Matters of the Hart

Chapter 9 - I'm going to go, see if your stupidity can make me evaporate.

I didn't quite know how things took a wrong turn so quickly. One minute Caleb was bad-mouthing me and the next minute he was lying on the concrete path by the field, holding his bloody nose in one hand and his baby-maker in the other. It was an overall icky sight, but my saviour thought that he'd not had nearly enough.

"Fight back now, you piece of s**t!"

Amelia Hart, my sister, best friend, confidante, guardian angel.

Her eyes oozed the need to cause permanent serious damage to Caleb and I could imagine how it must be taking her the self-control of eleven hungry lions in unison to hold back from kicking him in the gut.

"Two years ago, Thea came in between us or I would have broken your ugly-as-f**k face. I thought you might have learnt your lesson by now, but no! You're still a f*****g shitty person and guess what? You always will be!"

"Lia..." I put my hand on her shoulder, in vain attempt to hold her down but in response, all I met with was a 'don't-interfere-in-this' glare. I shrivelled, unsure of what to say to pacify her in that very moment. If Captain America ever met my sister, he would happily volunteer to crawl back into his igloo and hibernate for a very long time. That's how provoked Lia was.

Sure, what Caleb said or was going to say hurt. A lot. But it was Caleb. There was no plausible explanation for why he was the way he was. It was Caleb's way of dealing with negativity. He came on too strong. But I would never, ever want to let my sister near a sick human like himself.

"What the f**k is happening here!?"

The red mark on the calibrated scale of confusion shot up faster than an open-fire bullet. Nathaniel Knight was struggling; between trying to hold back a fire-breathing Amelia and watching one of his best friends lying on the ground, without any aid. Nate didn't know which of the two to act upon stat.

Although he had Amelia held by the waist, literally, his eyes were flickering between Caleb and me. His arms hooked around Lia from behind, preventing her strong, murderous approaches from reaching his best friend.

Every half a second his eyes scanned my face, taken aback, though he refused to show it. I had already made sure that not a single tear was left unattended. I would never give someone like Caleb the power of seeing me break a second time.

Amelia kicked in the air, dug her nails into Nate's hand and even tried kicking his legs but when Nathaniel finally released her free from his grip I acted wisely, pulling her back by her wrists.

"Keep your lap-dog in check, Nate," she sneered, picking her bag from the ground. "If he ever so much as looks in my sister's direction, much less talk s**t to her again, you and your friends might have to take a little trip to the ER," Lia glared at a stoic Nathaniel.

"Let's go, Amelia." I hastened her as we walked back to the East Court together, my hand still firmly in hers, in fear that if I let go she would probably run back and give Caleb some serious internal injuries to go with that temporarily dysfunctional 'member'.

**********

It took an immense amount of pleading and a promise to share my hard-earned Kit-Kats with Lia to get her to forget about an imbecile named Caleb Ridgewood.

Lia had been fuming like an iron furnace; she'd burn him alive if she could. It had been a little over twenty-four hours and if you think I was over exaggerating this scenario, all I can say is -

On a Friday afternoon, Amelia Hart still hadn't hand-picked a party to grace. Yes, that's how bad it was. Usually, she had an address before she had an outfit ready. I needed to gather the Special Forces, a.k.a Cole Finley: the man who always saved the day.

In conclusion, here I was at the park worrying about my party animal sister who Cole whisked away. I was pondering over a lot of other things too. Irrelevant things. Things I could never voice out loud. Things I would never voice out loud.

I called it spending quality time alone.

"Pretty girls shouldn't stay out alone at this time of night."

Getting ahead of ourselves are we, Thea? I snorted. The universe never learns.

If my life had a face, I'd probably not remember it very well because I would have broken it way before it even came into my direct sight.

Life, had become a game of dodge-ball; one that I was losing and I didn't know if I appreciated that.

"Yeah, because stalkers like you are lurking around," I smiled back toothily, dipping every word in a pool of sarcasm.

Which, apparently, was amusing. His soft chuckles crossed the short distance between us in a slow, calculating pace, him standing right beside me now - our sides on the verge of brushing with each other. I noticeably scooted away, trying to calm my bounding heartbeats. I already felt dizzy and we had not even spoken yet. Just a little: him trying to act like he hadn't put me through a week of anguish and me being a world class b***h to him so that he would leave me alone like I wanted. At least I think I did.

My head reached about two centimetres above his broad shoulder. I was trying hard to not heed the very noticeable bulge of his deltoid that stood out to my eyes in this minimal lighting set-up. I looked away frowning, hoping that he hadn't caught my lapse in judgement.

"I can't help if we're fated to meet here every time, Shortcake," he mused, turning his head to get a look. His steady gaze on the side of my face threatened a subtle blush to fan out across my cheeks.

"Maybe it's a sign."

From the corner of my eyes, I could still make out his every movement clearly (and subtly of course) as he bent forward, placing his elbows next to mine. I was not consciously noticing him. But he was built and tall and overlapping my field of vision. Not my fault. In my defence, I kept my gaze nailed on the light sea waves that grazed the outskirts of Sunville.

The worst thing that could ever happen to a girl trying to evade a sticky situation which involved a jerk was - a simple pink blush. Exactly like the one that had adorned my cheeks.

For a few very uncomfortable moments all that we could hear was each other's breathing pattern.

He exhaled. I inhaled.

I exhaled. He inhaled.

Both of us watching the view ahead of us and him occasionally stealing one or two accidental glances at me.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Talk about discomfort.

"I thought you were avoiding me," I finally caved in, letting my doubts kiss the thin air that enveloped us, my words taken away by the soft breeze. I was still there, still hoping that he would catch on.

He did.

It took a short fear of rejection and a string of wasted minutes. But he did.

"I thought that's what you wanted?"

It's funny; the world we lived in. A world where we blamed others out of habit, especially when we were the messed up ones.

The sincerity in his voice resonated with the strings of realisation in my head, set into motion. Like his words had pinched memories back into me, specifically the ones where I had ordered him to go back to avoiding me.

I closed my eyes tightly, knowing well that an apology was due. And I would have, trust me, but some jerks didn't deserve it.

"If you wanted my attention, you should have just told me." Told you, he didn't deserve it. The smirk in his voice was so heavy that even with closed eyes I could feel it weighing me down.

I was turning red. No, I didn't blush pathetically at his every sentence. Most of the times it ticked me off pretty fast and so easily, that when my eyes snapped open, I wished that they could emit laser beams instead of fruitless glares.

"Don't purposely piss me off, Nathaniel. I'll punch you."

"Yeah okay, very cute," he scoffed, standing up straighter, shoving his hands in his jeans' pockets. The slight smile still very much present. Cute. He called me cute.

Cute.

Very cute.

"You are so confusing!" I snapped.

Cute, Thea. He called you cute.

"And stupid! And ignorant and…and frustrating! Did I mention stupid?"

Cute. He thinks Thea is cute.

Nathaniel thinks Thea is cute.

"You can't just walk in here and act like nothing is wrong when you've been ignoring me all damn week. It doesn't make anything okay!" I threw my hands up in frustration.

Stupid Nathaniel thought that he could eat into my alone time and blurt out random things like calling me cute, for instance- and that was magically supposed to make things better? No. But he called me cute.

Nathaniel visibly sighed, hanging his head in shame and maybe, just maybe, slight regret. "Nothing I say or do will ever make it okay, Shortcake. But I'm trying..."

"And what if I don't want you to?" I shot back, crossing my arms. The cold breeze was hitting my face hard, but not as hard as the gone mirth of his grey eyes was hurting me. The look on his face made me realise that maybe I was being too harsh on him. I was far -very far- from hating him, but I didn't want to feel worthless another time.

"You don't?" The fear in his voice was evident. As if my words were arrows, laced with a twinging poison

"I...I don't know." I looked away.

"Till a few weeks ago, I had been living well with the fact that you wanted nothing to do with me. Sometimes...sometimes I would think how it would feel to have you walk past me and throw one smile my way or say hi." I blinked furiously, fighting off proof of my weakness. I had had my fair share of tears before I completely gave up any hope I had for us.

"But I was getting to accepted things as they were. Now this, whatever this is you're trying to do, acting like this charming piece of s**t who thinks he can waltz in and out of my life whenever he pleases is really not appreciated! It's making me want to pull your hair out!" By the time I was done ranting and yelling and telling him exactly how I felt, I was breathing so hard that you'd think I had an exacerbation of a chronic pulmonary disease. But this was no disease. This was the 'Nathaniel Knight Effect'. It left you defenceless, breathless and confused.

"You think I'm charming?"

He did not just say that!

"Oh. My. God." My mouth dropped open, literally, at the stupid little smirk that had taken residence on his lips now.

What a mercurial piece of s**t! Just two minutes ago, he looked like he had seen a ghost and now he had the audacity to proudly display that stupid smirk. Grey-eyed jerk.

"I just ran out of breath explaining to you exactly how I feel and that's all you picked up?" I asked incredulously, my hands falling at my sides taking in his obvious inattentiveness.

"No!" He shouted, eyes wide in sudden realisation. "No, I...I heard everything. You just caught me off-guard is all." He blinked once, twice, staring at me in such awe that I knew if I didn't retaliate right then, I'd probably fall under the spell the mesmerizing greyness of his eyes was casting on my heart.

"You know what," I began, gritting my teeth together. "I am just going to go, see if your stupidity will be enough to make me evaporate!" I started to walk past him, swinging my arms in anger and stomping my foot on the hard concrete, so much that it made a loud noise. Perfect background score for my mood at the moment. Pissed off, serious and like 'get-out-of-my-face' vibes.

I had this whole scenario in my mind: I was supposed to walk out of there. If this were a movie he'd follow me around, begging for mercy. I'd do a Brooke Davis on him. Then maybe I'd show some more resilience and even after that, I'd still not cave in. But we would eventually start walking back to St. Theo's together, our sides brushing every so often.

Now think: When has anything gone according to my plan?

"Let me go!" I tried fighting off his hold on my wrists, which was preventing me from having my One Tree Hill moment. His tight grip didn't let me walk away. "Let me go, Nathaniel."

Nate pulled me closer, silencing me with his eyes first.

"Shh." I was burning in an unknown heat as his long index finger rested perfectly on my lips. Not pressing my lips with the pulp of his finger; barely touching them. There was silence. My resolve had died and so had his smirk. What was left was naked emotions in our eyes, the intermittent mixing of our breaths and let's not forget, my hungry stomach that took the very moment to growl loudly, very loudly.

"Let's go," he whispered, my cheeks flaming in sheer embarrassment. I had gone from wanting to be Brooke Davis to wanting to crawl in a burrow and never show my face again. That's how embarrassed I was.

"Why would I go anywhere with you?" Out of habit, he licked his lips and I had forgotten what we were really talking about. A small smile crept up, catching me unaware as he spoke the next words.

"Because you're hungry..," he inched a centimetre little closer, a few centimetres away still. "And I'm going to offer you food."

I should have seen this one coming.

"Wait, are you trying to bribe me?" I scoffed, blinking twice as I moved away and out of his grasp, breaking eye contact.

"I'll buy you Kit-Kats too."

"No!" I started walking towards the secret pathway that would lead me out of there. The park was closed already, so I wasn't worried about being caught. But that was the only entry-s***h-exit option available at this time of the night.

"I'll even let you have waffles for dessert."

His hopeful voice came in closer than it was a few seconds ago, the sound of his faint footsteps matching my rhythm. So he was following behind

"Still a big fat no!" I walked faster, angrier and more agitated. Mostly because he was an i***t, but also because of my warm cheeks that wouldn't stop flushing.

"Oh come on, Thea. I'll get you anything you want to eat."

Hold up.

Remember when I said my scenario included him and me walking back to St. Theo's together, not hand-in-hand? Well, Thea Hart had a change of plans.

"Anything?" I stopped in my tracks.

"Absolutely anything," his desperate voice promised.

Cue wolf-y stomach part two.

"Okay," I shrugged. "You're paying."

Two things any girl should never refuse: Give-aways on **, and free food. Well, technically, he didn't offer to buy. I didn't have money on me and no offence, but those waffles that he wanted to buy me cost more than two one-dollar notes.

"Come on," I turned around, ushering him to walk. He just stood there with ten pounds of surprise plastered on his slightly parted lips, eyes gawking at me. I smiled back sweetly. "We're having dessert first."