Hiding Anna

Chapter Eighteen: Victoria's Secret

I avoid George like the plague.

Next morning he tried to talk to me, he really did, but I simply ignored him so confused and overwhelmed to think or be around him.

He continued to be like that the rest of the week. Coming to sit down with us at lunch once, texting me every day and swapping seats with Liam on the bus.

"Cassie, please talk to me. Please look at me," he'd say, but I'd turn my face away, my lips a straight line sewn into my cheeks. "I know you're not okay at the moment but you can talk to me. I'm always here. I don't like seeing you so lost,"

His words were comforting but I still refused to talk to him.

I needed time. Lots of it, to think.

That kiss — that amazing kiss — could only be described as magical. It was like my other pain reliefs except instead of making everything numb like cigarettes, alcohol and sex it just made me feel alive.

Like when I ran but only ten times more powerful.

That feeling was more powerful than the negative memories themselves, stronger than the pain so it overwhelmed them. It made me feel strong like I could defy their control over me.

Then why was I denying it? I already knew the answer.

Getting that feeling meant going against one of my greatest fears and potentially hurting myself in the future. I'd heard enough drama from Blair to know heart break is far from easy. I didn't think I was ready, or would ever be ready, for that risk.

As well as this the feeling's effect would disappear as soon as the moment was over. I would become addicted and I didn't needed anymore drug withdrawals in my system.

Cassie, I've been thinking about you a lot. George had said his voice still ringing in my ear.

I wanted to hear him say those words but at the same time I was afraid to discover more.

I love being around you.

My heart fluttered at the thought yet at the same time I wanted to sprint all the way to Africa to get away from him.

You are mysterious and fascinating to me because I can see through your mask, and I love that you open up to me and show me your vulnerability you hide from everyone else.

I think that was what scared me the most. Not him 'liking' me or fancying me or whatever that meant. Frightened by the prospect of him climbing over my walls, peeling off my façade, destroying the shield I took no time in securing around my soul.

It was as if he was slipping through the cracks. Penetrating down the bricks of my walls with a bull dozer.

I'd been through some serious șhit in my life and I didn't want to people to know about it. Partly because it was so horrific it was almost embarrassing. Partly because I didn't want people to relive what I experienced.

George didn't even seem slightly effected from what I told him, it was as if he understood completely how I wanted him to react. Josephine automatically apologised when I told her he died of suicide and wore pity on her face. I hated that because it only made me feel worse. However, George only cajoled me on. With his soft husky voice and gentle demeanour I felt completely at ease explaining how it happened and why. Like he found it interesting, like it would help him get to know me better.

Or maybe he did it to help me. Saying the words out loud to someone I felt I could trust released a lot of weight from my back, like picking up a pebble from a pile of rocks, each weighing a tonne.