anything he hurled her way. Even though Emma was easy to pick on because boys seemed to be smitten by her the first day she came into school, it was quickly known that verbal abuse from mean girls was a foreign concept to her.

One of his favorite moments was when Emma got asked if she'd had any work done to her boobs and she genuinely did not know breast implants were a thing.

Who was he kidding? He'd fallen in love the first day when she said the furthest she'd gone with a guy was to the Hansel and Gretel cottage. That was fucking hilarious. And adorable.

That's why he decided he'd stick around.

Emma had changed quite drastically but there were moments when she was still naive. Like now.

"I told you it hurts." Emma couldn't help the pout that formed on her lips.

Conrad was her best friend, apart from Anna but sometimes he did things without thinking.

"Hey, asshole." Anna sat down next to her, waving off her friends as they moved towards the table in the middle. "The day I join a clique, you two better believe someone is holding me and my dog hostage." She shuddered before glaring at Conrad again. "Anyway," she smacked him across the head, "stop."

Conrad rolled his eyes, stealing a fry from her tray.

"She agreed to be my girlfriend after a month of research. I signed a fucking contract. What do you mean, 'stop'? I'm not doing anything wrong."

He looked at her innocently while Emma thought back to all her research. Surprisingly, there was a lot on internet that she was glad she found. Although, there were some parts she wished she could unlearn – unsee. But most of them were from Anna and not the internet. She knew so much about relationships–