Shoplifting Hearts | ✓

6. meeting crushes

walking into the school parking lot, nostalgia creeps into my body like foam soap seeping into a soft sponge; where it belongs. an uneasy feeling is developing in the pit my stomach at the thought of revisiting a place that is almost identical to the one i purposefully left only a year ago. i feel my hand compress a bit with darwin's squeeze and look up to meet his worried eyes.

"are you okay?"

"no. absolutely not. it feels weird to be back in a hellhole like this," i say, my nose scrunched up in disgust as i analyze my surroundings.

"well, you're going to have to put up with it if i'm ever going to..." he trails off and i look up at him to see his lips turned down in a frown. following his gaze, i see that he's looking at a petite girl with bouncing blonde curls pulled back into a ponytail. her head's tilted backward, and a laugh i can't hear escapes her mouth. all i can stare at are the rows of perfect, gleaming white teeth she owns while the boy next to her fixates his stare on the red lips surrounding them. there's no doubt in my mind that she's popular, and when my eyes travel to the enormous group of people surrounding her, it just proves my point.

"she seems...nice," i force out. i've always felt a tinge of hatred when i look at girls like her. they just seem to have it so easy in comparison to people like me. of course, i'm not one to judge considering i don't know about a thing that goes on in their lives. but looking at the girl, i feel my lips curl into a frown as well, though it was because of reasons different from darwin's.

"what?" darwin asks, facing me once again with furrowed brows.

"that girl you were just gawking at. she's riley, right?"

"u-uh yeah. that's...that's her," he sputters, awkwardly coughing at the end of his sentence and looking at the ground. i just barely notice the pink tint on the tips of his ears.

"well, what do we do now?" i ask.

he turns to riley again, his eyes slightly narrowed in thought. suddenly, he grabs my hand and starts to walk. i let out a small gasp, surprised by his burst of courage but watch intently as we approach darwin's crush.

"hi, riley," darwin says, a smile spreading across his face. it's the most adorable thing i've ever seen, but i'm not about to admit that to him.

riley turns around at the sound of her name, eyes searching for the owner of the voice. they land on darwin and she, too, smiles at him. "hey! how have you been, darwin?"

i stand to the side awkwardly. the only thing keeping me from walking away is darwin's firm hold on my hand. i try to tug away, but nothing breaks his grasp.

"i'm doing alright," he answers. i internally face-palm myself because he didn't return the question.

she nods and her gaze floats over me. "hi! i don't believe we've met..."

"kyra milson," i say, holding my hand out for her to shake.

when she does a double take, i realize that it isn't very common for high schoolers to be shaking hands. nonetheless, she wraps her palm around mine and gives it a firm shake before pulling away.

"do you go here?"

"no, she's from colorado," darwin steps in, sending a discreet look my way.

her eyebrows raise. "is she your cousin?"

"no," darwin shakes his head, giving my hand another squeeze, "she's my girlfriend."

a/n: thank you so much to @sunswept for the beautiful cover. i'm absolutely in love with it ♡