Magnetic // Sweet Pea

chapter nine

"So how is it that we keep meeting like this?" I looked at the boy standing in front of me and chuckled when he raised an eyebrow questionably, "Like, why is it that we meet with you behind me at a party?" Sweet Pea laughed and shook his head, looking down. He was avoiding my gaze, but I felt weird even asking him why, which maybe is stupid but I don't really think these things through in the moment they're occurring.

"I just wanted to see you. I can go, though, if you want me to... I mean I'm sure your Northside buddies are way more entertaining than me and my 'hooligan self,'" he joked, earning a soft shoulder shove from me. "No. I'm good here," I flirted back, knowing that it's exactly what he wanted. "Did you want to go sit by the pool or go swimming or something?" He asked, looking up suddenly, as if he realized he was being impolite by not asking me what I wanted to do, which I personally found to be the cutest thing I've ever witnessed in my entire life.

"Why don't you act like this with your friends?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know... like, soft and caring. You're so nice to me but the way you talk to your friends and ESPECIALLY people you don't really like is so different," I explained to him, trying not to pinch any raw nerves, unaware if he was sensitive to the sort of thing.

"You really don't get it, huh. I'm like this with you because you are YOU. I haven't been this... drawn to another human being in such a long time, it's so alien to me, but I really want to get this right, or at least try," He said sweetly, now looking directly into my eyes. If he kept this up, I don't even know what I would do, I can't handle boys being sweet and probably lying to my face, it make fall so hard and that was completely off the table for the situation at hand.

However, I knew what I had to do in this situation. I was drawn to him and vise versa, we both felt it and I wasn't about to let it just slip away from me. "Come here, sit," I patted the seat next to me on the couch and he plopped down next to me, looking at me lazily and smiling. The next thing I knew, we were both leaning in, and neither one of us was pulling away.

"Noelle?" Archie's voice came from the door, causing us both to pull away abruptly, Sweet Pea releasing a disappointed grunt. "What are you doing here, and with him?" Archie asked with a disgusted tone in his voice, which angered me for some unknown reason.

"Watch the tone, will you? I'm not doing anything, we're just talking, not that it's any of your business," I told him with a huge attitude. "Um, okay I guess then. Have fun?" He said back, softly. I automatically felt bad for having been as big of a b*tch as I was to him, he didn't completely deserve it.

He walked out of the room and Sweet Pea's fingers wrapped around the back of my neck again, this time pulling me in closer to him until our lips crashed together. Our lips moved in sync and it was just completely perfect, that's the only world I could use to describe it. I wanted to stay in that moment forever, it felt like literal bliss. It quickly escalated as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself onto his lap. Obviously, nothing too crazy happened since we barely just met, and I wasn't the type to rush anything, but everything in that moment felt just right.
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After sitting by the poolside with Sweet Pea until dark, I had decided to go inside the house to get a drink or something and wandered my way to the kitchen. Of course, with my luck, it wasn't empty and the person standing inside it with their back to me was Cheryl. I cleared my throat, getting her attention and causing her to whip around. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, showing that she was crying before.

"Cheryl, are you okay? What happened?" I asked her, suddenly feeling really bad about wishing that she wasn't the one in the kitchen with me. She shook her head and started to cry again, leaning over the kitchen counter and sobbing. I pulled her into a side hug and allowed her to cry it out whilst leaning on me since it's the only thing that helps me when I feel like crying my eyeballs out.

"I'm sorry I was such a b*tch to you. I'm just so... hurt over Toni that I don't even stop to think about how the things I say and my actions have effects on other people. God, I'm so selfish," she sniffled, wiping some of the mascara from under her eyes off and fake smiling.

"No, it's okay Cheryl. It was my fault, more than anything. I shouldn't have went to the party with her, even if we are just friends," I assured Cheryl, although I knew that nothing I could possibly say would make her feel better. She really wasn't a bad person, it sucked that this type of thing had to happen to her, even though I wasn't exactly sure of what had even happened in the first place. All I knew was that her and Toni had broken up and both of them blamed one another.

She shook her head and smiled again, which I didn't believe. She looked me in the eyes and pulled me in for a tight squeeze, so tight that I thought my organs were going to simultaneously combust. "So, I was thinking, I'm positive we'd be great friends. What do you say we go get a milkshake sometime this week? Here, take my number," she told me, so I handed her my phone for her to type her number in and I told her I'd text her. I felt so much better knowing that nobody hated me now, or at least nobody that I knew of.
—-
A while passed and Sweet Pea eventually found me, drying off inside and sitting with some people from my Chemistry class. "You need a ride? I'm going to drive you home regardless of what you say, so..." Sweet Pea said as he walked into the room. I laughed at his persistence but agreed. He ended up taking me home shortly after as we listened to our song on the radio, his hand resting on my knee. It was such a foreign feeling to me, I felt like I belonged right there, in that moment with him.

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HEY YALL
thanks for reading mwah
hope u enjoyed
-ron ron