🗸 the quintessences of cherry & cigarette

4.4: limerence

Over the next two months, with each passing day in one another's remembrance, every second spent together, every text exchanged, every call made, Cerise knows she's irrevocably drawing closer to Devin. The changes she finds in herself are subtle - at first, she only discovers that she likes his company, very much so; then, she realizes that she, in fact, craves his companionship for many reasons, one of them being that he makes her feel protected. When with him, she knows she is safe from Christian, and Loralie, and Elijah, and every other person who has, at some point in her life, hurt her physically or emotionally. Devin's bad repute and given how he had broken Elijah's nose, add to those events the distasteful rumors about him being some kind of teenage gang leader, people tend to stay away from him and consequently, maintain their distance from Cerise as well - something she'd wanted from her schoolmates all along.

It is only natural that the two's friendship and closeness attract their schoolmates' attentions. Cerise initially worried about that, but seeing how Devin was - and still is - least concerned, she, too, has started paying it less and less mind. Eventually, it all fades to the backdrop of everything else, and now, she cannot care lesser about what others think of her and Devin. They don't matter, like Devin keeps saying.

Cerise is convinced that the more time she spends with Devin, the better her day seems to get. It might just be her imagination, but she welcomes that notion with open arms for she hasn't been this happy and free in a very long time. Of course, things at home remain the same, with Christian's temper and his habitual use of his daughter as his punching bag, with Jenny utilising her stepdaughter as some sort of maid, but none of those get to Cerise as much as they used to. She hardly cares nowadays, and she longs to go to school or for her guardians to get caught up with their immensely busy schedules, just because those are the blessed times she gets to spend with Devin.

In all the time the two spend together, Cerise - more often than not - finds herself admiring the littlest nuances of Devin Jameston. The soft curve of his lips, slightly darkened because of his dependence on cigarettes; the curl of his eyelashes and the shadows they cast on his cheekbones; his beauty, to her, is poetry writ by Calliope. Then, there are those other instances she is rendered fascinated by the grace of his long fingers - pulling out a cigarette from his pack and flipping on the lighter, fidgeting with his pen throughout English class, drumming a secret tune.

Even now, as they sit at the bleachers ensconced in the lovely weather, tutoring each other to spend the free periods profitably, Cerise's attention keeps moving - a nomad traversing from the autumn sun catching his messy, brunt hair and alighting it in an aureate translucence, to the light stubble he has grown, and his childlike wonder every time she simplifies the language riddled with metaphors and hyperbola and other poetic devices and explains to him what the author is trying to vaguely convey in the poem. She tries her best to mask her distractions under the pretenses of either looking past him as she 'thinks' or being engrossed in reading through the verses' lines to properly explain to him their meanings.

When done with the last verse in the chapter, Cerise shuts the textbook and says, "there, all done. Your turn."

"Hmm," he mumbles, bringing out the school's prescribed Calculus textbook. "Okay, did you do the sums I gave?"

"I did," Cerise says, "I could only solve four of them though, the fifth one..." She rummages around her satchel, looking for the notebook she had designated for these very tuition sessions. Once found, she opens it to the required page and hands it to Devin. "I tried to solve it so many times but I'm just... just stuck..."

At her defeated tone, Devin pats her hand which she left lying on the small space between them. "Don't be so glum," he tells her, "you solved four out of five of the toughest, which is great progress considering I've only taught you for like... what? A month?"