Who's giving you all your love? Who's bringing you all your pain? ~ Jacquees

☆

I JOlT AWAKE springing up from the table. I frantically look around, but I'm surrounded by darkness. "Huh- What."

I'm still in the study room. I could see the outline of Victor's body hunched over sleeping on the table. I get up to turn the light on. I push my chair back and walk only to trip over my own feet. "Ahhh!" I screech falling to my doom.

A hand reaches out and grabs my arm pausing my fall. He sits me back in my seat, his hand still wrapped around my wrist. "What are you doing?" his raspy voice says.

"I'm turning on the lights," I whisper.

He mutters something under his breath before getting up himself. I stay in my seat wiping the sleep from my eyes. The light flickers on and I feel blinded. "Ah," I wince and cover my eyes.

Victor squints and comes back to the table. He picks my quiz up and reads through the papers. "You got an 86, congratulations."

"Really?" I beam. He didn't even mark my paper, but Mr. Myers said he was one of his best students so I'll take his word.

"Mhm," he rubs his neck. He lays back down on his arms and closes his eyes.

I pull my phone out to check the time. My eyes widen. It's almost 4 am! I gently nudge Victor's shoulder, "Victor." I nudged him again. "Victor," I bring my face closer to him. "It's four in the morning."

His eyes flutter open and he twists his head. "What?" he looks at me with drowsy eyes. My breath hitches and it takes everything in me at the moment not to swoon over him. His eyes were a misty grey.

"We have to go, school starts in three hours."

He nods sleepily getting up from his seat. I follow after him. I make a turn to go up the stairs, but Victor grasps my hand. "Where are you going?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "Up the stairs?"

He shakes his head hauling me in the opposite direction. "We can take the elevator."

"You guys have an elevator!" I gape. I think I would have noticed an elevator by now. We walk to the end of a hall and sure enough, there's an elevator. "Wowww."

Victor presses the up button and the elevator door slides open. We walk inside, Victor going in first. The elevator is pretty small, but it's big enough to fit two people. I walk in after him and turn around.

Victor snakes a hand around me to press the number to the third floor. His front presses against my back a little. He blows a puff of air as the door closes. I shiver slightly as the elevator begins to move.

"Why didn't we use the elevator the first time we came down here?" I turn my neck.

He shrugs. "I forgot about it, and I only use the elevator when I don't feel like walking up and down the steps."

I nod. This elevator was going very slow. I poke the inside of my cheek with my tongue as the number changes from zero to one. When we're finally at level three the door slides open to our hallway.

We walk out and make our way to our room. "Goodnight Aniya," Victor mutters before entering his room.

"Good morning."

----

I'm sitting at my vanity mirror when I hear a soft knock on my door. "Yes?"

Kendall comes in her dark hair tied into a bun on top of her head. She was dressed in her work attire. "Hey honey, what are you doing? You look pretty." She takes a seat on the arm of the couch beside me.

"Just my hair," I smile. "What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing I wanted to show you something actually." She pulls her phone out and makes a few swipes. She flips her phone. My eyes nearly pop out of my head.

A picture of Victor and I was saved on her phone. We were resting on our arms, our faces close to each other. "Oh wow," I blush.

"I know, I was coming in to check up on y'all. You two were asleep, and I didn't have the heart to wake you guys up, so I turned the lights off and left." She smiles down at the picture.

So that explains why the lights were off when I woke up.

"Don't tell V I took the photo, though. I want to send it to you, and he may get mad if he finds out I took this."

I nod placing a clip in my hair. "Okay, I promise I won't tell him." This family loves keeping secrets from their oldest.

She chuckles and pecks my cheek. "I got to go to work but I'll see you later, bye my love." She gets up off the couch straightening her pencil skirt.

"Bye," I call out as the door closes. A second later I get the photo in my messages. I can't believe she took a picture of us. My eyes glance at the clock, and I pick up the pace seeing I had only five minutes left to eat.

Cora sits at the table by herself in her usual spot. I grab some buttered toast and some grapes and say goodbye to her on my way out.

"Hey Declan," I sit beside him. My German teacher was late to class as always.

Declan turns to me. Confusion, written on his face. "You're talking to me now?"

"How could I ever stop talking to you," I nudge his shoulders. "You're my best friend, you know I can't stay mad at you for too long."

He perks up a smile finding a way to his face. "So you're not mad?"

"No," I shake my head. "You were just being a good friend and trying to defend me so I'm sorry I yelled at you."

His smile widens. I chuckle handing him some candy I always take around with me. Today's candy was Airheads. He gladly takes a green one, and I feel things go back to normal as we begin to talk.

The next classes flew by, but I couldn't help but listen to the people gossiping about me as I walked by. Lilly rubs my arm as we walk past them. "Don't listen to them," she says.

Declan, Lilly, Quinn, and I decide to go out for lunch today. We settled on Wendy's and found a booth to sit in. I slurp on my chocolate frosty to chase down my fries.

"So Quinn, did you find someone to help you with your project?" Lilly asks her.

"What project?" I ask.

"My Earth Day project, I want to get our community together and do something to spread awareness and help the environment." She says.

Quinn has always had a passion for helping the earth. She typically spends most of her time volunteering to clean beaches/parks, educating kids, planting trees. It's her calling. She wants to attend college to be an Environmental Scientist once she graduates from high school. I admire how passionate she is about the environment. She has a very big heart.

"I'll help," Declan slurps on his straw.

Quinn stiffens but tries to play it off. I saw it, though. "Really? You sure?"

"Yea," Declan leans back in the booth. "I'll always help a friend out."

Quinn's cheeks tinted a delicate shade of pink. "Thanks, Declan."

He smiles, oblivious to Quinn's attraction for him. I've noticed Quinn gets easily flustered around him nowadays. I don't say anything, but I think she knows I know. I wish Declan would stop looking at me for one minute and open his eyes.

Lilly and I share a look. We both know. "I'll help too," I chime in.

Quinn beams sitting up in her seat. "Thanks, Aniya, I want to get more people to join. I'm planning to clean this beach a few hours away from here. Nobody visits it anymore because it's filled with so much trash." She sighs.

Lilly rubs her back. "Why don't you take it up to the principal? He might be able to convince more students to join."

"Lilly, you're a genius!"

"I know," Lilly grins.

Quinn gathers her trash throwing all her stuff in the bin. She grabs our things too, throwing them away. "Come on guys we got to go back to school so I can talk to the principal."

I roll my eyes following after her. She gets so excited about these things, look at her she's already out the door. Declan slings an arm over my shoulders, but I push him off. He shrugs moving over to Lilly and placing an arm around her.

She rolls her eyes doing the same.

"Damn I can't get no love in this friend group," Declan pouts.

"Shut up," Lilly and I say.

Quinn already started the car and she sits in the front, her hands gripping the steering wheel. "Come on guys I don't have all day."

We pile in the car; Declan sits in the passenger seat and Lilly and I sit in the back. Quinn backs the car up nearly hitting an old lady passing behind us.

"Fuck Quinn check your mirrors!" Lilly yells at her.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Quinn winces waiting for the lady to move. When we drive past her she puts a hand up as an apology before speeding off.

"QUINN!" we all yell.