Stolen First Times

19. My First Time Sleepwalking

*Edited*

Elijah smirked, sat back down, and folded his arms behind his head. "How was that? I bet if I keep saying things like that to you, you'll start to actually fall in love with me." Then he had the audacity to wink at me.

Without giving it a second thought, I chucked my half eaten apple right at him. He raised a hand and effortlessly caught it before making a show of taking a huge bite out of it.

"I hate you!" I yelled, crumpling up the rest of my lunch in my fists as I strode over to the garbage can and dumped it all inside.

I was blinded in rage as I stormed through the cafeteria. Uriah's eyes flew to mine and he stood up, getting out of his seat. I held up a hand and said, "Save it." A look of hurt flashed across his face, but I didn't stay long enough to give him the chance to try and talk to me. I bolted out into the hall.

I was seriously pissed off. I already knew Elijah was an asshole, so what had I been expecting? But Uriah, in the other hand, was nothing like his brother.

At least that's what I had thought.

I collapsed against a beanbag chair in the far corner of the library and plugged my headphones in my ears, blasting punk rock music as I chose not to think about the Reed brothers.

Which was next to impossible to do when one of them plucks out a headphone from your ear and chooses to sit in the beanbag chair right next to yours.

"Listen, Veronica. I don't know what Elijah said to you-"

I took out my other headphone and paused my music, turning to face Uriah. His eyes drooped apologetically as I cut him off. "Oh, he just said a lot of stuff to me. Shall I start at the beginning?" I asked, rhetorically. Without giving him the chance to respond, I said, "First, he told me that Christi needed a prom date so you went to go sit with her or whatever. He also told me that I was basically trash compared to her so it's obvious as to why you were sitting at the popular table."

Uriah sighed and reached for my hands. He clasped them tightly as he looked intently into my eyes. "I was just sitting there because Christi is in my group for a history project and she didn't even start on her portion of the work. I was asking her if she needed any help or if we should meet up to get it done."

I sat there for a moment and deflated. "Oh...now I sound stupid," I mumbled.

Uriah chuckled and pulled me closer to him. He wrapped his arm around my neck, tucking me against his chest as he rested his chin on the top of my head and rubbed soothing circles on my back.

"No, you have the right to question me. And what was that second part about that you just told me?"

"Hm?"

"About Elijah saying 'you were basically trash compared to Christi'."

I groaned. "To make this story a whole lot freaking shorter, let's just say he told me I was a nerd and then told me he was lying and that I was actually beautiful. I kinda believed him which was when he told me he was just kidding."

I didn't want to tell Uriah the reasoning behind what Elijah said because that was just way too embarrassing. There was no way I could tell him that Elijah had just been trying to get me to fall in love with him.

Uriah brushed the hair out of my face and cupped my chin in his hand, making me look in his familiar brown eyes. "I will not tolerate anyone treating you that way, especially not my brother. Don't worry, I'll-"

"It's okay, you don't have to do anything. We already got him good by pranking him that time and I don't want to give him a reason to try and get revenge on me," I interrupted, feeling Uriah sigh.