3. Proximity

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"Does that ever hurt you?" My Dad points to my face, which makes me realize he means my septum nose piercing.

"No." I laugh out, but concern is still present on his face. It's been 2 years already since I did it and it surprises me how he still hasn't gotten use to it.

"Please pass me the wings." My Mom ask. I give the bowl of fried chicken wings to my Mom, while she chuckled, witnessing my Dad still looking at me with concern.

"Remind me why we let her get that piercing again?" My Dad ask my Mom and both of us laugh.

"Mainly because I'm your only child and you'll do anything for me." I point out sweetly and he smiles in defeat.

In a family of three, it's expected to find dinner boring or even quiet. But somehow, my parents always seem to make the time we spend together worthwhile and interesting.

"How was your first day at school?" My Mom ask me. I shove a fork-full of greens into my mouth, ready to answer but my dad did instead.

"Let me guess...boring?" I nod without looking at him.

We continue our dinner like every other day, laughing and chatting every once in a while. We finished dinner, then moved to the living room.

"I'm heading to bed, goodnight guys." I say to my parents, getting up from the couch where I've been sitting as we watched a family TV show.

"Goodnight." They both say in unison.

I take a quick shower before going to bed. I wiggle into my duvet, adjusting myself into the most comfortable position.

Just as my eyes close, a ding comes from my phone. I wanted to ignore it, but I still stretched my hands to grab it from the nightstand anyway.

I was expecting a message from Ophelia, instead it was a notification from my Instagram, which indicates a follow from Zayn Briggs.

I stare at it blankly, before placing my phone back down.

First he follows Ophelia, now me.

It's not like it's a big deal or anything, but we've all been going to the same school since we were little and we've hardly said a word to each.

I don't know about Ophelia, but I'm not even sure I've spoken to him. That's why it's sorta surprising that he's following us socially or waving at us in the hallway out of the blue.

"I'm seriously gonna burn all your hoodies with hoods on them." I stare at Ophelia with a bored expression, taking a bite out of my apple.

It's another dreadful day of school, but thankfully it's lunchtime. Ophelia and I are seated in our usual spot, while Ophelia is threatening me for covering my head with my hood again.

Hoodies are basically my favourite type of clothes and I don't plan on changing it anytime soon.

"And I'll burn all your Louis Vuitton and Ysl purses." She holds her chest dramatically, letting out a gasp.

"You wouldn't dare." I scrunch my nose and laugh at her. She laughs as well.

Almost immediately, her eyes diverts from mine to something behind me. I focus back on my food, but her sudden silence caused me to look at her again.

She was still staring, which made me look back. With no surprise, her attention is now focused on Zayn and Cade as they stroll into the cafeteria.

"Stop eye-fucking them Ophelia." She snaps her head at me.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not." She defends again.

"You totally are." I suppress my laughter. She looks so innocent or more like she was trying to be.

"Why do you think they sit alone?" Her interest surges again, making me roll my eyes.

"Why do we sit alone?" I deadpan.

She ignores my lack of interest. "Let's go over." Ophelia randomly suggest.

I thought she was joking, but her serious tone says otherwise. She grabs my tray and stand up-- her way of saying 'follow me and you'll get your food back'.

I groan annoyingly, cussed at her under my breath, but still followed her anyway. People's attention draw to us as we get closer to the guys. But like always, we ignore them.

Cade and Zayn were in some kind of conversation, but stopped when we reach their table. A bit of surprise clouds Zayn's face, while Cade stares dumbfounded.

He looks cute with his face like that.

What?

Ophelia spares them the need of asking us anything with her over enthusiastic persona.

"Hey guys." She comfortably sits down. I, on the other hand kept standing with a bored expression on my face.

Why did I take my hood off?

She rolls her eyes at me, before pulling me to sit beside her. We are now face to face with the guys, but in a circular position.

We sat for some while, just staring at each other in awkward silence. I imagine those windy rolling sticky thingy that passes in a quiet and lonely road in our midst right now.

The thought made me laugh before I could stop myself. The sharp look I got from all of them hooks my laughter as I look back at them.

Zayn's expression was a bit strucken with surprise. Though the little coat of red on his cheeks confuses me. Why is he blushing?

When I told Ophelia Zayn has always been hot, I wasn't lying. When we were in middle school, he used glasses. Now there's nothing covering his chocolate brown eyes, something I barely noticed before.

His raven black hair is styled in a wolf cut. He has a very nice v-shaped face, pink thin lips that's slightly darker in shade and deep dimples on both cheeks.

Cade on the other hand, stares at me with an expression that I find uncomfortable or more like making me want to squirm under his gaze.

With the proximity between us, I can make out his features more clearly.

He has thick accurately carved eyebrows, grey eyes like the clouds, a pointed nose and pink full lips. His sharp jawline screams 'look at me but if you stare too long, I'll cut you'.

His hair is chocolate brown and very curly. Some strands of his hair falls to his face— the first thing I noticed about him.

"I see you don't wear glasses anymore Zayn." Ophelia finally breaks the silence. I mentally face-palm myself at her obvious statement.

"I stopped wearing glasses before high school Ophelia," he chuckles. At least one of us found it amusing.

I bend my head down to my food tray and start eating again. "Who's your friend?" I don't need to look up to know Ophelia referred to Cade.

"I'm Cade, Zayn's cousin." Came Cade's voice in a cheerful tone. I lift my head up slightly to see him with a little smile on his face.

"Ophelia." She introduced, stretching her hand to shake his.

Why are they shaking hands? Is this some kind of business meeting?

"Freya." Cade directs his attention to me. I chew on my apple before responding.

"Cade." I let my lips hitch up slightly, then drop.

Why did we do that?

"How are you guys related?" Ophelia chimes in. She notices the 'are you for real stare?' we all gave her.

Zayn is biracial, so I'm guessing that's her reason for asking.

She shrugs, "curiosity." She says casually.

"Zayn's dad is my uncle." Cade still had it in him to reply.

"That's cool." She coos, while I roll my eyes. Her interest is on Cade and not his family.

"Why the sudden follow Zayn?" I blurt out. A look of shock ran across his eyes before he settles with a smile.

"I don't know," he shrugs, then rest his elbow on the table.

"Was it a bad thing?" He ask.

"Of course not, it's not a big deal obviously." I turn to Ophelia, "it's just curiosity." I steal her word.

"I..." He begins.

"You girls seem cool and I didn't wanna let my chances of actually meeting and talking to you guys slide, you know after we finish high school." I raise a brow, finding his reason strange.

"But following us on Insta wasn't an assurance of us actually talking." Ophelia states in a confused tone.

"I know." He smiles, but it was more to himself.

"But it worked, didn't it?" Cade's states with his permanent smile on his face. I don't think I've seen him without that smile on his face.

He has a really nice smile though.

Ophelia and I share a confused look before looking back at them.

"I guess so." I reply.

These are the moments I hate being an only child.

I pack my car in the driveway in front of the large supermarket. I come out with exhaustion, pressing the car key button to lock my car.

My Mom suddenly decided that she wants breakfast for dinner and mac and cheese is what she wants precisely. So being the good daughter that I am, I painfully left the comfort of my bed while binge watching Harry potter— for the hundredth time.

We just had to be out of cheese today.

I walk to the cheese section immediately I got into the supermarket and grabbed it, thankfully being very familiar with the massive store.

Since I'm already here, might as well get a midnight snack for myself.

I walk to the snack aisle, visually scanning what I want. I finally decide on some chips. I stretch my hand to take a chip bag, but I couldn't reach it.

It's situations like this I cuss my 5'6" self. The chips I now crave so badly is on the top row of the shelf.

I even tip-toe but to no avail, the universe just had it out for me today.

"Why the fuck are they so up there anywhere?" I blurt out with annoyance, before feeling someone pass me like the wind.

"I know right." Cade comes to stand besides me with a soft smile on his face. His hands are tucked in the pockets of the college jacket he has on.

I'm staring at him with a confused look, while he showcases his usual smile at me.

"Someone needs to file a complaint for making the shelf too high." His hands went up to grab the chips without any ounce of stress. I scoff at his unintentional disrespect.

Not everyone is blessed with 6'1" height. Rude!

"I could get it myself, thank you very much." I take the chips from him after shooting daggers his way.

He laughs, before grabbing three more Doritos chip bags. I open the one in my hand, then take another one from him.

"You're gonna finish that on your own?" I nod my head aggressively, shoving a handful of chips into my mouth as we began walking down the aisle.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" I know it's not proper to talk with a mouthful, but I ditched that manner right now. He looked down at me and laughed again.

What the fuck is he laughing for?

Although, for some reason, I don't have any problem hearing the sound of it.

"The same reason you're here." He says casually. I look to my side with a raise of my head to see his side profile.

This guy has a really defined face.

Some strands of his hair falls to his face— who am I kidding? They always fall to his face. The urge to feel them between my fingers ran through my mind.

I snap myself out of the creepy stare I'm looking at him with.

Something is definitely wrong with me.

First his smile, then his laugh, now his hair?

I don't know if he noticed my stare, because the corner of his lips hitch a little bit, but it was barely noticed.

Before I could say anything, we already got to the cashier. We pay for our stuff, then leave.

"I like that." Cade says immediately we walk out the store. I stop in my tracks and so did he.

I furrow my brows at him. "You like what?"

He looks at me, then I become even more confused when he walks in front of me. His fore-finger comes up and touches the tip of my nose down to my nose ring.

"This."

I know I look like a deer caught in a headlight with how much my eyes are wide right now.

He chuckles at my expression, while I remain speechless.

"I'll see you tomorrow Freya." He says just that, before walking to a black jeep, gets in and drives off. I was still rigid with an unusual pace heartbeat.

What the fuck just happened?!

ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴs


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