Tall, Dark and Scary (Chapter 2)

I sat up in my bed and looked at the door. My once steady heartbeat was now running its own personal marathon and my stomach seemed to be enjoying its own rollercoaster with all the loops and twists you can imagine. As I stood to answer the knock, I couldn’t get my hand to stop shaking. I slowly opened the door and there he was sitting on the ground across the hall.

I’m pretty sure there’s a limit to how much the heart can just stop beating but I don’t seem to have reached mine, despite all the surprises.

“L-lucien,” I choked out.

He looked up, his eyes pleading with me to allow him to come in or at least talk to him. I couldn’t risk being in a closed space with him so I closed my door and slid down the wall next to him, his eyes never leaving me. We sat in silence for a while, him staring at me and me fiddling with my thumbs. I didn’t know what was going through his head but I was hoping that this was all just a really bad nightmare.

“Why are you afraid of me?”

I jumped from him speaking and turned to face him. “Have you seen yourself?” I whispered.

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

“Why me?” I asked.

He chuckled to himself, “Have you seen yourself?”

I looked away and felt my cheeks getting hot. We fell into silence again. He turned to face me. His hand came up to my face causing me to flinch except he didn’t pull back instead he put his hand under my chin forcing me to look at him.

My heart of course started running that marathon again. He noticed my nervousness and a small smile spread to his lips, as if to reassure me that he wouldn’t attack me. I wanted to believe that especially since his eyes held nothing but kindness but he was still the same Lucien that everyone was afraid of.

While I was in my thoughts, he trailed his hand up to cup my cheek. I failed to notice that the distance between he and I was closing drastically. I didn’t notice how close we were until his lips were against mine. I was shocked and didn’t react.

“Sorry,” he said while pulling back and running a hand through his head.

I couldn’t speak because unlike the last kiss this one was soft. I looked at him and he seemed to be fighting his own battle within himself. He looked at me, searching my face for a reaction or an answer. I was frozen in time and my thoughts and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get any words out, not that I really had any to say. He shook his head and was about to get up when I grabbed his wrist.

“Is that how you try to win a girl over? You kiss her twice and walk away both times.”

He was taken aback for a second but he composed himself and faced his whole body towards me. “Do you want me to win you over?”

I buried my head into my knees because my cheeks were on fire.

“I mean I would love to win you but you seem like you’re too afraid to be near me. I don’t want to force you to do something when you can barely sit next to me without flinching every time I move.”

I buried my head deeper. “How do you expect me to react when you’re like the definition of scary and I never expected you to like me?”

He didn’t say anything so I looked up at him. He was staring at me. Everything in my head was screaming to just get up and go to my room. However, my heart was developing a weak spot for him and how he looked at me, like I would do anything when he stared at me.

“One date.”

He looked confused and asked, “What’d you say?”

“You get one date to prove that you’re not the monster that everyone believes and to not scare me. After that I will decide if I let you win me over.”

He smiled and was about to lean in to kiss me on the cheek when-

“Arabelle.”