Stay Away | Eric Coulter [1]

thirty-one

ERIC

    I've been creepily lingering in the far corner of the rooftop for almost an hour now. To be completely honest, it all makes me feel like a bit of a stalker.

I'm not sure what it is, but after Nessa's run-in with Drew, it's been a little harder for me to leave her knowing that things could go south so quickly. The feeling has only intensified after the encounter with her shitty dead-beat father.

The blonde girl whose name I can't remember- although, I'm pretty sure it starts with an 'M'. Marjorie, maybe? Whatever it is, she had waved me over and invited me to join them when she'd spotted me not too long after I'd arrived. I had declined. Nessa had also come over to try to convince me to join them. Again, I declined and insisted she paid me no mind.

I wasn't going to intrude on Nessa's time with her friend just because I was an obsessive asshole.

Halfway through staring out into nothing, a figure enters my line of vision before plopping down beside me with a sigh.

I turn to glare at Zeke as he holds out a bottle to me, "Beer?"

My eyes flicker from the bottle he'd just offered me and back to his face.

"Is there a reason why you're here?"

Zeke frowns at me, "Come on, man. I'm just trying to be friendly."

I grunt in reply, begrudgingly accepting the beer from him. After all, he's a good friend to Nessa. As much as I dislike his best friend, he's proven as much today.

Satisfied, Zeke makes himself comfortable beside me much to my dismay.

"So, you and Nessa..." He starts and I raise a hand to cut him off.

"We don't have to do this," I say, "In fact, I'd much prefer it if we didn't."

The infuriating fuck smiles at me, "Well, that's too bad for you. I'm not going anywhere. See, one thing I've learnt from seeing you with Nessa is that you're not the scary fucker everyone thinks you are. I'm even willing to go as far as to say you're really just a big softy-"

I push to my feet abandoning my untouched beer on the gravelled ground, "That's it, we're done here."

Mimicking my actions, Zeke stands too and I groan.

"Fuck, man. Just because you and Nessa are friends doesn't mean I have to like any of you. I don't. I tolerate you because you make her happy, and that's all there is to it. That doesn't make us fucking friends."

Zeke's silent for a minute, but even after my short tirade, he doesn't seem all that angry or even insulted by my words. Instead, he just stares at me with observant eyes that I find oddly unsettling. And trust me when I say there aren't a lot of things that unsettle me.

"Do you love her?" He asks after all that uncomfortable silence, "I think you do. I just want to hear it from you."

His question stumps me and now it's me who is silent.

"I don't need to answer to you," I eventually say.

"No," He agrees with a shrug, "You don't even have to, I think your actions speak for you." Zeke pushes my beer back into my hand, "I once told Nessa that it'll be in her best interest to stay away from you. I believe my exact words were that wandering too close to you was like playing with fire and that eventually she'll get burned." Then, clapping me on the shoulder he says, "I was wrong."

"You two sure look cosy," I could hear the grin in Nessa's voice before I even see it.

Zeke gives me a once-over, looking severely unimpressed. "I was just leaving. You sure got yourself a grumpy little shit."

My arms wrap around Nessa's waist as if it was second nature as she reaches up to slide hers around my neck.

"Ready to go?" Nessa smiles up at me as if I'd just gifted her the mood and my heart stutters at her beautiful face.

I leaned down to kiss her, feeling her soft lips move against mine like a reminder that she was, in fact, truly and utterly mine before a chorus of cheers and whistles sound from behind us, and Nessa breaks away from me with a chuckle.

"Yeah! Go, Neric!" Zeke's brother- again, whose name I don't quite remember- yells, pumping his fist in the air.

"Neric?" I ask and Nessa groans burying her face in my chest.

"Please never bring that up again," Her voice is muffled when she speaks, "It'll only encourage Uriah even more." Ah, so that's what his name is.

✧

    Somehow, Nessa and I had found ourselves cramped on the couch in the glass room rather than returning to our room like we'd agreed on.

We laid in silence for a while. I don't ask her how if she's okay after what happened today. Even though it doesn't seem like it and though she insists that she's fine, I knew she was a little shaken by it.

Nessa has been a fucking warrior since she'd stepped foot in Dauntless. It was as if being here helped her finally spread those wings that her father has been clipping for years. And when she saw her father again, I don't think I've ever seen her so afraid. Just seeing it once was enough for me to decide that I never want to see her like that again.

Just when I think she's fallen asleep, Nessa finally speaks.

"I was five the first time he'd hit me. Backhanded me right across the face. Just once," My hand clenches at how she sounded so broken as she recounted her father's monstrous behaviour, but stayed silent as she continued, "Right after he'd done it, he looked horrified with himself. Like he couldn't believe he could lay a hand on his daughter. He apologised over and over again, saying how he didn't know what had gotten into him but that he was just so, so angry that he just snapped." She lets out a humourless laugh, "He promised to never do it again. But I knew that was a lie because I'd heard him make that promise to my brother and my mother, too, before she died. Repeatedly. He never kept his promises."

Nessa lifts her head, looking at me with glassy eyes. "I don't want to be afraid of him, anymore."

Reaching up to wipe her tears as it trickles down her cheek, "You don't have to be. He can't get to you here. I'll make sure he never gets to hurt you again."

Nessa doesn't say anything, simply nuzzling her face into the crook of her neck.

As we continued to lay there, basking in the comfort of each other's presence, I realise I never had a doubt of my real answer to Zeke's question. I had been falling for Vanessa Eaton ever since the day I'd laid eyes on her, and every day it feels like I fall even deeper.