𝘛𝘙𝘖𝘜𝘉𝘓𝘌. Eli Moskowitz

ten

JUST as Violet finished cleaning her already fairly clean room, a knock sounded from her apartment door.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," she cursed, frantically making sure everything was in its place. "Okay, okay! We're good. COMING!"

Violet ran to the door, nearly falling over, and opened it.

"Hey," she said coolly, leaning on the doorframe.

"Hi," Eli chuckled, staring back at her. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, awkwardly shuffling their feet or fidgeting with their hands.

"Can I come in?" Eli finally asked.

"Oh, yeah! Er— sorry," Violet moved out of the way and shut the door behind Eli. "My room's just at the end of the hall. You can wait in there while I get the popcorn ready. I mean, if you want popcorn? If you don't it's fine—"

"Popcorn's great," Eli cut off her rambling, smiling his heartwarming smile. "I love popcorn."

"Okay, yeah. Just, uh, wait in there."

Eli carefully entered his crush's small room. The walls were a light blue, with movie posters scattered among them. There was a wooden desk next to her twin-sized bed with her laptop that they were going to be watching the movie on set on it.

He settled on the edge of her lilac sheets, taking the time to examine the room more carefully. There were four posters in total: The Goonies, IT, The Lost Boys, and Weird Science. There was also an old picture of her, her mom, and who Eli figured was her dad from when she was much smaller displayed on her desk. He wondered what happened to Violet's dad, but he didn't want to push her to tell him.

Before he could study her room any further, Violet herself walked in with a fresh bag of microwave popcorn.

"I've got the movie ready to play already. Just let me log in," she said, plopping on the bed. "You can scooch in a little, you know?"

Eli blushed at the thought of sitting even closer to her, but moved further on the bed anyway.

"Wait," Eli spoke up hesitantly. Violet paused what she was doing and gave him her attention. "That karate place you were talking about, d-do you think that maybe I could join?"

Violet gasped in excitement, "Of course! Oh, I'd love to have you there. This'll be great!"

Eli smiled slightly, "Okay. That's all I wanted to ask. You can start the movie now."

Every few minutes, one of them would sneak a look at the other and inch closer. By the time the golden trio got to Hogwarts, both of them were practically snuggling. Neither of them were used to being in such close contact with someone like this, and they loved every second of it. It was comforting. So much so, that an hour into the movie, they'd both fallen asleep holding onto each other.

Hours later, at ten pm, Judy Huang arrived home. When she went to check on her daughter, she was surprised to see her and a boy cuddled together on the bed with an open laptop in front of them.

Smiling softly, Judy closed her daughter's laptop and set it back on her desk. She grabbed Violet's polaroid camera, and as sneakily as she could, took a picture of them. She figured Violet would want to keep it.

Judy carefully shook the sleeping boy awake.

Eli woke up disoriented, confused for a moment on where he was. When he realized that it was nighttime, and that Violet's mom had just walked in on him and her daughter sleeping together, he panicked.

"Oh my gosh, I-I'm sorry," he apologized worriedly. He was afraid that he'd made a bad impression, but Violet's mom only laughed.

"It's alright, hon. I was just waking you so you could text your mom or dad about where you are. I'm sure they're worried."

Eli's heart dropped. His mom! He took out his phone, and surely enough, there were multiple messages from her that he'd missed.

Thanking Judy, he texted his mom an apology and where to pick him up, since he'd walked, and slowly disentangled himself from the still sleeping Violet.

"Wait," Judy called out as Eli was just about to step out the front door. He stopped. "Eli, right?"

He nodded, less timid than before due to the woman's calm nature.

"Alright, well, have a good night, Eli. I'll tell Violet you left, okay?"

Eli nodded again, "Thank you, Mrs. Huang."

"No problem, hon. You're welcome back any time."

And as Eli Moskowitz and Judy Huang became acquainted, Violet Huang slept soundly in her bed, dreaming of a soft-spoken, blue-eyed boy.