❝she was the girl, who bit the horizon, who peeled the stars from the sky and put them on her tongue, the girl who was hungry for the universe, who craved magic and saw the broken boy for who he truly was- a broken boy.❞
Beca...
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Chapter 31
Why Don't You Go And Set My Heart On FIre
Ellis
"Is the skirt a little too much?"
"Depends on where you're going," remarked Astrid, rolling on her left side, propping her head up on her elbow so she could scrutinised my outfit, which was a light robin blue crop top and a high-waisted floral skirt with a lace hemline. The small daisy necklace paralleled with the skirt and the gold bracelets added a certain flair- at least I thought it did.
"I'm heading to Java," I told her.
"Dressed in your clothes like that?" Astrid frowned, then a teasing smile flitted onto her face, "You usually don't put effort when we're going to Java. Why? Is there somebody cute?"
I'm meeting Jem, I thought, face to face. For the first time since we kissed. "Kind of," I smoothed the skirt down and turned around to check for any stains or wrinkles on the flared material behind. It's- the uh...new cute waiter guy," I lamely lied; ignoring the spurt of guilt. "He asked me out."
"Really?" Astrid's eyes widened in genuine happiness. "Wow, okay! Tell me everything after! I want every detail!"
I forced a smile, not because I was dreading to meet Jem (not exactly dreading...more like tentatively wishing it didn't have to happen) but because of my sudden unwillingness to tell her about what happened between Jem and me- guilty over the fact that I wanted our kiss to stay a secret. It felt...private- and I understood that they were my best friends and we were supposed to share everything but the flame kindled between Jem and me was confidential as if it was to remain unseen, untouched and sacred.
The kiss was just something I wanted only Jem and I to know.
I suddenly became acutely aware of the distance between my friends and me- ever since Jem and I buried the hatchet of our five-year rivalry. Calista and Astrid were more of their own people now and I was drifting away from the both of them, not necessarily gravitating towards Jem but in general, I was moving away from them. Especially since we've matured into different people, the reality of us separating from the co-dependency of being there for each other was dawning on us, it seemed easier to accept the fact that in about a year's time we weren't going to see each other every day anymore and that we were heading towards different pathways, entering different crossroads. I used to think it'd be way too hard to ever leave Calista and Astrid for Harvard; it would be the mightiest sacrifice I've ever had to do but it seemed easier now; as if I was cushioning the fall. Not that I wouldn't ache for their company but...it would hurt less.
"I won't leave out any details," I promised.
-
Unfortunately, I couldn't invent some sort of freak accident because the weather was rather annoyingly perfect and beautiful. It was one of Philadelphia's better days; with the sun burning high and the sky a bright and perky robin blue. Java Moose was located at a street of attractive, quaint little stores scattered across the Village area, tucked by the corner, next to a park of green and yellow trees, looking like they came out of a movie scene in Paris during the 1920s. Vinyl streetlights erected from the grey pavement sidewalks as people milled from fro and thro; couples hands-locked and stealing furtive kisses in the summer breeze. It was all very pretty but sickeningly so.
