It's 3 am and i really do need to be asleep rn so this is entirely unedited. do feel free to point out any mistakes! thank you. xoxo

Chapter 18

I stared at Austin, completely stunned to the point that I couldn't even make sense of what I'd just heard. My mind kept trying to rationalize my thoughts; to realign that one word to everything I knew about Austin so far. Even as the others clapped and hooted, it felt to me as though the sounds of their cheering were muted as my eyes tried to search Austin's.

He was thoroughly avoiding my gaze, making it harder for me to understand what had just happened. True. Even simply remembering the word was enough to make my face burst into flames.  

I couldn't react, frozen between thinking he was joking around or that I heard him wrong.

It felt as though minutes have passed since he had spoken, but it was merely seconds later when he said, "But only objectively." I could see a faint blush on his cheeks. "I never said I liked her, or anything. Just that, uh, she is my"—he cleared his throat, reaching up to rub the back of his neck—"type. Or she could have been, if we met differently. Or whatever."

Austin was stuttering, stumbling over his words like he wasn't sure how to string them together. I ddn't think my cheeks could get any hotter, but they did, and for a moment there was silence hanging in the air.

It was Peter who broke it. "Boo, you whore."

I blinked, not rattled enough to question Peter making a Mean Girls reference. "Did you just—"

"I have four sisters," Peter replied in a way that let me know it wasn't the first time people asked him about this.

The moment of distraction must have broken some sort of spell, because the game was already moving on, everyone else already forgetting the whole thing.

Not me, though. I could sense a growing curiosity building up inside me, wondering what he meant by that, and the whole thing was confusing me. I didn't know what to think or how I should feel about this new knowledge, but the bottle was already spinning again, giving me a chance to pretend I was the least bit bothered.

Before the bottle could stop, however, Austin stood up. "I think it's time for us to go."

I looked up at him, slightly startled. He wasn't looking at me, but he was already starting to step over the log to get out of the circle. I shot to my feet too. "Yeah. We, um, still have to..."

"Find the Idiots," Austin supplied when I trailed off uncertainly.

"Right." I cleared my throat, looking down to let my hair fall as a curtain to hide my flushed cheeks. I looked at Will. "Thank you for letting us stay."

"It was our pleasure," Will replied, standing up as well.

Austin was already a few steps away, partly hidden in the shadows, but he stopped walking as if to wait for me. Before I could leave, Will walked up to me to give me a hug. I stood motionless for a second, slightly alarmed by the sudden proximity, before I forced myself to hug him back.

When he pulled away, he said, "Hey, uhh." He shoved his hands deep in his pocket. "If you ever want to, I dunno, go camping or whatever"—he handed me a strip of paper—"you know who to call."

I could see, however, that his gaze lingered over my shoulder, to where Austin was standing, and I could sense what he was trying to imply, whether it was consciously or not, and for a second, I felt as though I had to deny it, so I said, "Yeah, sure. That sounds fun."

Will smiled and I tried to offer a smile of my own, hoping it looked as convincing as I thought. Then I turned around, ready to leave.

Peter stood up. "I'll walk you back to your car."

"Oh, you really don't have to," I told him, but minutes later, I realized he did have to, if only to fill the unnerving silence between Austin and me.

Peter was trying to spark up a conversation with Austin, but the dickhead simply chose to walk ahead of us, leaving me behind with Peter, who finally gave up and decided to talk to me instead.

"He wasn't always like this, you know," Peter said, sounding, for once, somber.

I was reminded of the picture in the glove compartment; of the younger Austin who grinned brightly into the camera, looking like he was having the time of his life.

When I didn't say anything, Peter continued, "He's stubborn. Very stubborn. And highly competitive too." There was a ghost of a smile on his face as he shook his head. "It's a bad combination. One time, he had to get stitches after falling off a tree."

"He fell off a tree?"

Peter chuckled a little. "Yep. He and Lewis were trying to see who could climb faster. He says a squirrel suddenly popped out of nowhere in his tree. He was startled enough to stupidly fall."

I couldn't help but imagine Austin as a kid. He must have been scrawny, his limbs too long, the angles of his face less sharper.

"He's kind of an idiot, really," he said, "but he's not all bad."

I thought back to those moments earlier when he could have simply walked away but decided to help out—the homeless man, the girl in the bar, Alyssa and Warren, and I couldn't help but say, "Well, he has his moments."

Way ahead of us, Austin suddenly paused and turned to us. "If the two of you could just slow down, that would be great."

"Well, since you asked nicely!" Peter called back, deliberately moving in slow motion.

"Peter."

Peter and I both laughed, which only seemed to annoy Austin even more. He shook his head at us and began to walk again.

"I can't imagine him being—not like this," I told Peter. I was telling the truth. While I'd seen glimpses of what might have been the old Austin, I couldn't really separate his frowning face from that overly energetic guy talking to Peter earlier. "What happened?" I finally asked, a question I've been meaning to ask ever since I saw that picture of him.

Peter didn't answer right away. I looked at him, craning my neck to get a glimpse of his face, and I realized his face had grown serious. Almost sad, even. "A lot," he replied, voice cracking the slightest bit, "He had gone through a lot."

The thought was burning in my mind and I resisted the urge to ask Peter what he meant by that. I wanted to know, too curious to pass this opportunity up, but part of me felt as though I was probing too much, getting into something that shouldn't concern me.

When I didn't say anything, Peter said, "I can tell he likes you, though."

I nearly stumbled, surprised at the sudden change of topic. "No. He already said he doesn't—"

Peter laughed. "Nah, I mean, generally. As a person or whatever."

I snorted. "He hates me."

"Ah," he said, an almost cryptic smile on his face, "that's where you're gravely mistaken, o fair maiden."

"No, really. All we ever do is argue," I insisted, feeling somewhat defensive for whatever reason. "And he's very annoying."

It was only then that I realized we've already reached the parking lot. I was surprised when Peter sprinted towards the car, yelling out a surprisingly affectionate "Georgina!" while Austin and I watched him attempt to wrap his lanky arms around the roof.

"Stop molesting Georgie," Austin ordered, but I could see him trying not to smile.

Peter peeled himself off Georgina, but not before planting a kiss on the window.

Austin shook his head and pushed him aside, the keys jingling in his hand. "You're disgusting."

"You love me," Peter replied in a sing-song voice before turning to me. He walked closer to me and, for the second time tonight, I was buried into another hug. When he let go, he said, "I have a feeling I'll be seeing you a lot from here on out."

I didn't even have to ask him what he meant by that as he looked between me and Austin, waggling his eyebrows the same goofy way he did earlier.

Giving him a good-natured shove, I shook my head. "I think not."

Peter merely grinned. "We'll see about that."

---

I was fifteen the first time somebody told me he had a crush on me. It had been one of Tori's friends; a guy who kind of a looked a little like the young Clark Kent in the first Superman movie. At that time, Tori and I sat with him and three other people (all of which were Tori's friends) during lunch.

His name was Sean and he was the kind of guy who would hold doors open for strangers or pull out seats for girls. It was very endearing, to be honest. He always seemed to hover around everyone and was ready to help out at any moment.

 At that time, I was struggling with Algebra, and one time, I skipped lunch to go to the library so I could work on some problems. I was surprised to find that he sought me out after Tori told him where I was. He didn't even say anything, really. He just pulled out a chair beside me, placed his Math book on top of the table and said, "Which chapter are you working on?"

Before that, we've never really had the chance to talk to each other alone. It wasn't a conscious effort or anything, but I'd never really found the need to talk to them beyond the usual group conversations we had while eating.

Needless to say, I ended up blurting out, "What are you doing here?"

I didn't mean to sound haughty, but he visibly flushed at my tone. "Oh. Should I—should I go?"

"No, no, no," I said on impulse, then I bit the inside of my cheeks and wondered what to say. If he felt the same awkwardness I was feeling, he didn't show signs of it. I cleared my throat and said, "I'm on chapter eighteen."

He smiled. "My class needs to work on that chapter too." He opened his textbook and brought out his notebook and pen. "I'm having some problems solving for the domain. Maybe this will make more sense if we work together."

Our lunch days went like that, with me heading to the library and him showing up as well. He was always the one doing the teaching, though he always pretended that he needed to study too. One time, he went to the comfort room and left his book beside mine. I didn't know why I did it, but I pulled it closer towards me and leafed through it, and I found out his class had been two chapters ahead of my class.

I had a growing suspicion then, but I ignored it. It was only weeks later that my guess was confirmed when he asked me to go as his date on the Winter Formal, blushing and stuttering, holding a single long-stemmed rose for me.

We were, as usual, at the library, just about to leave, when he suddenly pulled out the rose from his bag.

I turned him down.

It wasn't that I didn't want to be his date, really. He really did help me out a lot with my Algebra class and over the weeks, I'd come to know him as a down-to-earth person. I was comfortable with him and he was easy to talk to.

But these were exactly the reasons why I couldn't say yes. It wasn't that I didn't like him—it was that I did. I liked him back, something I only realized the moment he had asked me, and the implications of these feelings—mine and his—were too terrifying. I couldn't let it go any further.

He didn't take the rejection to heart; he was still pleasant with me, like he was okay with me turning him down as long as he could still talk to me, so I began to avoid him. I stopped showing up in the library and I left as soon as the two of us were alone.

By the end of the year, I found out from Tori that his family moved away. We never really got to talk about anything after the whole rejection thing. He never knew that I liked him back.

It was better that way.

From then on, I resorted to keeping to myself, keeping everyone except Tori at arm's reach, just acquaintances or new lunch buddies or seatmates. Never anything closer than necessary. I stayed away from people and avoided being in prolonged one-on-one conversations. It felt like an unspoken rule that I'd always followed.

Except tonight. I'd been with Austin for almost five hours now, and if that wasn't enough of a reason for me to want to stop searching for Tori, his answer from that game of truth or dare had definitely raised more warning signals, but I waved them off, finding comfort in the thought that I would never see him again after this whole thing.

I was close to giving up, already running out of ideas, so when Austin asked where we should head next, I didn't really have an answer in mind.

"Maybe we should just drive around?" he suggested. "Hope we run into more leads?"

But the whole chase was already taking its toll on me. I wanted to crawl into bed, sleep and pretend the whole night had been a dream, and driving blindly around town wasn't exactly an appealing idea, so I found myself saying, "Tyler's house." I resisted the urge to take it back, part of me still not ready to face him after I'd run away like that, but we had nowhere to go. "Let's go back to Tyler's house."

He started the engine. It could have been my imagination, but I could have sworn Georgina's whining was becoming louder. Austin didn't say anything about it, so I let it go.

"I just want to make it clear," he said, voice somehow too loud in the confines of the car, "that I don't like you or anything."

"Yes, Austin. We've established that." I replied, feeling the faintest blush creep into my cheeks. I turned away, keeping my gaze out the window.

"Good."

"I'm a little curious, though," I said, slowly turning to him. "What, exactly, is your 'type'?"

He coughed a little, like the question had taken him by surprise. "Oh," he said. "That."

I raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. "Yes. That."

I didn't really expect him to answer, to be honest, so I wasn't exactly surprised when he said, "There's no way I'm ever going to tell you."

Knowing he meant what he said, I replied, "Fine. Whatever."

"What about you, then?" He gave me a brief sideways glance before looking back at the road. "Was Will your type?"

All of a sudden, I remembered the strip of paper I'd carelessly shoved in my pocket, reminding me of the way Will had looked at me expectantly before I left. I almost forgot about it, but whether I remembered or not, it wouldn't have made any difference. I wouldn't have called him anyway.

"I don't really have a 'type' or whatever," I answered Austin.

"What?" he said. "Whatever guy works?"

I frowned. "No. Just that it never really mattered. I mean, I've never really thought of an ideal guy or anything since I never plan on having long-term relationships."

"You've never had a boyfriend?" he asked me.

"None whatsoever."

"What about this Tyler guy?" He sounded genuinely puzzled, like he couldn't fully comprehend what I was saying.

"I already told you before. I don't believe in love." Then, thinking back to that conversation, I added, "You said you don't either."

He fell silent. I wasn't sure if I stepped on a line or whatever, but silence filled the air for a few moments. I wasn't sure what to say, or if I was even suppose to speak, so I didn't. Neither did he, as he seemed to have been considering the thought.

After a while, he said, "I don't believe in it." His voice was quiet, like he meant to say each word with a sense of purpose. "But beliefs change with people and... I don't know. Just because I don't believe in it not doesn't mean I'll stop searching for something that might make me believe."

I didn't know what shocked me more—the sincerity in his voice or the words themselves. It was like hearing a completely different Austin or getting a sneak peek from the part of him that was still hidden behind his mask.

When I didn't say anything, he said, "Okay, that sounded really cheesy. But you get the point."

 "There's no guarantee you'll find something," I pointed out.

"There's no guarantee I won't."