That Night √

1» that moment

Grace's POV
« THEN »

I walked sluggishly across the school hallway and towards my locker, and my eyes begged for some time off. I wanted to sleep so badly. Every single moment of last night had gone with Mum's words repeating in my head, again and again, not letting me get any sleep

"Grace!" I looked up abruptly at Natalie's shrill voice as she came running towards me from the end of the hallway. In her heels, may I add.

"What's up?" I asked, pulling out my geometry book and stuffing the physics one back inside.

"The cheerleading tryouts are tomorrow." She flipped her dyed blonde hair over her shoulder, showing off her bare tan skin. I think she was aware she could get any guy by doing just that.

"Oh. Tomorrow?" I questioned, tying my hair up in a loose ponytail. I needed a haircut. Perhaps what I needed was to ask Mum.

Ask Mum.

"Yeah. You wanted to audition, right?" She asked, seeming a little impatient now.

I stopped momentarily to think about it. I wouldn't really call myself the cheerleading type. I would, however, have preferred if there was a fighting club in our high school. But no, shit like that never happens.

"I'll think about it." I gave her a small smile. "Thanks for reminding me, though." She nodded and walked off to her cheerleader girlfriends.

I shut my locker almost a little too harshly, again by accident, and I wasn't expecting to hear a small wince from right beside me. But when I did, I nearly had a whiplash when I turned around to look over at Luca.

Always creeping up on me.

"Less harshness, Rose." He gave me a pointed look. It should have been a stern one but all his brown eyes showed were gentleness.

"Less creeping up, Luca." I gave him a pointed look in return. He just grinned in response, his eyes sparkling up in a way that always left me a little stunned to speak right away.

So I turned away and we both started making our way towards Geometry class.

"I told you to keep your hair down," Luca said. "Why don't you keep your hair down?"

"I'm going to cut them up first thing when I go back home," I told him. I wouldn't ask Mum's help, I decided. At least not after our talk last night.

Something twisted inside my stomach as I remembered Mum's words from last night. Everything inside me was dreading even thinking about it.

I saw Luca passing me a somewhat horrified look. "Don't do that."

"My hair, not yours."

"Don't do that, Rose." He repeated. I didn't really appreciate it if someone called me by my middle name. But with Luca, well, it was normal. And even if I tell him not to, which I had spent half of my life doing, he'd still call me by my middle name. The guy was stubborn when he wanted to be. "You know how much I adore your hair."

A small smile involuntarily crept on my lips at the way he pronounced adore. Luca always had a slight accent to his words whenever he came back from visiting his grandma. He had it in him, but whenever I pointed it out, he just denied it. Like I said, stubborn.

"Well, I told you to stop growing taller, but did you listen to me?" I arched up one of my brows at him. "No. You still had to grow three inches over me."