The List

chapter 7

Despite my greatest efforts, the time I spent with Ryder, often overlapped with time that Ryder was adamant on spending with Eros. It wasn't that I didn't mind Eros, he seemed for the most part, a relatively nice guy. I did mind that Eros and I were not close at all, and he had seen me at my weakest, at my most vulnerable.

"Alice, I don't understand this problem," Ryder pushed the paper across the bed to me, the bed that seemed to become our permanent residence for completing our homework.

Eros was sprawled across the couch under the window, light filtering through, bringing light to the darkest features of Eros, a book in one hand, the other absentmindedly combing through the curled hair atop his head.

Shifting my attention, I pulled Ryder's paper towards me, briefly looking over the problem he was having difficulty with. "It's asking you to find the derivative of cos(5x2), so firstly, you should try and deal with the derivative of co-"

"Ryder!" Maria's voice cut me off, and both our heads lifted and turned to the cracked door to which we could hear Maria's voice flooding through.

"Yes?" He called back in a relatively similar volume, head turned to the ajar door.

"Can you come down here? We need to talk!" There was a waver in her voice that I had never heard before, a waver that caused the blood to rush out of Ryder's face, and his typical smirk melted straight off, replaced by a stoic expression.

"Stay here," he addressed Eros and I, and we didn't move as he did, standing cautiously and firmly shutting the door behind him.

I took a breath. Everything would be fine, the waver in Maria's voice was probably because she had been working so hard lately, not because there was something wrong.

Still, my stomach twisted in anticipation for Ryder to come back upstairs and tell us what happened.

Eros spoke unexpectedly, "It's probably nothing," I turned my head to see him turn the page of his book, not even sparing me a glance. "She's probably just worried about the lack of noise she's been hearing from this room."

"Noise?" I questioned, admiring how the filtered light fell on Eros' face, gentle and light, everything I knew Eros not to be.

Almost shamefully, his lips curled up into a small smile, "We like to play music, and we like to play it loud."

I tried to imagine this, the boys in this room, doing God knows what, blasting music so loud that Maria would have to work with ear plugs to even get anything done. The thought, was highly amusing.

I found the words leaving my lips before I could stop them, "Why was Ryder different from everyone else?"

The ringless fingers stilled on the page he was turning. "Alice." His voice was hard, and still he didn't even glance at me.

I felt smaller and smaller, as if my simple question was too personal for Eros to even begin to understand.

I supposed it was.

"We are not doing this," he turned to me and his eyes were blazing, a deep blue-black that emerged from the depths of the typical lighter blue hues.

"We aren't doing what Eros?" I answered defiantly, my voice slightly more wispy than I'd like it to be.

His head turned and he resumed turning the page. There was a moments silence, filled with my breaths and his deepened breaths, his finger trailing over the paper of the book.