Song: I Don't Wanna Live Forever by Zayn Malik and Taylor Swift

Chapter Forty-three: Was I as good as the duck?

My heart didn't melt, my heart didn't freeze.

My. Heart. Literally. Just. Stopped. Beating.

He said he loves me. He's in love with me. He brought me to a waterfall to tell me he loves me. He feels the same way. I was saying it over and over again and it's still not registering in my head.

"Please say it back."

I looked to up to meet his eyes. Thank God we can both swim.

"I'm in love with you too."

His face broke into a smile and he hugged me.

"I've known I loved you for a while now, but I felt if I told you you'll reject me."

He put his hand on my cheek. "How could you possible think that? I make my feelings very obvious. I mean every time I see you I fall in love with you all over again. Your closeness takes my breath away and every time I tried to tell you, it's like I had no voice. Cherry, I just-" He grabbed my neck leaned down and kissed me, right under the waterfall.

It's like I was floating on cloud nine. All the scenarios I had imagined in my head for a first kiss were nothing compared to this beautiful one I shared with Zane. The kiss began with the gentle soft touching of his lips on mine. We were wet, but heat still rose in my cheeks as the kiss became more passionate. We floated to the edge of the cliff and he pushed me against it. My cheeks were so hot, his lips on mine felt electric. I know that may sound crazy, but I could feel sparks throughout my body. 

We released each other as we took our breaths.

He smiled at me as he stroked my hair. "Was I as good as the duck?"

I looked to be in deep thought. "Slightly better."

We both laughed at his joke about how my first kiss was a duck.

"Where have you been all my life?" I smiled at him.

"Under a fake identity called Zed." He teased.

I laughed a little. "You know, it's a miracle we're not drowning."

He chuckled. "It's probably because we both can swim."

"Yeah. Probably. So..." I stressed. "Are you going to ask me to be your girlfriend or are you going to stay there looking pretty?"

"I think I'm more hot than pretty."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"Fine. Cherry will you be my girlfriend?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

"You literally just told me to."

"Unnecessary details."

He gave me a small peck on the lips as he started swimming away. "Come on Cherry. I planned a picnic."

"Is this a date?"

"Obviously."

"What if I said no?"

He turned to give me an incredulous look. "Who can deny this face?"

I rolled my eyes, then splashed him. And we fought like that in the water until he had to chase me to the bank of the lake.

We climbed up the tree house and enjoyed some cheese burgers, fries and drinks. Also some fruits like cherries, grapes, strawberries. You can already tell who ate what. Whether I found the nickname Cherry cute or not, I still wasn't going to eat the actual fruit. He also brought sandwiches and strawberry shortcake, which I just fell in love with it. Rosita had to make it for me again one of these times. He had to run back to the car to get the chili cheese dogs because he didn't think it through. I mean there's no way I was eating all these good food without my chili cheese dogs.

He came back with my purse and the chili dogs and we began eating, although I already started eating without him. Since Zane removed his clothes before he entered the water, he had dry clothes. And he also had spares in the tree house. So I took one of his shirts and pajama pants. We ended up falling asleep in the tree house because we had blankets and a bed. A bed that we shared. Snuggling up so close to him in search of warmth felt like absolute bliss.

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We woke up very late the next morning. I would have been upset, but I just kept chanting 'I have a boyfriend' over and over again in my head.

We didn't rush anyways because we had already missed most of class. My shirt dress was already dry because I had left it out, so I put in on with my shoes. We left and headed straight home. 

My mind kept wandering back to Zaiden. The pain I felt for Zane was stinging my back. What if that was me? What if I lost Reveka? I just don't know if I'd be able to handle it. I also didn't know what I could to help him, but comfort him. It's not like I could bring back the dead.

I hope the advice you gave him last night would suffice for now.

We were heading to Zane's house, but then it dawned on me. Reveka. I called her immediately. She picked up at first go.

"Oh my God! Rev, I'm so sorry. I forgot that I was supposed to take you to school this morning. I was kind of distracted and then-"

She cut me off. "Bruny already took care of everything."

"He did?" I gave Zane a sideways glance, but his eyes were focused on the road.

"Yup. I let him into the house yesterday and he told me he was taking you somewhere and if things went as planned, you guys might not be back until the next day, so he sent Mario, one of his drivers to take me. How was it?"

I laughed at the fact she called Luigi Mario like I did. You know when there's someone you're so similar to, sometimes you just can't tell the difference. Yup, that's me and Rev. And Xander too, but in different aspects. They're like my twins.

You can't have two twins.

Well we can't be triplets since they're both different, but alike to me. I'm making sense, right?

Right.

I peeked at my boyfriend, with a wide smile on my face. 

My boyfriend. It just felt so good to say that.

I know right.

"I think I'll have to wait to tell you face to face."

"I can already see your smile from all the way over here. Also, Xander keeps ranting to me about not letting you get kidnapped. What's that about?"

"He's worried about Jaxon." I could feel Zane's eyes turn to me, before going back to the road.

"He knows?"

"Not exactly. He met Jayden on Monday."

"Who's Jayden?"

"Jaxon's brother."

"Jaxon has a brother?"

"It's not like we know about his life. I promise I'll tell you all about it when we get home. Aren't you in classes?"

"Math was getting boring so I got an excuse to leave the class. Luckily, that's when you called."

"How does Math get boring?"

"When you think your teacher is speaking a different language so you're not sure if it's Math or History class."

I just chuckled.

"When will you be back?"

"I'm not sure, but it'd be today."

"Okay. See you later."

"Yeah, bye." I cut the call.

I turned to Zane and smiled at him brightly. He gave me a weird look. "Sweet Steam, Reveka says hi." 

******************

He opened the door, and in walked Wren. 

"Hey." They greeted each other and did some boy hug or something.

Then his face turned to me and he smiled. "Hi Char."

"Hey Wren." I waved at him.

It's so much easier to be Wren's friend as Charvi than as Avery. Even though it was the same person. Since today was Monday, and we missed school, I decided to go to Tate's and quit, but my boyfriend said he wanted to spend the day with me. Isn't he amazing?

I decided to stay in and watch movies. And that's when he took me to the screening room. I was so shocked when I saw it. I mean, I knew people literally had cinemas in their houses, but I'd never actually seen it. It was literally like a tiny cinema with the biggest projector you could place in a house. It was almost like the one in Jessie. It was awesome. I had seen the Beast's library. I had seen the Ross' cinema room. I had a lot more exploring to do in this house.

Right now, I was lying on his bed. We were just talking about random stuff. We didn't notice how time flew.

He turned back to Zane. "I noticed you missed school today because you spent it with your girlfriend. So I brought your assignments and the work you missed even though I'm pretty sure you still won't do it."

"How does he know already?"

"Wren's my best bud. You didn't expect me to not call him first, right?"

"That reminds me." I rolled off the bed.

I picked up my shoes and purse and began heading towards them. Zane came to stand in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulder and looked down at me.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"But Cherry," He whined. "You just got here." 

I gave him an incredulous look. "I've been with you since last night. I have relatives and friends you know?"

"You didn't seem to remember them before."

"That was because you were invading every inch of my brain. Is that what you wanted to hear?" I teased.

"Maybe." He hugged me and kissed the top of my head. "I'll miss you."

I rolled my eyes even if I knew I was going to miss him more. "I'll see you in school tomorrow."

"But that's too far."

I patted his back. "Dear, dear."

We stopped hugging as he put his hands on my shoulder. "Can I pick you up tomorrow?"

"I have a car, remember?" I smiled at him. He just ruffled my hair. I pushed his hand away as I smoothed my hair. "You can't do that."

"Why not? It already looks like a haystack."

My mouth dropped and I punched him.

He clutched his stomach in fake pain. "A beautiful haystack."

"Are you guys finished?" We both turned to look at Wren.

"Almost." Zane answered.

"Can I at least sit down? You two are in front of the door."

We moved aside for him and he walked towards the edge of the room. His bag strapped over one shoulder.

"I'm coming back! And then I'll show you that I will do my homework!" Zane yelled before dragging me out of the room.

"Where are you going?"

"In case you've forgotten, you didn't bring your car here."

"True."

"Also," He stopped on the stairs and looked at me. "You're wearing my clothes."

I looked down at myself, and saw I was wearing his large grey shirt and grey joggers, but with my sneakers. I changed into his clothes when I took a shower. He had put my dress in the laundry hamper.

As if reading my thoughts, he replied to them. "Never mind that. You can get your clothes when you come back and I can get mine when I go to your house."

"Nope. You are not getting this shirt back." I hugged myself. "I love it."

He smiled at me. "And I love you in it. You're beautiful."

I smiled back at him and teased. "And you have a beautiful bed head." Since I was above in the stairs, it was easy for me to ruffle his hair.

He laughed. A deep, rich one. "So I can't ruffle your hair and you can ruffle mine?"

I gave him a lame excuse as I started jogging down the stairs. "I'm a girl." I heard him scoff as he started walking too. "No gender equality where you come from?"

I referred to an old joke. "You mean America?" 

*********************

"Shut up!" She shrieked.

I think it's quite clear, I just brought Rev up to date with Zane and I's relationship status.

"I thought Bruny would be a coward forever."

I gasped. "He was never a coward."

"Yeah right." She snorted.

"How dare you call my boyfriend names?" I joked.

She laughed. "You're really loving the word, aren't you?"

"More than you know." I stood up from her bed. "Well, I better change since I called my friends to meet up at Zahra's house."

"You're leaving already? I don't want to be here when Arabella comes back with Skyler." She complained.

"Then go to Sam's house or something."

She rolled her lips inwardly then said with gritted teeth. "He and I are not on speaking terms."

Unbelievable.

I frowned because they never fought. At least, not that I knew of. I've only spoken to him a couple of times. "Why not?"

"I'm angry with him because he ditched me for Amanda."

I raised brows. "Ditched you?"

"We were supposed to go to the movies after school today, but when I came out of class, Chloe told me he had skipped school with Amanda."

At that moment, her phone rang. She looked at where it was placed on the table and although she couldn't see the face of it, she already knew who it was. "It's Sam."

"How do you know?"

"Because he has called me about 50 times."

"Wow. Well, that's a lot. Don't you want to hear what he has to say?"

"I'm not in the mood."

I went up to her and hugged her. She didn't hug back. "What are you doing?"

I released her and rolled my eyes. "It's a sign of comfort."

"I don't need comfort. I need some Nutella."

I smiled before walking out.

That's the life!

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