A SECRET WISH

CHAP.4

Lia was too tired even to grumble about the annoying presence of Evan. She just stared at him, not believing her luck.

" Hey" Evan greeted, overly cheerful if you ask Lia.

"Do I know you?" Lia asked with a blank look, playing dumb, hoping Evan would be weirded out by her creepiness. But...

" Well yes. But if you, by any chance, have short-term memory loss, well hello, I'm Evan, we are b.f.fs at school. We cannot stay away from each other for a single moment. Our hearts yearn for each other. We demand the nectar of each other's skin. We....."

"OKAY, I got my memory back, thank you," Lia interrupted, too much grossed out by thought of demanding his skin's nectar. " And as far as I can remember, you are not my b.f.f and I do not yearn to see you. Now bye."

(Author's note: BTW I got the idea of the nectar part from Mirror Mirror. I love that movie. And the picture is Percabeth - insert girlish screams here-)

"Hey, hey, wait!" Evan grabbed Lia's hand, which caused Lia to stumble and her hoodie to fall off.

Lia hastily tried to fix her hoodie but Evan was too quick. He quickly turned Lia around to see her better and pushed her hands away from her face. Evan's face revealed nothing but horror and shock.

" Lia, your face...."

Lia was again surprised by the amount of concern in his voice. Then, suddenly, his face hardened, and Lia was afraid of that sudden transformation and how much filled with rage his face was.

"Lia who the f*ck did this?" Evan asked quietly in a low angry whisper. Lia remained silent. She knew she was testing his patience but she could not say to him who did this. Then she'll have to say the whole story and she what the result would be. Lia was terrified of that result.

"Lia, say the d*mn mother-f*cker's name." Evan shouted. Lia flinched. She still was not comfortable with cursing and slang words. It just sounded wrong to her.

Evan's face softened when she flinched. Evan gently cupped Lia's face and inspected her bruises. Lia tried to move away but his fingers were resilient, strong. And strangely, disbelievingly, Lia felt nice to be touched, at last not in an aggressive manner but in a loving, caring way. Its been so long since somebody touched her that way. Since that incident....

Suddenly, her eyes began to water and tears ran down her cheeks uncontrollably. She tried to stop but she couldn't. It was like stopping a dam that suddenly broke. She just couldn't.

But Evan wasn't disgusted. Instead his face softened even more, as he gently wiped away her tears then just held her. Eventually Lia's tears stopped.

"Have you put any medicine on that?" Evan asked.

"No, don't have any." Lia hiccuped after being  dissolved into tears.

"Okay, come to school. The nurse will tend you." Evan sighed heavily.

"NO, not the school they cant see me like that! No, never!" Lia started blabbering.

"Okay, OKAY! Then we'll just have to skip school today then." Evan said, a playful smile playing on his lips.

Lia was surprised. Never did she think that a complete stranger would ever even talk to her, yet here Evan was willing to bunk off a day of school just because of her. And she appreciated it though she did not let it show in her expression.

" You would do that for me?" Lia asked, totally nonplussed.

"Of course, bae. We yearn for each other, remember? We are each other's night, each other's day. We live for each other. We can respond to each other's heart even when we are a thousand miles apart. We...."

" Yeah, yeah, I get it. I want your skin's nectar, you want mine. Now shut the heck up, dude." Lia cut him off, laughing. Wow, she was laughing. What, it's been a thousand years since she last laughed? Yet here she was laughing at the goofiness of some stranger. No. not a stranger, not anymore. Her annoying mind lectured her. Shut up. She told off her mind.

Evan's face broke into a grin when Lia laughed and a strange emotion played in his eyes. Lia's mood lifted when she saw him laughing. Then, Evan's huge grin turned into a softer smile. He again touched her face. Lia leaned into his touch, not hating it anymore, but welcoming it.

Then suddenly his fingers tightened, not enough to hurt her but just enough to alarm her. His smile faded away being replaced by a frown. Lia's heart turned jumped at the emotions in his eyes, so much incensed that it was almost beyond reason.

" Lia, if I ever found out who did it and why, I'll...." Evan did not finish, he didn't need to. Because Lia already knew what he would do and she would never let him do it.

Lia did not want to loses her only friend in the whole universe