That Night √

14» that mistake

Grace's POV
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I spent the entire evening in the library just to write down stuff about drugs. Which, as it proved out, was harder than I thought it would be.

Mrs Jones was right; doing this seemed almost impossible without any help. And I had no help. I didn't want to ask Luca, not when I couldn't have stood watching that hatred on his face again.

I kept on searching in the pages of my Biology textbook, the internet, and even those library research books to find something. Anything. But if I did find something, it felt even harder to jot it down on paper.

It was a mess.

"Fuck." I groaned, dropping my head in my hands.

I was going to fail. And Luca was going to flunk it too just because of me.

A thud came from right behind me and I jerked upright. Almost instinctively, I looked around. There were almost three other people apart from me in this library. Two of them were hunched over an encyclopedia. The third one was typing down frantically on the library computer. I didn't see anybody else.

It could've just been the librarian, but I got paranoid at night. I couldn't help it. Pulling my hoodie sleeves over my fists, I clenched them together.

Someone probably just dropped a book, I told myself.

As if on cue, another thud came from the shelf--this time from right behind me. I stood up a little too abruptly and the pencil fell to the floor.

Nobody seemed to have heard it except for me. I stepped away from my table and peeked over at the shelves. The lights were closed at the end of the library where the back door was. And there wasn't anybody there.

"It's no one," I whispered under my breath, bouncing a little on my heels before clearing my throat and going towards my chair again.

Why would anyone harm me in a public library? People were here--not many, but still. I sighed and sat down once again. I was being antsy for no reason.

That's when I heard footsteps. Real footsteps right behind me. And it scared me out real bad, so much so that a small scream escaped my lips as I turned around once more.

This time, there was somebody in front of me. My eyes widened in response as I looked at him.

"What?" Luca asked me with a frown.

My heart was racing wildly and he was the last person I was expecting to find here. "What are you doing here? You can't just...you can't just creep up on me." I nearly grimaced at the obvious urgency in my voice. For one second, I had thought--

The frown didn't leave his face. "I wasn't creeping up on you."

"Yes, you were."

"Why would I creep up on you?" He asked in disbelief. "I just walked in from the backdoor. You, happened to have your back towards it."

No one uses the back door, I wanted to say. No normal person, at least.

I didn't, though. Because the last time I'd seen him, he looked like he didn't want to be anywhere near me. And well, he still looked at me like that. Except that for some reason, he looked worn out; tired, exhausted, and with hair such a dark tousled mess--as dark as the leather jacket he wore.