AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In less than a second, I opened her message:
I chuckled. This was a much better opportunity for a distraction than jumping. I stepped back from the ledge and sat on a rock, already debating what to text back.
The White Wolf
Keith jerkedhis head toward my voice. “What are you doing here?” he questioned, struggling to keep his eyes open.
I scanned the room around us, searching for answers beyond the plain white walls of the Yoo house. “Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m here to babysit your feverish ass,” I said, shifting uncomfortably, my eyes flickering over him to the bedside drawer and then at his face again.
Well, this is awkward.
“Did Cole ask you to look after me?” He trained his arm toward the door. “You can leave. The exit is right behind you. Tell him I’m fine now. He’s being worried over nothing.”
“This ungrateful brat,” I whispered before getting worked up. “Are you upset you didn’t wake up next to Cole?” I gasped. “Heol. Do you have feelings for him?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Instinct or intuition. Whichever fits,” I replied with an uneven smile. “The way you look at him is how I found myself looking at him.”
His dry lips parted as he spoke slowly, “How would you know the way you look at him?”
“I see myself in his shining and shimmering eyes, dumbass.”
“How romantic.” Even in his weakened state, Keith’s sarcasm was clear. But so was the effort it took for him to speak as his brows knitted in pain.
I let out a dissatisfied breath, my sympathy for his pain causing me to relent. “You see, the way he looks at you …” I stared at my clasped hands resting on my lap. “It’s the way I’ve always wanted him to look at me. Have you ever read a Yaoi manga? The two of you give me this weird, tingly feeling as if I’ve seen you guys before, which is beyond my understanding.”
Keith remained quiet as I yammered on about my first ever breakup.
“Fine, don’t say anything. It’s my fault anyway,” I continued. “I was the one who asked him out. I just thought that I’ve waited too long already and that he’d never confess his feelings, so why not do it myself? I was so happy when he agreed. I took him to a lot of places, experienced a lot of firsts with him—except sex ‘cause who knows? I mean, I got him cupcakes and gifts every month. He never gave me anything—nothing—but I was still glad because it was enough that he was there … with me. Even though he’d made me feel like a Sahara Desert down there—”
“You’re still young. It can’t be that bad.”
“I know. Now that I think about it, it sounds very inappropriate to even think about it. But what can I do? I’m surrounded by horny boys and girls in class,” I gritted out, blinking past the tears I didn’t know were slowly coursing down my cheeks. “I just feel so betrayed, you know?”
As my pain and sweat exposed the oiliness of my skin—something I had been trying to conceal with Korean foundation—I mused over the past three years I had spent, seemingly in love with Cole. The calmness of his smile, of his hands holding mine, and his voice when he said goodnight. Those memories made my heart swell so much that I couldn’t breathe properly in front of my rival. Unless, maybe, just maybe, I couldn’t breathe because a part of me ached about breaking my poor piggy bank to buy Cole his vanilla cupcakes. I used to wonder, how could this man do nothing but still make me happy and sad all at the same time? Surely, those feelings had nothing to do with the lack of intimacy, because we were only kids. And it was okay then. Until it wasn’t.
Keith didn’t say anything else, nothing that would confirm my suspicions. He didn’t chase me out of the room. He simply watched me in silence, allowing me to cry.
Through the blur of my tears, it looked like Keith was moving around a lot more. Only, it wasn’t the tears at all. He was actually moving.
“Hey, stay in bed!” I yelled.
He ignored me, swinging his legs down over the edge of the bed. “I’m not going to be bedbound forever. Here, help me up.”
I scrambled from the chair and to his side, grateful he was wearing sweatpants as the sheets slid off his legs. “Dear me. Where are you trying to go? I’m so not going to be helping you to the bathroom, got it?”
A genuine smile appeared on his face as he looped an arm around my neck. “You need some fun. And I need some time with somebody who won’t treat me like a porcelain doll. They have a PlayStation in the other room, remember?”
I lifted my head to look at him, begrudgingly accepting the fact that he was a good person. “Oh yeah? What game are we playing?”
“What doyouwant to play?”
I puffed, “I just want to see the world burn.”
He cleared his throat, eyes squinting at me. “Come again?”
“Kidding,” I mumbled. “Do they have Monsters, INC.? Barbie? Hello Kitty? Sims?”
