Chapter 9

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Finley’s P.O.V

Eli looked at me accusingly as he waved my notebook around. I gulped, having no story to back up my words.

This isn’t fair, I thought desperately. Out of all of the people in the world to find my notebook, it has to be Eli, the only one to yell at me about it.

This was true, after all. My father would just hand it back to me silently, my mother would cry that I’d been lying to her, and Luke would simply ask me if I wanted to talk. At least with my family, I could lie. Eli, I had a feeling, would know if I was being truthful or not.

“Well?” Eli said belligerently.

“I-I,” I stammered, trying to think of an excuse. “I d-d-d-don’t-”

“Don’t what, Finley?” Eli demanded.

I shrunk back in fear. I hated being around anyone angry, as it made me feel like I was somehow going to get hurt.

Eli raised his eyebrows accusingly, shaking my notebook in my face.

I could literally feel myself panicking, my eyes darting from my window to my door, debating which one would provide the faster escape. My breathing quickened and I could  feel the inevitable run instinct kicking in, telling me to get out of here, run away and get away from whatever was making my body seize up and my lungs stop working. 

Tears came to my eyes and I wailed, “I think I’m really, really depressed!” before launching myself at Eli, now sobbing almost hysterically.

Eli dropped my notebook and patted my back slowly, looking terrified. I guess he was good with people who were having anxiety attacks, not people who cry into his shoulder.

“There there,” he said awkwardly. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“No i-it’s not!” I cried. “I’m n-not ‘fine!’ I always s-say I’m fine, b-b-but I’m not!”

“Yeah,” Eli murmured, rubbing my back. “Whenever someone says they’re fine, they’re usually lying straight through their teeth.”

I sniffled, still crying, why, I’m not exactly sure, I think all of my emotions finally just came pouring out and Eli just happened to be nearby. Eli simply kept patting my back slowly, unsure of his actions, but helping me nonetheless.

“Shh,” Eli muttered. “Please stop crying,” he added, but I don’t think I was supposed to hear that part.

I swallowed hard and slowly removed myself from Eli’s arms, hiccupping and wiping my eyes. “Sorry for just breaking down,” I whispered.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Eli said gently. “You seemed to need a good cry.” It was silent for a second until he spoke. “Do you want to tell me about your anxiety?”

I shot him a wary glance, not willing to tell him that I was lying to almost my whole family. I wasn’t even willing to voice the words anxiety disorder out loud. I don’t have a disorder. I just get anxiety attacks sometimes.

Eli, noticing my expression, rephrased his question. “Not now, but did you always have anxiety?”

I shook my head. “N-No. When I was younger, I was f-fine. But then I started s-school, and my attacks started.”

“Why?” Eli asked curiously, sitting down on my bed.

“I d-don’t know,” I admitted. “I t-think it was because I didn’t k-know anyone at my school, and t-that terrified me. P-Plus, Luke liked to tease me a l-lot.”

“Who’s Luke?” Eli asked, his fists tightening.

I laughed. “Luke’s my brother.”

“Oh,” Eli said, looking a little embarrassed and relieved at the same time. “So you’ve had attacks ever since?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I get nervous around p-people, and I d-don’t like crowded places.”

“That sounds like you have just some people problems,” Eli joked, trying to get me to smile.

I gave a little half-smile and said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Eli wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “You want to talk about your poems?”

I stiffened and tried to scoot away from him. Honestly? No, no I do not, and probably never will. Eli seemed to see my answer from my face, so he simply started humming and glancing around my room. I found my eyes looking at his lip ring, watching him as he twirled it around with his tongue, making it move. Feeling myself getting slightly hypnotized by it, I tilted my head to the side, examining his lip ring.

It was a simply silver loop, going into his lip and looping out of it, barely poking out from his face.  That was good, I found myself thinking. Piercings that stick way out from your face look ugly.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his lips, and I don’t know why. Something about that little loop of metal hypnotized me and drew me in, and I couldn’t help but think about it. It invaded my thoughts and made me dream about it and even better-it belonged to a certain someone.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eli asked a smug smile on his face.

I froze, realizing I’d been caught staring at him, and my face flushed. Eli raised his eyebrows and stopped fiddling with his lip ring. I blinked several times as a small smirk started creeping across Eli’s face.

“Couldn’t stop staring, huh?” he asked slyly.  

I reddened even more as I tried to find an excuse for the fact that yes, I was staring at him or more specifically his lip ring and suddenly the words burst from me. “What does your lip ring feel like?”

Eli raised his eyebrows slightly and he chuckled. “Why, you want to feel?”

I bit my lip and scooted slightly away from him and Eli chuckled to himself as I busied myself with my notebook, the secret one that wasn’t really a secret anymore. Eli didn’t miss my action and his eyes fixated on it.

“Are you going to tell me about your poems?” Eli asked quietly.

My hand froze on the paper, and when I glanced at it, I wished I hadn’t. My pencil was pointed at the line that read because maybe I like being sad and I know that Eli probably won’t leave until I give him an answer. Well, he would be here for a long time, because I wasn’t about to give him one.

“I’ll t-tell you when you t-tell me about your l-lip ring,” I said shakily.

Eli sighed. “That’s one story I’m not about to just tell anyone.”

“Well, n-neither are my p-poems,” I countered.

“Touché,” Eli smiled. “How about this, we’ll make a deal- I’ll tell you about my lip ring, and you’ll explain about your poems, deal?”

Clearly, Eli wasn’t going to tell me about his lip ring any time soon, so I thought this was a fair deal. I nodded. “Deal.”

We shook on it, and Eli’s hands were surprisingly soft. I didn’t want to let go when he did. I picked up my pencil and started twirling it through my fingers absentmindedly. Eli was watching me when he said, “So what about my tutoring?”

“What a-about it?” I asked, dropping my pencil.

“Are you still going to do it?” Eli looked slightly apprehensive as he asked me the question.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, confused.

“I don’t know,” Eli shrugged. “Maybe because I kind of read your notebook?”

“Kind of?” I teased.

Eli’s cheeks turned a little pink. “Okay, I read it, but it was only because when I was under your bed it was open and I couldn’t help myself and-”

“Eli, I’m over it,” I interrupted him. “Sure, I was a little mad, but I got over it. Besides, you let it drop. I’m grateful for that.”

Eli bit his lip. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I don’t want to push you into something you don’t want to do-”

“Eli, I want to help you,” I interrupted him again.

“Really?” Eli smiled. “That’d be great.”

“Okay,” I smiled back at him.

“I promise I’m not doing a Mean Girls, I’m actually really bad at math,” Eli joked.

I laughed. “Okay, I believe you. And you saw Mean Girls?”

Eli looked down at his hands and made a face. “What? Me? No. That’s a girly movie,” he said unconvincingly.

I nodded, just to humor him. “Mhm. Sure, Eli.”

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Hey not a cliffhanger for once, whadaya know. I have simply no excuse  for not updating, only that my family is going through some shit right now, and it's affecting me, and I'm just writing to escape, which is kinda hard to do. Hope you guys like it, I tried to make it long, and heads up, self-promotion here, but if you haven't read CD Girl yet, could you please? I'm updating that one kinda regularily, so if anyone was willing to check it out that'd be great. Bye!

Love ya!

T A Y L O R 

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