Jasmine hadn't gone to school all day, and in all his worry, Elias made for the gates, attempting to go after Jasmine and make things right between them, even though he wasn't sure how. As he reached the iron bars, Lily side-stepped him and knocked him to the ground. The startled boy flopped back in dizziness and shook his head to clear it. When he looked up, Lily was looming over him, her eyes like flames scorching through his body.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily exclaimed, her voice exasperated. "Don't you think you did enough already?"

He stared at her with deep sorrow, voice choked with apologies he needed to say to everyone. He had been such a fool, not noticing the way she looked at him, the way she felt for him. He wasn't sure how he was every going to speak again, his throat cracked and torn, and full of distress. How was he going to tell Lily what he was going to do? Every time he tried to speak, his voice broke and his heart ached with sadness.

I do care for her, he thought to himself. I do love her. More than anyone else. And I was such an idiot as to have not realized that before.

Lily studied him, wondering why he couldn't keep his cool like he normally could. She gazed deep into his clouded green eyes, and that was all she needed to see to understand everything he was feeling.

He didn't reject her out of stupidity, she gazed at him sympathetically. He was just confused.

Raising her arm, she pointed her long fingers toward the gate, motioning him to go after Jasmine. Elias could tell she wanted to say something else, so he waited patiently for Lily to speak.

"Jasmine likes to go toward the cliffs when she is upset," she told him. "She normally hides under a gorse bush in a hollow near the edge of the cliff."

Elias nodded his head in thanks and waved goodbye. He bolted through the courtyard gates and hurried in the direction that he had last seen Jasmine head for. The path sloped steeply upwards and twisted in every direction until at last the grass path turned into rocks. A light drizzle began to fall as he started searching for the heart-broken girl. The heart that he himself broke in all his stupidity. He had turned down someone who loved him dearly for a girl with a mask, who he didn't even know. She probably didn't like him back anyway, but it wasn't her fault that all this happened. It was his.