"There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them."
—  Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger

His words keep on repeating inside my mind. Like some broken jukebox. Gods! I can't breathe.

The memory replayed over my head...

"Too much info, Ron!" I squealed and shut my eyes in disgust.

Moments later, I felt a hand grab my arm behind me. I opened my eyes in shock and saw Luke. I sensed my heart quicken its heartbeat when I looked upon his eyes. Those freaking eyes that I know I will always melt.

"H-h-hey..." I stuttered.

Luke frowned and made me stand straight. My arm felt cold when his hand let go of me. I shook my head to clear my mind and I inhaled and exhaled slowly to calm my heart.

Ugh.
This is stupid.
I'm stupid.
My life is so 'ugh'.

"So... Will you go with us?" He asked in clarification.

I looked behind me and see Ron nodding his head, encouraging me to say yes.

This is the question that needed to answer right now.

I hear an intense drum roll in the background and feel like there's hundreds of people anticipated to know my answer. So much pressure...

"I... I c-ca-can't..." I answered, looking down. When I looked up I saw Luke's face suddenly saddened.

"I mean... Can't I just... Raziel! Wait!"

I ran, not caring that I left my bag and my babies—my books. I breathed heavily down the hallway.

Why can't I just decide like a normal person?! Why can't I just say yes or no in mere moments. Not over analyzing it all. I hate this.

"Gwen?" I vaguely heard someone in front of me.

I looked and saw it was Maxon.

Huh. I expected Luke running to get me and assure that everything's okay. He probably thought that I'm so ugh. This is all ugh.

Maxon went near me and stared.

Man! Doesn't he know that it's rude to stare? I can't bear to look at him so I looked at my feet. Huh. My feet looked so weird.

"You haven't sent me your research." Maxon said in a sharp voice.

I can't help but be confused and forget about the anxiety I felt earlier.

"What research?" I asked, frowning.

"For the group project." He grumbled and turned his back on me. "I knew that I should have asked Sir Tiberius to let me work on my own." He mumbled to himself.

I can't seem to say now if I was glad for his presence or not. What an ignorant jerk. I can't believe that he the nerve to say that. I should be the one saying that to my groupmates.

"What did you just say?" Maxon said. I didn't realized that Maxon was frowning at me.

Oops. Did I just say that out loud?

"Nothing. Though I am really, really confused about the research." I stated, looking at Maxon.

"What," he sighed impatiently and continued, "is confusing in researching?"

"I don't know... Maybe for the first fact that Sir Tiberius opened the discussion of this freaking project with Bloody Mary. Please do connect the dots of Bloody Mary, Tourism, and Philippines."

"I thought Ron explained this to you already!" He groaned and put a palm on his forehead.

He was acting like I was a child that keeps on asking questions like why is the sky blue.

"First of all, it's really tourism. Second, Sir Tiberius and the other teachers that teaches his subject was called out last minute to change the topic.

That's why the project's due after winter break. Now we need to kind of promote the importance of a specific country and make sure we hit the rubrics.

Like, we should have a lot of information inserted because it costs thirty percent of the rubric." He explained. "Your job, for now, is to draft your research and give it to me. Then, when I'm done with the script we're going to shoot ourselves." Maxon finished, looking a bit frustrated.

His face became more frustrated when I started giggling.

"What?!" He exclaimed.

"You said we're going to shoot ourselves." I said while laughing.

"You know what I meant!" His face went red.

"I know," I smiled at Maxon. "I'll send you the research tomorrow."

I was about to go where I've left my bag when Maxon suddenly called my name.

"Yeah?"

"If you ever feel bad about yourself, I've read that you should just remember that if you were a fictional character, people would love you for all your flaws, quirks, and mannerisms, that you probably hate." He quoted. I saw his eyes starting to to drift off. "...Just remember that." He nodded to himself and started walking away.

I heard my phone ring, breaking my drift to memory lane. I tapped answer right away when I saw it was Esme calling.

"I was just thinking of calling you," I told Esme, thinking about sharing her what Maxon said.

"GWEN!" Esme squealed. She shushed me to listen to her. "Today in my History class, my teacher walked in and said "turn to page three hundred and ninety four." Without even thinking, I replied, "are we learning about werewolves today, Sir?" He just laughed and said, "ten points for Gryffindor.""

"Seriously?" I asked in disbelief. I was laughing in amazement.

I can't believe her history teacher just said that.

"YES!" She giggled. "Okay, tell me why you were going to call."

Then I told her.

I told her about Luke's invite, concluding that I still didn't give him an answer. And Maxon's presence.

I repeated what Maxon told me and she replied,  "if you were a fictional character, people would love you more than they love you as a real person. Or more than people love in person."

"I agree."

"So, what happened next?" Esme asked ardently.

"Well..."

"Maxon!" I shouted out his name. He stopped walking and looked behind him when

I ran towards him and asked what kind of book does he read.

"Any kind of book that someone recommends me. Though, I really love old books. They have a certain... smell..." He genuinely reckoned.

Did he just say that he loves the scent of old books?!

"Like you can smell their history." I said, enthusiastically agreeing with his statement. "Everywhere they've been. And everywhere they will take you."

"The smell of those tiny "particulates" of water reacting with the fiber structure of the old paper pages, lovely and indeed extremely pleasant to our sense of smell."

"He said that?!" Esme inquired with incredulity.

"He did." I nodded absently.

Moments later...

"Are you going to tell me what happened to Luke's invite or not?" She bluntly asked.

"Esme!" I gasped.

"What? I've been dying to know. Sure, Maxon's alright and all but I wanna know if you're going or not."

A/N: Lol. Let me guess, you were probably super duper happy and excited that I updated, then your enthusiasm was lost in the process of reading this chapter. Did I guess right?

You were probably like:

Comment your thoughts below, I REALLY LOVE READING THEM. If you liked this chapter—you probably did not, hahahaha— vote! And don't forget to share this book to your friends. Your support to this book motivates me to write. Thank you for being patient. Excuse any grammatical or punctuational errors.

See yah in the next chapter!

❤️M