"Oh," he said, as my back hit the wooden wall. Damn it, of course. With nowhere to go, his arms locked me in between him and the wall. He stared down at me as he said, "So you're trying to piss me off?" His lips were surprisingly close to mine. No guy would ever be this close to me in real life, let alone me being able to handle it; I would've been so timid and afraid. But this was the dream world. I could speak and be as brave as I wanted to.
"Yeah, I am," I said. "What are you gonna do about it?" He paused as his eyes looked between the two of mine. Then, he smirked and swiftly closed the gap between our lips.
~~
In a small town in New York, Hazel is your average quiet type. In a school full of clichés, she falls perfectly under the category of "nerd" and has her own little nerdy group of people she loves to hang around. They respect the fact that she's non-verbal.
The thing that plagued her, surprisingly, is not her inability and refusal to speak, but her ability to go through anybody and everybody's dreams. This is not something she can control, nor something that's necessarily dangerous. It just happens. One second she's in darkness, the next second she happens to be in someone's dream.
But, when she stumbles into a dream of a guy she never knew existed in her grade of 500 students, albeit his popular status, both her worlds get flipped upside down.
I smiled at him but tears were starting to blur my vision together. "I hate you."
His smile faltered and he looked taken back, "Not like that, Drake. I hate you because you make me cry. You're supposed to beat up the guys who make me cry, not be one of them."
"But they are happy tears, right?" he clarified. I smiled and nodded my head, before gripping his shirt, pulling his body against mine.
"I'll never make you cry because you're sad, understood? I'm never leaving you."
I didn't respond this time, I just sat in his lap, holding his torso and he played with my hair. "I don't know if I can let you in yet Drake," I told him truthfully, the one thing I had been dreading telling him.
"I know. But I'll never hurt you like the others have. I-"he cut himself off and took a deep breath.
"Riley?" he moved me away from his shirt. I looked at him in the eyes and say an emotion. One I hadn't seen in a long time and one I haven't seen in his eyes before. "Can I kiss you?"
__________________
Drake was the player of the school. Everyone knew his name. Riley was the nerd of the school. No one knew her name.
Complete opposites but for some reason, opposites seemed to attract.
Riley knew that Drake had a new girl every week, but she felt like she could change him.
And maybe she could. Maybe she'd be different.
*Based on a true story*