Forevaluv4 - as you asked ;)
CHAPTER FIVE
I stared after him. We'd never fought before. Ever. And he sounded so serious.
Maybe he'd calm down in a while. It might not be that bad. I hoped. He'd never ever shouted at me, barely even so much as glared in my direction before. The only time I'd heard his voice raised was when he'd have to get someone's attention, and the only time I'd heard him angry was...then.
It would blow over by the morning; it had to. I knew Conner couldn't hold a grudge - he'd proved that countless times. If not by morning, by tomorrow evening at least. Maybe this was a good thing. Perhaps having Calix see Conner furious with me would work out to my advantage.
But there it was again - advantages. Yes, it hurt to have Conner mad at me - especially as I couldn't be positive that he'd get over soon - but my mind was still categorising it as a good thing. If it helped me in the long term, I considered it good, no matter how much it hurt right now. Or, that's what I was trying to convince myself. Because he would come back. He had to.
Calix was wrong - I didn't see Conner as a 'source'; even if he refused to tell me anything I'd find some way to hear what Calix was planning. But, if I was willing to use him to help me get away, thereby leaving him, could I really feel the way I thought I did about him? If I was really willing to leave him, what did that say?
I knew what it said. It said that I was so desperate to be away from here that that I could forget everything else I thought I needed. It said that what I felt wasn't nearly as strong as I used to imagine it could be. It said that I hated being here so much that I resorted to Conner as a distraction, so that I didn't only want him, I really relied on him - something I always tried to avoid. Trust in other people and they can let you down; trust only in yourself, and only yourself can fail.
I never tried to rely on people - in fact, I generally tried not to rely on anyone. But Conner was different. With Conner, time just seemed to flow past, until I'd realise how long I'd been sat beside him, or had been thinking about him, or listening to him. His words didn't even have to fully register - as soon as I heard his textured tone I was completely and totally distracted. The only times there'd ever been an exception to that was when I was running, and even then his voice still managed to sneak its way into my mind. Now that I thought about it, that could be the reason that so many of my leaves had failed.
Or was I just looking for something else that I could say wasn't my fault? Much in the same way that my thoughts considered advantages and disadvantages of everything of its own accord, it constantly searched for weaknesses and flaws in what I did, although - now that I thought about it - not many of them were actually my fault. Was that because luck was honestly against me, or was it just wishful thinking?
When the only door into my prison opened, I looked up slowly. I didn't know what I was expecting, but the sound of the twisting lock had snapped me out of my reverie and given me enough foolishness to hope things between me and Conner could be patched up in the next few minutes.
I was therefore disappointed when Jacob's superior form slipped into the room.
He grinned when he saw me. "Still here, I see."
I just fixed him with a cool expression and kept my mouth shut.
Hitting the door shut with his hip, he balanced the tray in his hand with skill I didn't know he had. I watched him as he set it gently down on the bed and backed off slightly, hating the arrogant air around him.
Without a word, I looked from the food to Jacob's expression, trying to work out what he wasn't telling me. Why was he here? Maybe it was something about the way I'd grown up, but I had a nudging suspicion that there was something he wasn't saying - something that I needed to know.
