Making Quiet Things Heard

Ch. 3

Hopes POV

Two days have passed since the monster escaped. Josie and I haven't spoken at all either. I think she's avoiding me. Anytime we passed eachother in the hall, she would ignore me or pretend not to see me. I was starting to think that she didn't want to ever talk about what happened or the thoughts that kept creeping in about the unspoken feelings that were resurfacing. I knew it was real. I spent the last two nights trying to erase and scrape the kiss from my mind. But it's kinda hard to do that when you can't talk about it with the only person who'd understand and listen. You'd think that'd be landon but lately, I've started to feel disconnected from him. It's like we were growing apart. We fight constantly and we view life differently. I thought that we could work through it but it just seems to be getting worse. I'm starting to wonder what we even had in common to begin with. Either way, I love him but I'm starting to wonder in what way.

"Hey," Landon said with a toothy grin.

"Hey," I replied looking up from my book.

"Can I sit next to you?"

I shrugged, "Sure."

"Whatcha reading?"

"Eh, nothing really just doing some research about the monster."

"Well, I don't know if you heard but Alaric is going to let us have the dance this Friday."

"He lifted the lockdown?"

"No, but he figured that he shouldn't punish us for a monster being on the loose."

"Well that's not smart. The monster is going to target us there I just know it."

"Can you stop worrying about the monster for one second and just enjoy being a teenager?"

"Sorry I care about my friends than my own self development."

He sighed and changed the subject, "Look, I came over to ask if you wanted to go."

"To the dance? With you?"

"Well yeah."

"Sure. What time?"

"8pm. The theme is 17th century ball."

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I dunno. It's basically just people dressing up in old aesthetically pleasing clothes while dancing to outdated romanticized folk music."

"That's oddly specific yet totally unspecific but I'll try my best."

"Maybe Lizzie can help? You know she's always on top of those things." He suggested.

"Yeah I guess you're right."

"Well, I'm gonna head to class," He said before getting up and leaning in to peck my lips.

Nothing.

Later that day, I spent most of the day looking for the monster which had already caused a handful of fights at the school. Nothing major yet it was enough to stir up the whole room. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find it. It left behind no traces and seemed to be very good at covering its tracks. So even though I wanted to be excited for the dance, I wasn't because I couldn't stop thinking about how much its hurt us already. It could come back in any moment and celebrating in the wake of its terror sounds really irresponsible. Yet Alaric swears that he's going to have the chaperons parol the school all night but I don't think it'll be enough to keep it out. So I guess I have no choice but to attend to make sure everyone is safe.

Thankfully, I was able to get Lizzie's help with the whole dress thing. I wore a forest green gown with black heels and with dark eyeshadow and red lipstick. The dress hug my body perfectly and was strapless. My hair was hung up in a loose elegant bun with just a couple strands loosely hanging out.