Once Upon A Bet

/17/ Mistakes

Dedicated to kayeend, for all the lovely support and comments, it means the world <333

/Two years ago/

Dalia's gaze rose from her notes to me as I slid in the seat beside her in the library wooden table. "Hey." she grinned, softly. "How did it go?"

"Kill me." I grew lowly not to bother the librarian and dramatically dropped my forehead on her shoulder. She giggled muffledly and caressed my back reassuringly.

"That bad, uh?"

"You got no idea..." I pouted lifting my head again to look at her. "Roonie was right, this is really absorbing. I feel like I haven't slept in days."

"I thought you hung up on me yesterday to go to bed early and regain some of your beauty sleep?"

"Was going to." I hummed. "But turns out my aunt came and my mother forgotten to tell me. She is staying in our state now."

"Your aunt Laurent? For how long?"

"Not sure... She's being promoted to the headmaster of a really important Academy there in London and they..." my voice wavered at the reminder of last night's dinner. "They kinda dropped that I should go finish my studies there."

"What? You'll leave?" she grimaced at the thought and looked at me inquiringly. "You want to?"

"No." I stated firmly and she let out a realieved laugh.

"Good. I wouldn't want you that far." she whispered with a pout making me smile back.

"Thank you." I nudged our shoulders together, touched by her words.

I wouldn't want to be that far either. I have my life here, her my family, Jake, everything. Moving now would be such a shock and I wasn't interested in going through that anytime soon. Nope. Hopefully this would be just one of those ideas my mother had but never really pursue. I hope.

"Oh, FYI," Dalia spoken again, hushedly not to disturb the library's peace. "Tibby's come to me today."

"Really?" I scrunched my nose. Tibby Scroll was probably the most noisy and blabbermouth girl in our course. No conversation that started with her mention could end well. I sighed. "And what did she want?"

"She's convinced your seeing someone."

My heart skipped a beat. "W-what? Why?"

"Well, she was babbling about how you disappeared for the whole free period yesterday and came back flustered to Chem. Also mentioned something about swollen lips..."

I blushed to the roots of my hairs. What a sneaky little blabber. "Tibby should mind her own business."

Yesterday I did spend my free period with Jake and it was lovely. It was one of those rare moments ever since we started school again that felt like we were back in the summer. It was chill and fun and yes; we did make out a bit, hidden in a useless classroom from the top floors no one uses anymore.

Dalia laughed muffledly and shook her head. "I mean, you're not wrong, but you need to be careful. Imagine what would happen if it's not just that you make out with someone, but that it's with him. What if that word spreads around?"