Code Black // Arrow

18 | Stubborn

The strap of my duffle bag hung from my shoulder and bumped against the side of my right thigh as I quickly navigated around the apartment kitchen. The lack of pockets in my athletic leggings forced my cell phone, wallet, and keys to awkwardly be held in my left hand. My hip bumped against the fridge door to push it close after I grabbed my reusable water bottle.

The digital clock on the stove caught my attention as a small string of curse words fell from my lips. I picked up my pace. The bottom of my elbow tapped against the bottom of multiple light switches on my way to the front door.

My fingertips slipped against the doorknob a few times while I struggled to keep a tight grip on my water bottle. I groaned to myself in frustration. I was already running a few minutes late. I shifted the bottle to the crook of my left elbow to pin it against my side and reached back for the door.

The knob easily spun underneath the palm of my hand this time. The bottle slipped from where it was pinned against my side when the door swung open. My hand flew off of the doorknob as if burned by the touch and reached for the bottle as it dropped through the air. The few items in my left hand swayed to the side and pushed my phone out of my grasp.

"Oh, shit," I swore under my breath.

A pair of hands darted through the opened gap in the door. The fingers easily plucked the bottle and phone out of the air before they crashed to the floor. I sucked in a surprised breath when the hands pulled the items back toward them.

My eyes followed the hands to the crisp sleeves of a dark grey and plaid pattern of the man's suit jacket. The familiar face stared back at her with an amused smile shined bright on his face with the smallest hint of facial hair creeping along his jawline from the lack of shaving within the past few days.

"Oliver," I breathed, taken aback by his appearance outside of my apartment. "Hi."

His gaze raked the way over my left hand, smirking at the way my keys dangled from my ring finger and my wallet pinched between my thumb and palm. His attention briefly jumped to the small duffle bag that weighed down on my right shoulder.

"Still as stubborn as ever," Oliver teased with a light chuckle. "You could never focus on one thing."

The corners of my lips lifted in a smile to match the one he adorned. A breathy laugh bubbled up from the back of my throat as I gratefully accept my things back from him, nodding. The slight mention of our past together temporarily made me forget how we spent the live five years separated from each other.

"I've always had a bad habit of multitasking," I agreed with him, laughing.

Oliver nodded. His eyes dipped down to the end compartment of my duffle bag I unzipped and dropped my water bottle inside to avoid dropping it anymore.

"It's nice to know some things haven't changed," he whispered.

A look of nostalgia appeared on his face. I smiled back at him, missing the days where our lives used to be normal before they abruptly turned to utter shit. Oliver was my best friend back then and, while that fact still remained to be true, there was a lot that he no longer knew about me that kept us at arm's length.

My secret identity prevented us from being as close as we once were. There were things about me that Oliver was better off knowing. He was safer that way, long with the rest of my friends and family, who didn't know what I actually capable of.

Our past fates shared similar patterns with how we went missing for a certain amount of time, but our current common interests and mindsets varied with our lives being the opposite, considering we were at different times of our own stories.