*Hands over two Oreos*

Hehe

Emily's P.O.V.

It felt weird, to have revealed so much of ourselves in such a short conversation.

I wasn't used to it but I guess I could try.

"Ha! I win again!" Ryder cheered, raising his hand which was in a fist, in victory, while I rolled my eyes. "Ten push ups for you!"

Once I was done with the punching bag, Ryder came up with this amazing idea to play a game, which would make this conversation more interesting.

So, it was basically rock, paper and scissors but whoever loses has to do a dare and if someone loses twice in a row, they have to answer a question.

It normally should be the other way round, but I guess answering questions is a lot scarier than doing dares, for us.

We've made each other do different exercises since we're at a gym and no one has lost twice in a row yet, so the moment is not tense yet.

I stuck my tongue out at him, making him laugh.

I stared at my hand which was made into a scissor before moving to take my position to do push ups.

"Come on, don't be a sour sport." He said, watching me do perfect push ups.

"Whatever." I grumbled before taking my place on the mat, in front of Ryder.

"Rock, paper, scissor!" We yelled, no different from the other 14 year olds.

"Yes!" Ryder cheered, fist pumping the air while I groaned.

"You're cheating." I whined, getting up to grab my sipper from the bench.

"How am I cheating?" Ryder said, exasperated. "This is rock, paper, scissors. I can literally not cheat."

I turned to him with my sipper in hand and eyes narrowed. "I don't know how you're doing it, but you definitely are."

He scoffed. "Are you done whining?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

"No." I mumbled, rolling my eyes. "Fine. Shoot, what's the question."

His face slowly lost the amusement as a nervous look took over his face.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked, handing him another sipper.

He chuckled slowly, grabbing the sipper. "Yeah, it's just that I've had so many questions buried so deep in my brain that I don't know which one to start with."

I couldn't help the guilt that slowly crept in my chest as I looked at the troubled boy who is still oblivious to everything that happened that turned our lives upside down.

"I'm sorry." I mumbled, looking down at the bottle, taking a seat next to him again.

"What are you apologizing for?" He chuckled.

"Is that the question?" I raised my eyebrows in amusement, trying to lighten the mood again.

"Oh no!" He suddenly turned to sit, facing me on the mat, making me raise my eyebrows in surprise. "Okay so... I- uh... we were supposed to meet under the blossom tree on Christmas Eve, remember?"

I gulped, before nodding slowly, avoiding looking in his eyes.

I'm sure he noticed the sudden hesitation in my demeanor and I felt a warm hand over mine as his thumb rubbed my knuckles in a soothing motion.

"Trust me when I say, I feel really weird asking this, but" he stopped to look down at our hands and then back at me. "It's important to me. Why didn't you come?"

Out of every mess that was created back then, I didn't think much about this one and I think that was one of the biggest mistakes I made.

I never knew how important that meeting was to him but I almost forgot about it under all the depression I drowned in, back then.

"I did." I said, finally looking at him. "I was late, but I did go there, at the blossom tree, and you weren't there."

"I waited for hours." He sighed as a sad smile took over his face.

"I know, I figured, by the way you reacted after that." I said, with a sad smile of my own.

My smile dropped before I looked up at Ryder. "Even though this is no excuse to keep you hanging, and it happened years ago, I think you should know that... I never intended to hurt you."

I covered his hand on mine with my other hand. "I was... in uh... I was in an accident and I cou-"

"In a what?!" He exclaimed with his eyes wide in panic, making me freeze.

I shook my head. "It was a small one and I didn't have any major injuries but well, I couldn't get to you in time."

I looked up at him with a guilty smile, while his jaw was on the floor.

I frowned as he didn't move for a good minute. "Are you-"

I was cut off with arms going around my waist and being thrown into a warm but hard body.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry." He breathed out into my hair while my face was tucked in his neck.

He held me so tight that it was almost hard to breathe as he kept repeating apologies.

"Ryder-" I was cut off again when he suddenly pulled back, just enough to look at my face.

"Wait, so that means" his troubled gaze switched between my orbs. "when you did come to me, you..."

I looked away, biting my lip.

"You were hurt." He breathed out as his grip loosened on my shoulders.

His shoulders sagged as he dropped his head in his hands.

"Hey." I said soothingly.

I had this sudden urge to comfort him, even though I've spent years hating him for whatever happened that day.

I guess, being here in front of him made me remember what kind of a person he really is and that he didn't have anything to do with whatever went wrong.

In fact, he has no idea why things are the way they are, why I left and why I am the way I am now.

"Ryder, listen to me." I used my hands to cup his face and bring it up from his hands, to look at me. "It happened a long time ago. You didn't know..."

"Because I didn't want to know." He winced, as if the memory physically hurt him.

"And I've tried hating you for that, too." I said, tilting my head to the side, with a small smile, making him look up. "But I couldn't."

His eyes widened and so did mine when I realised what I had just said.

"You're my best friend." I pushed the words out to avoid getting into an awkward situation and scaring him away. "I could never hate you."

A foreign amotion flashed through his eyes and a hesitant smile grew on his face as he nodded.

"You have no idea how sorry I am." He said.

"I know." I said. "It's not your fault though, you were always kinda slow."

He grunted, rolling his eyes. "Oh please, you are saying that? Miss oblivious."

"I was no such thing." I gasped.

"Yeah no." He nodded. "You still are."

I narrowed my eyes at him and was about to speak when he cut me off.

"So..." An amused smile grew on his face. "I'm your best friend huh? When you refused to accept me as a friend just a few weeks ago?"

I gave him a blank look trying to suppress the smile that was threatening to grow on my lips. "I could always offer the position to Dylan, if you don't like it." I shrugged.

He narrowed his eyes at me, before a smile slowly took over his face and he looked down at out adjoined hands that I hadn't noticed till now.

"I missed this." He said, looking up. "I missed you."

I smiled back, ruffling his hair. "Of course you did."

"Hey!" He retorted, shuffling back, away from my prying hands.

"Aren't you such a boy." I rolled my eyes, before putting one hand behind my back. "Come on."

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

"Woohoooo!" I cheered, waving my paper impersonating hand in front of his face, while he groaned.

"Alright, what do I do?" He asked getting up.

I took a second to think when an evil smirk grew on my face. "Fight me."

"What?!" He looked at me wide-eyed.

"Have you finally lost one of your senses?" I asked, moving towards the centre of the mat and tightening my ponytail. "Be my sparring partner."

"Oh no." He burst out laughing. "No way am I fighting you."

"Why? Scared already?" I crossed my arms over my chest, with a smug look.

I have no idea what I'm doing myself, but the feeling of riling him up is something I can't back out from.

Also, most of my opponents are around his size, if not smaller, and he looks like he could put up a good fight and could help me train.

He scoffed. "Nice try, but not gonna work. I'm not fighting you."

"Come on Ryder. It's a dare, you can't back out from it." I sang.

"Make me do something else." He said, narrowing his eyes at me.

I thought for another few seconds before looking up at him. "Fine, how about you answer a question, instead?"

He looked sceptical at my suggestion, before he sighed. "Okay... What is it?"

"That evening. When you called me under the blossom tree?" He nodded, slowly. "Why did you call me? What was the 'something important' that you wanted to talk about?"

I noticed how his muscles visibly tensed up as his eyes wavered away from mine, avoiding eye contact.

"So, you wanna fight, huh?" He suddenly said, moving to the centre of the mat in one swift motion.

"Huh?" I frowned, startled at his sudden movement.

"You dared me to be your sparring partner, right?" He said, slowly as if talking to a child. "Let's do it."

I scoffed, at his lousy attempt to change the topic, but decided to let it go this time.

"Do you need hand wraps?" I asked, motioning towards my bag.

"Nah, I'm good." He said, shrugging. "Just so we're clear, I'm not underestimating you in any way but I still won't touch you."

"What?" I asked, taken aback. "How's that, sparring?"

"I'll dodge. That would be enough." He shrugged. "I can't raise hands on you."

"Not even when I'm asking you to?" I asked throwing my hands up.

"Nope. That's the deal. Take it or leave it." He shook his head.

I sighed before taking my stance, narrowing my eyes at him. "You're a dick."

He chuckled, before doing the same. "Oh I know."

Let's see how he doesn't touch me.

'Um...?'

Yeah, that sounded so wrong.

I advanced towards him, slowly and suddenly raised my foot to jam it into his side, before he could think.

He moved to the side, as a smug smirk grew on my face.

I didn't hit him with force, and I don't plan to do that either.

"Why do you fight anyway?" He asked, eyeing my movement, as he dodged another one of my punches. "The face, again? Really?"

"Just wanted to fix it." I shrugged. "And what's this, QnA sparring?"

I scoffed before advancing to grab his hand, while he twisted out of my grip and pushed me slightly forward.

"Call it whatever." He said with a smirk. "Since you're making me fight you, you might as well answer some of my questions."

I rolled my eyes, advancing again and I moved feigning to grab his left arm and when he dodged, I grabbed the right one flipping him to the mat on his back.

I smirked, holding my hand out for him to get up which he took and got on his feet with an impressed smile on his face.

"Well, I started fighting about 2 years ago, because the anger management wasn't doing me any good." I said, nonchalantly, making him frown.

"Anger management?"

"Yeah." I said, raising my foot up to his shoulder to land a kick, which he grabbed before it could touch him, and pushed it back on the floor making me spin before I stop, due to momentum.

"And no one knows about this?" He asked, with a frown constantly on his face.

"Alec and Lex know." I said, shaking my arms, preparing to attack.

"What?!" He yelled, dropping his hands that were blocking his face, making me widen my eyes and stumble to stop my fist from connecting to his face.

The sudden jerk made me collide with his body, so I don't punch and dislocate his jaw. "What the fuck?" I said, standing straight, rubbing my forehead that connected with his hard chest.

"Alec knows about this?" He said, frantically. "And he's okay with it?"

"He kind of is..." I said, dropping my hands. "Why does it matter?"

"Miles, I might have given you the wrong idea but let me make this very clear." He said, sternly. "I know I can't control your actions or your decisions but that doesn't mean I'm okay with them, specially, when it involves, you getting hurt in any way."

"Well, he knows I have no other options. Do you want me to end up in jail?" I asked, shaking my hands to strike again. "It's just an outlet for my emotions."

"How did it start?" He asked dodging my punches. "Your anger issues."

I thought for a bit, taking deep breaths after having many of my punches dodged in a row. "It started after I first moved from here."

"But why?" He asked, making me meet his eyes with mine as he asked the one question that I have desperately tried to avoid. "What happened?"

I advanced feigning a punch again, but ducked instead, to kick his feet from under him, making him fall on his back with a grunt and I twisted his arm over his head in an angle that it would hurt him to move even slightly.

He winced under me as I aligned his face with mine and smirked down at him.

"I think I've answered anough questions for today," He started to talk when I bent his arm a little more making him wince and shut up. "besides, weren't we playing a game to decide who gets to ask?"

I loosened my grip a little, and moved my free arm behind my back, making his narrow his eyes at me. "Fine."

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

"You suck." I chuckle, covering his fist with my open hand.

I was very aware of the position we were in but made no move to get out of it.

I was basically straddling him with one of my arms holding his over his head and my free hand holding his other hand.

"Alright answer my question now." I said, raising my eyebrows.

"What question?" He said, frowning.

"About the meeting at the blossom tree? The one you're trying to avoid?" I said, rolling my eyes.

His jaw clenched slightly as his eyes wavered again, making me frown.

What's wrong with him?

"Okay, the games over." He said, all amusement lost from his voice.

"What?" I asked, frowning down at him.

"It's getting late, we should get home, Miles." He said, glancing outside through the glass.

It is pretty late, we've been here for 2 hours but his sudden reaction threw me off a little.

"Oh come on! I've answered almost all your questions and you won't answer one?" I asked, making him meet my eyes finally. His gaze hardened slightly.

My grip had loosened on his arm, without me noticing and he used the opportunity to flip us, using his weight so that I was now on my back with him on top of me, holding my hands over my head.

My eyes widened and warmth crept up my neck and cheeks as I looked up at him, astonished.

"Trust me, you don't wanna know, Miles." He said shaking his head, with his heated gaze on me, making me squirm.

"I do." I said, finding my voice. "I wanna know."

He gulped before sighing and loosening his grip on my hands and sitting on the mat criss cross.

I laid there for a bit, to get my breathing under control before sitting up in the same position as him.

"It's stupid, really." He said, avoiding my gaze again.

"Let me be the judge of that?" I said, encouraging him to continue.

"I uh... I wanted to confess to you." He said, looking at me cautiously, while I frowned in confusion.

He rolled his eyes at me. "I had a crush on you Miles, and I wanted to confess to you that day."

My eyes widened as I looked at him with my lips parted. "Oh."

"Yeah oh." He said, shaking his head.

"No, I meant I'm just surprised." I said, cracking my knuckles as a nervous habit.

"You are?" He chuckled. "Everyone knew about it because of how crazy I was about you. I'm surprised that you didn't already know. But then again, you were oblivious about everything."

I gasped. "Was not."

"Was too." He laughed.

I scoffed, flicking my hair over my shoulder. "Whatever. I managed to pull you, I'd say it was a part of my charm."

He laughed so hard that it made crinkles appear near his eyes, making me smile automatically.

"Whatever floats your boat." He said, shaking his head, once he had recovered from his laugh.

We sat there smiling at each other, like little kids.

"That night could've gone so differently than it did." I said, with a sad smile.

"It could've." He nodded, before holding my hand. "But that's okay. We're still here. Together."

And just like that, a smile found its way to my lips again and we sat there talking about nothing and everything for another hour, before we decided to call it a day and got up to head back home.

*Author's note*

Hope you enjoyed reading.

What do you think of the story so far?

I'm terrible at writing cliffhangers but oh well.

Don't forget to vote and comment.
Until next time <3