Bittersweet // Complete

06.

Chapter 6

Fuck Noah Sterling.

No really, fuck Noah Sterling with those perfect brown hair and his stupid square jaw and the strange string of pick up lines he was spitting off the internet. Some were cheesy, some were downright sexist and demeaning, some were hot and creepy, Noah had a whole array of messages to send every single day, multiple times a day.

I had run out of ways to tell him to fuck off and reverted to ignoring his messages. At some point I rolled my eyes and dismissed it right from the notifications, not even bothering to see them at all. It was all shit anyway. Classes were taking up far more of my time than I had imagined, leaving me with no choice but to shift my volunteering hours to the weekends. Saturday mornings seemed like a good idea, so I passed the sheet around on Monday, letting people sign up at their convenience. Eleanor had apparently moved on with Benjamin, from Communications class, or at least that's what Sophie said.

I didn't know if I was reading too much into this, but I did see her eyes lingering around the football grounds when we walked past. Like clockwork, regardless of the actual timings of classes, Sophie and I would come to the parking lot to meet with Eleanor there at 11.30 each morning, coincidentally the time Noah would walk past that area after a smoke break between his classes. If he knew the stalkerish tendencies Eleanor was harbouring, he never showed.

He never looked at us directly, but he would always let me know something specific about my appearance that day, to make sure I knew he was watching me.

Love the hairstyle

I like this skirt ;)

You should keep your hair open more often

I'd love to ruin that lipstick some day

Did I tell you white is my favorite colour on you?

From the right guy, the effort might have been charming. I would have probably entertained him for a while, maybe see where it went. From Noah, each word felt like it was prickly thorn, puncturing my lungs.

Of all places I felt like I should have been watching my back for his nuisance, the library hadn't been it. The library was a space where I could hide away from Noah's lingering shadows. The comfort of the silent place relaxed me immediately, and I browsed through the random sections, hoping something would pique my interest. I didn't have the mental capacity to do some coursework, but I wanted to do something.

Without realising, I had walked all the way to Y rows, looking at whole tomes of Yam related books and a smaller book on the history and evolution of Yo-yos. That sounded like a mindless read, exactly what I needed, so I pulled it out, gasping in surprise when my eyes met someone's across the shelf.

"I'm tempted to say you're stalking me," Noah smirked, shutting the book he was browsing through and circling the shelf to join me, "but we both know you're too busy for that."

Keeping my jaw tight, I agreed, "Yep, I'm very busy, so you should probably stop annoying me."

"I would if you respond to my texts and let me take you out," He shrugged.

"You haven't apologised to Eleanor yet," I rolled my eyes.

'Why haven't you replied back to me?"

"It's either, using replied and back together makes your statement redundant," I was literally scrambling for my brain cells to pull together, for Noah was challenging my mind like no other. For every jab I made, he had a counter, for every question I had, he could frame ten more. Of course, being William Sterling's son had to have it's perks. Lawyer is as a lawyer does.