Harder to Fall

Chapter Four

"Theo, I can introduce myself," the little girl quipped at her older brother before holding out her hand. "My name is Charley. I'm ten-years-old and I'm home schooled," she states proudly. 

Amora looks at the little girl for another moment before her face goes soft and she places her hand into the smaller one. 

"Nice to meet you, Charley. My name's Amora."

They shake hands firmly. Charley's smile is aggressively wide across her small face. Her thin light blonde hair trails down her back, rather messily. Amora takes all of this in before looking back at Theo, who is glaring at his little sister and tilting his head at her as if to say "go".

"Theo, don't be rude," Amora clucks. "Just because you don't want to hang out with me doesn't mean Charley can't." 

Theo stares at Amora's smug face trying to tune out Charley's giggle. He couldn't believe any of it. Amora thought that he didn't want to hang out with her? When the fuck did he say that. 

He's snapped out of his thoughts when Amora gasps.

"Why are you all the way out here by yourself if you're only ten?" Amora asks disapprovingly. 

"Well, my mom said that Theodore was skipping school and she sounded pretty-ty annoyed. So I thought I would come and see," Charley shrugged.

Amora glanced at Theo who looked like he wished the ground would swallow him up. 

She lifted her eyebrow at him.

"You tell your mom when you're skipping?" she asks skeptically. 

Theo rolls his eyes internally and looks at Charley blankly, trying to tell her Way to go, dork.

"Don't worry, Theo, I've got this," Charley states and drops her smile. 

Charley takes Amora's hands into her own and looks seriously into her confused eyes.

"Theo doesn't tell our mom. She just knows," her voice turns up at the end as if to say, that's all, no biggie!

"Charley, stop. You can see that I am, indeed, not in class. Go report back to mom and get whatever reward she's set out for you."

Charley shrugs and releases Amora's hands. 

"I'm pretty sure Amora said she wanted me to hang out with her," Charley goes to sit on the dock.

Amora laughs loudly at Theo's pissed off face and goes to join Charley. She's stopped by Theo grabbing her hand with his own and tugging her back.

He yanks her in until she's pressed against his body. Having her so close causes him to gulp. He can feel her breaths shorten as well. Placing both of his hands on her waist, he just breathes her in for as long as he can. 

Finally, Amora snaps out it and looks toward where Charley should have been. 

She tears herself away from Theo and searches around frantically. 

"Charley?" she calls.

"Amora, don't worry. She went home. She's probably excited to tell my mom I found you," he scratches the back of his head. 

This isn't how he wanted his family to find out. He should have known Charley would pry somehow. 

"Found me? What the hell are you going on about?" Amora takes another step back and crosses her arms. 

What the hell could he have meant by found her. He's walked right past her in school for years now. She's always been here.

"Fuck me," he sighs, knowing he misspoke. " What I meant to say, is she's probably reporting back to my mother that I'm hanging out with a girl."