Lilac was frozen in place.
She couldn't comprehend how, or what was happening. One moment she was focusing on Jaxon and when she glanced to her right, he appeared out of nowhere – or maybe he had been there all along – with a girl hanging off his arm and…and –
He was kissing her.
Or she was kissing him, if her being all over Grey was any indication of that.
The girl was hugging him as she kissed Grey on his cheeks, a loud, wet kiss – twice – like a girlfriend thanking her boyfriend on something unexpected he did for her.
Lilac and Grey had been hanging often for her not to know if he was with someone. He knew some things about her, and her, him. Or maybe almost some things.
Is she his girlfriend? And what is this horrible and ugly feeling within me?
She shook her head. Her mind was too befuddled to make sense of what she witnessed.
"The fuck." Joanne cussed, although it didn't take away the disbelief in her tone.
In that moment, Grey looked up and caught her eyes. They widened before he disentangled himself from the girl and made his way towards her.
"Lilac!"
When he approached them, Lilac blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay, while her mouth struggled to work out words.
I can't lose myself right now.
She imagined she looked like a deer in the headlights, stunned and befuddled, yet unable to move. "Grey…"
Her gaze met his, studying his expressions, noting his surprised look, and trying to find other emotions. Her heart knew what it was looking for; guilt – but either she missed it or it hadn't been there at all.
His cheeks did reddened slightly, which didn't help how she felt at that moment – and it wasn't a good kind either.
Beside her, Joanne tried to converse in a lighthearted tone, but Lilac had been friends with the girl for so long, she knew even the subtlest signs from her. Joanne's tone was hard and sarcastic, disguised only in that cheery voice she did whenever someone's bullshit was about to get called out.
"Look who finally decided to show up." She grinned sharply at him, looking as though she had set her sights on a prey.
Startled, Grey brought his attention to her best friend, seemingly taken aback as he tried to form words.
"Yeah, I was…helping out a friend." He said eventually. His eyes seemed guarded and Lilac, whose suspicions had taken root and started building, grew suspicious at that. Why does he seemed wary?
Before she could say anything, Joanne said disbelievingly, "Really?"
Joanne's eyes darted purposely towards where Grey and the girl had been, before bringing her gaze back at him, a slight mocking smirk at the corners of her lips.
Lilac could sense that an argument would soon occur if she didn't come up with something to thwart this. As much as she love Joanne, her best friend could do a real damage even with the best intentions. And she wasn't sure if she wanted Joanne wanted to fight for her battle this time.
No, she thought, I need to do this by myself.
So she nudged Joanne slightly, and the two girls exchanged a silent communication which held deeper meanings than they seemed. Joanne seemed hesitant but she trusted her best friend to hold on to her own.
With a nod, and the same sharp smile, she said to them, "Well, I'm gonna go find Jaxon. Let me know if you need anything, Lilac." To Grey, she simply said, "See ya later, Grey."
The puzzled boy muttered a response, the both of them watching Joanne disappearing out of their sight, before he turned towards Lilac. "Did something happened? 'Cause I can tell if someone's ready to fight, and believe me, she was."
Grey smiled as he tried to joke, and though she loved seeing his smile, what just happened wasn't easy to put behind. She was curious.
Curious and hurt, despite knowing logically that she shouldn't be because they were just friends.
She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. Not wanting to get into the reason why her friend was defending her, she then said, "So, hey, who…who was that girl earlier?"
Damn, I sure do dive head first into a confrontation, huh?
Grey actually raised an eyebrow and for a moment, Lilac wondered if he was going to deny and say something else but all he said was, "Yeah, Chelsea. She's a friend."
How he looked didn't fully registered in her mind because all she could focus was her relief.
She should have stopped right there. She really should, but when her heart and mind are warring with one another, things somehow doesn't end up how it should have.
She nodded slowly but tried to get more out of him. "Okay, so is she… the friend that you were helping out?" Her tone end up sounding hopeful and she realised that she wanted it to be just that, that there wasn't anything between them that would make her stop the idea of pursuing him.
Grey's earlier look of puzzlement turned into one that made him chuckle nervously yet also embarrassed. As though he wanted to get out of the uncomfortable situation she just put him in.
"Lilac, I already told you. Why are you acting like this?"
Her brain shut down and her cheeks flushed hotly.
It felt although someone had just delivered a swift slap to her face, one so fast she couldn't even see it coming.
Feeling hurt and wronged by that, her shackles rose as her defensive stance kicked in. Taken aback and brows furrowed, she said, "Acting like what? I was only asking."
"Yeah, well I don't get why you're trying to make this into a big deal. I just told you."
Grey's face was flushed, though in embarrassment or anger, Lilac honestly couldn't be sure. Perhaps both. Their voices had rose higher, loud enough to capture the rest of the students milling about in the hallway's attention.
One guy – a jock – who was with a group of friends walked past them, but not before he jokingly said, "Aw Grey, fighting with your girlfriend? Here's a tip: get a room and let the magic work." He then proceeded to wink at him. His friends laughed, believing it to be the funniest and smartest thing his peer said.
Grey's expression turned cold and stoic, his molten brown eyes narrowed dangerously – one that surprised Lilac because she had never seen him wore that expression before. Annoyed and jokingly angry? Sure. But it was nothing compared to this.
"She's not my girlfriend. And fuck off, Liam."
She also bet no one had ever seen Grey like this either.
Liam, the jock, actually took a wary step back and raised his hands in surrender, eyebrow raised before muttering, "Aite, man. Chill, it's just a joke." before moving along, glancing back at Grey like he had been betrayed.
Lilac suddenly had the urge to hide. Her cheeks warmed considerably and if this goes on, she was sure a fever would come soon.
All sorts of emotions washed over her now. She was mostly utterly embarrassed and hurt, by him.
Grey had never spoken to her like that before. He was never cold to her – it was like someone had taken over him. What had gotten into him? And though this part shouldn't hurt, it did – his tone when he denied she was his girlfriend.
She wasn't stupid or delusional. Of course they weren't in a relationship! But it didn't help ease the wound in her heart when he said them almost…in contempt.
As though the idea of being something more with her was unbelievable, and unimaginable.
She felt….nauseous. And lightheaded.
I think I'm gonna throw up.
The look of the students passing by them didn't help her nerves either. Snickering, pitying, judging…
She hightailed out of the hallway, not wanting to see how everyone thinks of her, especially Grey.
Lilac hid herself under the bleachers in the gym.
Face flushed and palms sweating, Lilac wondered what in the world made her reacted like that towards Grey.
The answer came to mind easily, as it was a no brainer; she had a crush on him and was of course jealous of seeing Grey and the girl. Even if he had said she was his friend.
But what was up with Grey's behaviour? And the way he spoke to her? As hurt as she was by his curt response, she wondered if he was facing some problem.
For a moment, her mind wondered to the possibilities of him getting into trouble. He would tell her if there was something wrong, wouldn't he?
Lilac ran her hands through her hair messily, frustrated at what happened, which made her feel terribly embarrassed yet she couldn't help but worry about him.
I'm such a mess!
He had basically told her that he wouldn't date her, if the reaction he gave towards Liam and the rest of whoever that paid attention to them was evidence, so why would she care about him?
She needed to worry about herself.
Lilac hid her face in her arms. Instantly, the incident that happened earlier ran through her mind like hot flashes, further worsening how she felt.
She felt like crying – no wait, the waterworks had already started. Despite hiding under the bleachers where no one would think to look for a crying girl who just got her heart broken, Lilac grabbed her school bag and stuffed her head in – but not all the way – using it as cover from others because she knew how she looked like when she cry. If she had focused more on her surroundings, she wouldn't need to worry as the gym was vacant of its students, excluding her.
As her body wracked in sobs, she soon felt suffocated – both by her turbulent situation and emotions – but mostly because of her bag. She took it out and tried to breathe in deeply, pausing when her breath hitched because of her slight hiccups. She had never felt so…disoriented about a guy before. Sure she had flirt with them back when they did, but she never knew if it was because they were into her seriously or just for fun. And so, Lilac had never given much thought to dating nor had she ever felt so helpless and hopeless. This thing with Grey scared her and though she had come to terms with her feelings for him, the fact that he seemed to abhor the idea of being with her made her doubt herself.
And weren't she just planning how to go about this with her friends?
What if this is a sign from the universe that I shouldn't confess to him?
What if this is the sign that he absolutely does not like me back?
Lilac paled. If possible, the tears streamed more on her cheeks and she tried to muffle the sounds with her hand. Her heart felt like it was about to burst from containing her feelings, from hiding them from him. It was killing her.
She didn't want it to be like this.
"But his reaction...and I haven't even confess yet!" She muttered angrily to herself, upset that he actually felt that way and mad that it had to be so. "Maybe I shouldn't make a move, after all." She mumbled dejectedly.
Lilac was torn between decisions. She didn't want to humiliate herself, yet she also didn't want to keep her feelings in.
Frustrated, befuddled, and vexed over her indecision, she wiped furiously at her cheeks. A quiet crying session under the bleachers and away from prying eyes didn't help ease her emotions, nor did it wash away the incident that happened. She needed to block her thoughts, and soon, before she lose her mind.
Taking out her earbuds from the pockets in her bag, she plugged them in and browsed for a song on her phone that matched how she felt. Turning the volume up, she tried to focus on the angst-y voice of the singer. When that didn't work, she scrolled down to one that had relaxing tunes, in hopes she could direct her already confused, horrified and embarrassing infested thoughts to something positive.
Lilac tried and tried, jabbing her finger at her phone desperately until she realised a moment later why all of the songs in her phone weren't successful at distracting her.
They were all his favourites.
In the desperation to cling to her sanity, she had unwittingly relied on the songs that Grey had introduced her to.
Worse, most of it had been the songs from the band they had seen at the gig where they first met each other. She felt mocked. By fate, coincidence, or the entire universe, she had no idea. The fact that she had been looking for songs from Grey's collections and it was the same band that made them crossed paths was…overwhelming, unreal, and too odd.
What the fuck are you trying to tell me now, universe? This is so confusing!
"This is not funny!" She wailed in frustration from under the bleachers, her voice echoing through the massive but empty space.
Lilac felt spent.
The sound of her phone breaking her moment was the only thing that saved her from further spiralling into her already turbulent emotions.
Tiredly and without looking at the caller, she answered with a sniffle. "Yea."
"Thank God you're still alive! Jaxon and I have been calling you! Just where are you?"
Joanne had been speaking in one breath that when she finished, Lilac could hear her taking big gulps of air. Slowly, she checked her phone and noted that there were several missed calls from both Joanne and Jaxon, and a frantic message from them each saying how worried they were. Jaxon added afterwards that he had muffins with him in capital letters.
Lilac felt a smile threatening to break out at that, because there was no doubt that she would crawl from any hideout if they offered her food. Under normal circumstances that would be the case, but her entire body was drained of energy. Now, not even those could tempt her. If anything, she felt exhausted. Her mood was ruined, like it just had never known the feeling of being alright and the thought of being okay seemed like a farfetched idea.
Lilac felt impossible to recover from this low she was feeling.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Got carried away. I'm…in the gym right now." Then, with hesitation, she asked, "You didn't…look around for me, did you?"
If this was possible, Lilac could feel Joanne's nose flared as she snapped, "Oh, of course not, why would I run around looking for my best friend, who, by the way, just saw her crush being kissed in from of her, and then later I found out, she ran away from said crush without saying anything to her best friends!"
Lilac could hear someone demanding something in the background until they seem to be nearing Joanne, their voice louder. "Is that Lilac? Give me that phone!"
Joanne barked at them. "No, Jaxon! I'm talking to her right now!"
"Well, then put it on speaker!" He whined angrily.
"Okay, fine." A pause, and then, "You're on speaker now, Lilac."
Lilac winced when Joanne unleashed her fury on her, and now Jaxon was too. After everything that happened, she suddenly felt like crying again, but time it was because she had been so inconsiderate of her friends. "I'm so sorry, guys!"
On the other line, Joanne sighed after taking in gulps of air. "Look, forget it. It's not the first thing people do after all that, so I'm sorry for yelling at you. I was just really worried because you've never ghosted on us before!"
"Yeah, and because of a guy?" She heard Jaxon scoffed but sniffling. "Nice to see where your loyalty is, best friend."
She could feel her heart wrecking when Jaxon said that. She whimpered and was about to say something, to apologise a thousand times to them when she heard him letting out a yelp and then hastily said, "Okay, I don't mean that. Joanne's right, we were really worried. And what's this about Grey saying you disappeared? What happened?" He sounded eager yet there was a hint of worry too in his voice.
She wanted to, but Lilac didn't have the energy to recount the sorry tale to them at the moment. And so she only said, "I'll tell you later, okay? I'm just…I rather not deal with that right now." She sounded weary.
They were both silent for a moment, and Lilac thought had cut the call off on her, if it weren't for their quiet breathing. "Guys?" She said softly.
"Okay, I'm declaring today as the Best Friend's Emergency Call so we're skipping school." Jaxon stated calmly.
Lilac's eyebrows shot up. "What? No, you can't. School is important and you can't skip anymore of this than we – "
"Right, and what are you doing right now?" Lilac blushed at Joanne's pointed tone. They were right, she wasn't exactly in class now, either.
When she didn't answer, Joanne continued gleefully. "See? Besides, Jaxon's right. There's no way we can focus especially since you're out there moping about Romeo."
"Yeah, and we have been very good students, Lilac. You were the one who often skip them. But now we can all hang out at once since I've got a pass to leave school!" Jaxon cackled victoriously. For the first time in hours, Lilac felt laughter bubbling up inside her. She couldn't help it, Jaxon's laugh was infectious and hilarious at that. "True." She muttered in embarrassment.
"Ugh, fine!" Lilac relented before saying, "So I'll meet you guys at the car park?"
"You know the drill." Joanne quipped.
When they hung up, Lilac prepared to put her phone in her pocket, but not before noticing a few more messages that wasn't from them.
They're from Grey! She thought in surprise. And they were a couple of missed calls from him too.
She frowned. Lilac didn't think Grey would text her, much less call after she rushed out of the hallway.
Seeing his name further worsened her already dejected mood, and it also makes her not want to deal with him at the moment. She just couldn't think rationally, or sort the many feelings inside her.
Still, for a moment, her fingers stilled, curiosity in wanting to know what he sent eating at her.
Finally, she swiped it open and read the text.
It said, Hey. Are you alright? Is it that time of the month again? You disappeared on me
And another. Lilac, wats goin on? Jaxon just called & he said you're nt answering him? R u mad at me pls cll me bck
Lilac's heart clenched in her chest. The second message had a scared emoji at the end and if she weren't feeling disheartened because of him, she would have felt her body warmed and tingled pleasantly, her spirits lifted up when he showed his concern for her.
Like it always did, until now.
These were sent ten minutes ago. She couldn't believe it had been minutes because it sure felt like hours to her.
She read the messages again and this time, felt a ghost of smile painted the corner of her lips. Grey's usually proper and composed messages became jumbled in the second one. Then her face turned to a frown, remembering that he must have been in a state of frenzy if he couldn't focus on typing properly.
Lilac bit her lip, unease and guilt gnawing at her at the thought of her friends and him worrying.
Her fingers instantly poised over the screen, wanting to reply him, to tell him that she…
She what? She wasn't going to say she was fine, was she?
And what comes after that? He would start questioning why she went M.I.A on him and why her friends had called him too.
Despite that, the thought of Grey being worried about her left a bitter taste in her mouth. Could she just ignore him at the moment? She needed time to sort herself and…and the thought of even giving him an answer of "I'm fine" didn't make her feel fine.
She had never left him on read before, yet maybe because of what happened, because of how cold he was when she had asked him a simple question, and how his rejection hurts even though she hadn't confessed to him, a part of her wanted to be petty.
Because Lilac was hurt, embarrassed, confused, angry, heartbroken, and…jealous.
Argh! Why did I have to fall for him?!
Her eyes roved over the texts, alternating between texting him back and being childish.
In the end, it didn't matter if she was being petty or not, because Lilac just couldn't bring herself to face him, even in texting.
She desperately wanted to reach out to Grey, yet how could she when he was the one whom she was running away from?
Jaxon drove them to a convenient store nearby, grabbing some snacks and drinks from the aisle before making another stop at a café. This time, they got themselves some apple pies, pretzels, and muffins – which Jaxon insisted – before heading towards Joanne's house.
Being the mother hen in the group, Joanne was adamant on Lilac crashing over her place, with Jaxon tailing along because he knew Joanne loves to care and feed her friends.
They were lounging in Joanne's living room, eating the food they bought. Jaxon laid down on Lilac's thigh on the couch, browsing the channels on TV, while Joanne busied herself in the kitchen, the smell of macaroni and cheese permeating in the air.
"Jo, is it ready yet?" Jaxon called from the living room.
Joanne stepped out from the kitchen and stood in front of him, blocking his view of the TV. Lilac munched on a banana muffin, feeling her mood improving. Her friends were often at this and she chuckled, knowing what's going to happen next.
"Why are you here again?" Joanne demanded of him, one hand at her hips while the other, holding a spatula and pointing at him.
Jaxon ate his pretzels noisily just to aggravate Joanne, but a nudge from Lilac stopped him from doing it further.
"Food. And emotional support." Jaxon said in an afterthought. Lilac's snicker made him grin widely Joanne.
Joanne looked at him, eyebrows raised. "She already has me for that, because unlike you, I am actually doing something for her." She ignored Jaxon's indignant 'hey!' and glanced at Lilac. She was still snickering beside him. "Lilac, I expect you to be on my side in this." She said pointedly, looking exasperated at her two friends.
And just like that, her heart feels much lighter. Even though today's event happened a couple of hours ago, it seemed like a distant thing. They were in this moment, this bubble strengthened by years of solid friendship and she just want to bask in their safe and familiar cocoon.
She looked at them both, feeling the tears prickled the corner of her eyes and the warmth by their apparent love and care for her. She chuckled at Joanne's pout and Jaxon's gleeful look, noting their looks of surprise when she tackled them both into a hug.
"Jo, I think she's snapped." Jaxon's voice was wary and he stayed still.
"I think….you may be right. She's shaking." Joanne sounded in disbelief.
Lilac's giggles, though muffled vibrated through them and they all chuckled.
She broke out of the hug and wiped her face on her sleeve, looking away for a moment before glancing at her now worried friends. Lilac's face looked flushed and with her reddened nose and eyes, it was no guess for them.
"Well, why are you crying right now?" demanded Jaxon, despite looking alarmed.
"Is it still Grey? Because I will go there and –" Joanne began her angry tirade but was cut off by Lilac.
"No. I'm crying because of you guys but –"
They gasped, looking affronted now and Lilac rolled her eyes at her friends' dramatics.
"Oh, for goodness sake – will you please listen?"
They gestured to her to continue.
"Thank you. This isn't some sad tears. I'm happy because of you guys."
They both 'aw-ed' and pulled her into a tight hug before releasing her. "As long as you're happy, we are too. Now come on, I'm almost done with the mac and cheese." Joanne tugged on Lilac, and Jaxon quickly told hold of Lilac's other hand, following behind her.
"Finally!" Jaxon whooped before adding, "And hey, Lilac look at us three being a train." He gestured to their hands with his eyebrows, grinning
That made Joanne sigh as she shook her head, muttering loudly to a laughing Lilac. "Honestly, you'd think he has never been fed enough, considering how his family owned one of the biggest restaurants in town."
"Hey, I heard that."
"I meant you to." was Joanne's smug reply.
Lilac laughed harder, her cheeks becoming rosier.
"Oh, and guys," she said once she got a hold of herself and they turned to her. "Always."
At their confused looks, Lilac shook her head with a grin. Joanne may not remember what she said to her, even jokingly, but she did and meant it.
I'll be on both of your sides. Always.385Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeiUHunwo2A
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