By Chance (Accidentally In Luck #1)

41. Training Almost Comes in Handy - Cora

*Cora*

It was Saturday. AKA day of the tournament finals and day after the Romeo and Juliet catastrophe that we don't speak about.

In a nutshell, E was Juliet, I was Romeo, we did the scene, and it went so badly that Professor Jane speculated not having the class act out any other scenes. Not badly as in we sucked, but badly as in just so plain ridiculous that everyone in class was either laughing or screaming at us. We agreed not to talk about it until it had been so long that we could laugh about it instead.

I shook my head to clear it and looked over at E who was sitting beside me in his car. We were parked outside of the Dome, waiting for Jay and Elle who had got caught in traffic to get there so we could all head in together.

E and I had been quiet for most of the ride here and I assumed he was either nervous or just focused, so I didn't want to interrupt whatever was going on in his head. Tonight was the finals and my one and only job is to not distract him.

So instead, I sat with my thoughts. I had been living with Elle now for a few weeks and I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to stay much longer. The only reason I hadn't overstayed my welcome already is that she's my best friend and her mom was barely home. If it weren't for that, I'd have been back home weeks ago.

Problem is, I didn't know where I was going to stay. Going home was an option, I suppose, but it was even less desirable than living on the streets. I didn't want to invade Elle's home anymore even though I know she would swear up and down that she didn't mind. And staying with Theo again wasn't even an option.

The two weeks I'd spent curled up in his arms every night did nothing but serve as a reminder that I couldn't have that. It was stupid hard leaving the first time, knowing that what I had right there is all I wanted and that all I would've had to do was say the word and he would've let me stay there for as long as I wanted, but I knew that would only make it harder when I would inevitably have to leave anyway.

It's not like I would have wanted to, but E had made that damned promise to Daniel and I couldn't torture us like that. To hold each other in our arms every single night and then wake up to be friends? Maybe E could do it, maybe he didn't feel as strongly as me, but that would absolutely destroy me.

Somewhere along the lines in the past while, I had finally let myself acknowledge that I didn't just like Theo. Well, I do like Theo, but it goes way deeper than that. I didn't know if I could call it love, but there was just a part of me that knew if Theo Archer ever left my life, there was nothing and no one in the world that could ever make me completely whole again.

Realizing that was a terrifying place to be, that my life had become so intertwined with his that at times I wasn't even sure where his story stopped and mine began.

I looked over at him again, silently taking in the beauty of him. It might seem odd, but Theo was beautiful in a way I'd never noticed about any other boy. It came in the way he moved and how his knuckles shifted as he lightly gripped the steering wheel and how his eyes danced around noticing everything and hell, even just his eyes themselves. They were, of course, green, as Sebastian's always were and were absolutely the most serene things I'd ever seen.

Sure, I liked his blue eyes a ton more, but I still loved his green ones.

Sensing I was looking at him, E looked at me and caught my also green eyes. "Hey, you alright?" he asked, concern clouding the serenity in his eyes.

I smiled and nodded, and it wasn't even fake. I was ok, I really was. It's just not easy to always be around the boy you're madly in love with without being able to tell him or even give him hints because it's not gonna happen.