Once Upon a Time

eleven...

***

The hand wrote on the book with enthusiasm. The black pen against the book was something the writer had gotten accustomed to in a short period of time. He wrote down,

Dear diary,

For the first time, I'm convinced that I am doing the wrong thing but I can't seem to stop myself. Every passing day I have my patience deteriorating and....

He hesitated before sighing and tearing the page off. Closing the book, he threw it on the table and laid on the couch jadedly.

---

Clarissa quickly turned when she noticed him staring. Presently, she was trying the zipper of her dress but her hands fumbled with the zipper instead. She cursed silently with a groan. She had always done this trick before, so she didn't understand what went wrong.

She nervously turned to see if he was still watching her but turned back almost immediately when she noticed his presence behind her.

"You should have asked for my help already," he started. "Or are you too shy to do that too?"

"No, I was handling it." He shook his head amused. His hands gently caressed her shoulders but the first feeling of their skin kissing made her flinch noticeably. He smiled to himself when he noticed the effect he had on her.

He drew the zipper up closing the zip in a swift movement and moved away. She stood there for seconds to calm her unsteady breath before finally turning to him.

"Thank you." He nodded and she walked away to sit at her vanity table.

"I wanted to talk to you yesterday but you were already fast asleep. I decided to wait till morning instead of waking you up. About the other day Nicholas came by, I'm really sorry for speaking to you like that." He told her. All this while he had been meaning to say that after ignoring her for 2days!

"Austin kind of slipped and told me a bit too much when we spoke yesterday."

'What?!' She almost blurted out. Austin told him?!

No, no, no!

"He told me what really happened between the two of you. If I had listened to you, I wouldn't have talked that way. I was rude to you and I apologise."

What was she to say to that? It is going to take a while to get over her hurting. Things were never this intense with anyone before. The moment he told her off, saying those harsh words to her was actually the first time she felt the need to end a quarrel immediately. Seeing him angry with her wasn't something she expected would be this way, would feel this way. Nick was quite the opposite, they would quarrel and the next day, he would be at her door, begging to be let in. Not that she was at fault anyways but this was the same problem too, she wasn't at fault or was she?

"No, It's alright, I could handle it." He raised a brow at her but nodded anyways.

"Okay, thanks."

She almost let out a snicker. If she considered sobbing to herself when she was sure he was asleep a certain night as a proper way to handle the situation, then she did a proper job at it.

"Now that we are over that, do you like partying?" It was then her eyes darted to him in surprise and she put on a very alluring smile that got him dumbstruck.

___

"Don't go yet," He told Clarissa when she turned to return to her work. Daniel scribbled his signature beneath the sheets.

Closing the file, he handed it to her. "Here, give this to father for me." He found interest in his laptop once again.

She forgot what she wanted to say when she took another look at the fairly amount of chest he showed. She swallowed involuntarily. His green eyes darted to her immediately when he discovered that she hadn't moved a spot.

"Is something wrong?" He asked on confusion.

"Huh! No, no, I was just about to leave. I thought there was something else I needed to do," she babbled then gulped. "I'll take my leave now." She told him almost dashing out of the place. He cocked his head slightly to the side in confusion and on impulse; he began looking around him for what could have made her so distracted. His lips formed a smile when he got the answer. So she was attracted to him after all and here he was beginning to think that he was the only one.

She held her chest as she shut the door close finding comfort in leaning on the wall. How was she going to keep on hiding this if she couldn't even get a grip on herself? This was certainly not what she planned. For goodness sake she had to avoid him, for her own benefits and maybe his too. She tapped her chest gently willing her heart to calm down before letting out a breath.

She leaned away from the wall ready to continue her journey but froze as her eyes met another's who was staring at her, observing....

"Oh my goodness, you scared me Darius." She looked around and found nobody around.

"I saw you come out so I decided to say hi." She cursed on realising. He obviously saw her display. "Are you okay Clarissa?"

"Why yes, why wouldn't I be?" He nodded. "I am just tired that's all. Why are you here?" Clarissa asked.

"Audora was craving chicken fingers so she called and asked me instead, how's work?" He asked.

"It's going well, I should get going." She told him with a smile she managed to put on.

"You know you should tell him," She paused her movement.

How's everyone knowing?!

"Maybe because you are doing a bad job at hiding it?" He replied.

She cursed silently when she realized she had said it quite loud enough.

"I wonder how he doesn't know." Darius continued. "Still, you should tell him. You don't want to continue living like this."

She sighed in defeat. "I can't help it,"

"Maybe he likes you too," Darius said. "I hope you'll recognise when someone is trying to make a move on you. It takes two to tangle remember that." He was silent after this and so she nodded and used that medium to walk away from the now common topic.

She didn't want to even think about Daniel liking her so that her heart won't shatter.

___

She was trying not to think about the hand that lingered on her waist as they walked into the club. One reason because her dress showed too much of her back and she could practically feel his hand on her skin while for second, just take a proper look at him a black T-shirt that hung on his muscles properly and ripped jeans and Nike shoes, he looked so.....young? Why wouldn't you feel bothered when a handsome guy holds your waist like he isn't willing to let go anytime, a handsome guy you seem to be in love with!

She didn't notice this at first but now that she did, why the hell were people staring?! It was like everyone in the party just shut off what they were doing to stare at them-annoying!

"Henry?" Daniel acknowledged as he shook hands with his friends finally letting go of her.

"Clarissa meet Henry," Henry turned to look at her immediately. "Henry, Clarissa."

"A pleasure to meet you Mi amor," Henry started eyes boring into hers. "Forgive my Ill mannered self." He took her hands and kissed it longingly earning a typical glare from Daniel but he had to stay put. This was part of the dare which he lost and he couldn't just wait for the night to be over already.