My Words Are Law

An odd Pair (1)

Amaryllis woke up gasping as she pulled at her shirt's neckline painfully. It felt hard to breathe, and she was frantic to do anything to lessen the discomfort. Sweat dripped down her hauntingly pale face as she crawled to reach the drawer of her bedside table with difficulty. She'd always kept a paper bag inside the compartment for an emergency like this. It had been a while since she breathed into a paper bag... She didn't think she'd use it for the same reason she did last year... How pathetic.

When the panic finally left her body, she lay sprawled on her bed in exhaustion. This happened all because of a brief call... But the main orchestrator was undoubtedly Chryses. What will happen if she starts talking to him more frequently..? Of course, there will be times when they will have to speak face-to-face, too. Her body shuddered as she shut her eyes, shaking her head to clear her turbid thoughts. She doesn't want to feed her fear needlessly, but the fear was almost tangible.

A sudden knock on her door made her flinch in surprise.

"Lis? Are you okay?" The still air carried Ivor's small voice through the partition. He sounded worried.

"Y-Yes! Of course!" she answered almost immediately as she sat up and quickly returned the paper bag in the drawer.

"Are you sure? I was walking by your door just now... It sounded like you couldn't breathe," he muttered carefully. Amaryllis licked her lips nervously as she pinched her face to give some color to her face. She doesn't want to worry Ivor... He was so scared when he accidentally came across her while she had a panic attack last year. She doesn't want that to happen again.

Wiping her sweat, she stood up and went to open her door. "It's just your imagination." She smiled as she knelt down to level their gazes. "See? I'm perfectly fine." Thankfully, it was only a short episode.

Ivor scrutinized her face, and his worried expression reluctantly vanished as he smiled in relief. "I see... That's good... Morning, Lis."

"Good morning, my cute, lovely brother." She chuckled as she hugged him tightly. Ivor returned it with the same amount of energy which was very different from how he would usually react. He must have been really worried...

Amaryllis couldn't help but feel guilty about it all day. On the other hand, she doesn't want to burden her brother with her problems. Ivor is just a child... He should live his life as carefree as possible. Their situation had already affected his personality negatively, that he'd gotten to the point of withdrawing himself from the rest of his peers, acting too maturely despite being only seven years old.

"You look like..." Mia muttered, pausing as she tried to find the right words to describe Amaryllis' appearance while they ate their lunch side by side in one of the school cafeterias. Meanwhile, Tobias Weiss, who sat across them, was munching his food as he looked at Amaryllis with a frown. Today was one of the days when he spontaneously wanted to grace them with his presence.

"You look like you're sick." He pointed his spoon at her, which Mia had crudely swatted with her own.

"It's bad manners to point at people like that." She glared at the man, who shrugged nonchalantly at her comment.

"You know I'm right tho. Look at her. She looks like a white blob of clay about to fall apart any moment now. Did something happen?" Tobias' tone took on a serious note at his last words. He looked at Mia for a reply, knowing Amaryllis isn't the type to share her problems enthusiastically. However, Mia also seemed clueless as she stared at Amaryllis for an answer.

"Nothing... I just... I had a terrible nightmare and had a panic attack because of it... And Ivor almost found out."

Mia and Tobias shared a brief look of concern before asking Amaryllis if she was feeling any better now. Their friend nodded, but they could clearly see that whatever nightmare that was must have taken a lot of toll on her. She was acting very anxious. Tobias and Mia decided not to pursue the topic for now, as Amaryllis was very reluctant to talk to them about it. The last time they pressed her for something similar, it didn't end well.

Mia, more or less, has an idea of what's bothering Amaryllis, however. She gave her friend a rueful side glance as she spoke, "By the way, yesterday, you were rushing to work, so you didn't see Chryses, but he was waiting outside our class..." She paused and scrutinized Amaryllis' face. Her friend didn't look affected. Did Mia guess wrong..?

"Anyway, he asked for your number, and I refused him immediately, but he said you two were paired up for a project... So I gave in to his request." Actually, Mia refused him twice. She told him to get it personally, but Chryses smiled wryly at her, saying he somehow couldn't seem to get a hold of Amaryllis... As if she was avoiding him. He later asked Mia if she knew the reason for her friend's behavior towards him.

"I think... It's better if you ask her in person. Even if I'm her friend, I'm not in a position to talk on her behalf," was Mia's response. She wondered if she did the right thing, urging him to confront her friend when Amaryllis is obviously still wary of him.

"Yeah, it's fine. I was planning to ask him to exchange contacts tomorrow, anyway." Amaryllis gave her a half-smile before concentrating on eating.

Mia wondered if it was really fine.

"You're partners with him? How did that happen?" Tobias suddenly asked, looking curious.

Mia wondered about that, too. "If I remember correctly, there are a lot of people crowding around him, right? How come he didn't pair with one of them..? You know- Like a mini-mini-miny-mo?" Tobias gave a follow-up question immediately.

Amaryllis didn't look like she wanted to respond, so Mia decided to speak up instead. "Would you just shut up?" She threw a water bottle at Tobias, who had nearly missed it. "What of Chryses wanting to pair up with Amaryllis? Amaryllis is smart and responsible. Of course, he'd much rather prefer her than the idiots beside him!"

Amaryllis cringed at Mia's words. She doubts it. Very much.

"Fine, but do you need to always toss things to my face to get your point across?" Tobias shot back at Mia as he wiped the water that spilled on his face. "My face is too hot to get hurt," he added as he brushed his fringe back with a helpless sigh.

Mia snorted. "Says the guy who never had a girlfriend."

Tobias arched a brow at Mia's comment. "I'm single by choice. You don't know how many girls have come up to my face to ask me out at all, do you? Don't lump me in with the likes of you." He sneered at the end of his sentence, rubbing the truth on Mia's fuming face.

By this time, the two of them were spewing insults one after the other without restraint, and Amaryllis, who sat in the middle of it, sighed at their childishness.

"You fight like newlyweds. Do you guys realize that?" she muttered, earning a few seconds of peaceful silence before they both turned to her in disgust.

"With this snot?" -Mia

"With this flat board?" -Tobias

Both of them gasped in surprise as they stared back at each other's faces. "What did you say!?"

Amaryllis sighed as she shook her head. At this point, will the two of them ever really get together..?

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A/N: Thank you for voting!