The Long Way Back

Chapter 12.

Col's Pov.

Walking back with Mel was so confusing. No fuck that, being with Mel was so confusing.

That may be some messed up girly description but honestly that's what it felt like.

I'm the guy nobody messes with, everyone avoids and I happily do the same, I've no time for 'friends' anyway.

Why let more people into your life when you're simply giving more the opportunity to walk straight out?

But being with Mellie felt natural, weirdly so.

Maybe it was the fact that we both naturally shied away from other people that we gravitated towards each other.

Maybe it was simply coincidence that we kept ending up at the same places.

Whatever it was didn't change the fact that here we were once again walking side by side. Together.

We hadn't seen each other in days and to be frank her presence was a breath of fresh air.

Air I desperately needed.

Something about her innocent, demure personality lured me in in a way nobody ever had before, and I'd only known her for like a fucking week.

I didn't even want to think about things I could eventually feel for this girl.

To care for someone that deeply is to become vulnerable, something I can never be.

She didn't seem like every other person in the school who always had an ulterior motive for talking to me.

She seemed genuine.

Maybe it was her own naivety, maybe she should never have opened up to me in the first place.

I am one big mess of screwed up.

Wherever I went trouble followed, I just hoped that she didn't regret spending time with me.

I certainly didn't.

As we walked home once again, whispering as we went to avoid waking the sleeping foghorn nuzzled in my arms, who hadn't stopped snoring since we left the match, we caught up on the days we had missed one another.

"Hey, how come I never see you in school?" She asked me with a tilt of her head.

"Dunno, maybe you just aren't looking." I smirked.

I wasn't telling her the real reason, some things in life are just better left unsaid.

"Trust me...i am." I heard her say under her breath.

The corners of my mouth curved into a boyish grin and as she noticed my expression her face blushed profusely.

She clearly hoped I hadn't heard.

"Um..I just meant... you know like in a curious way." She rushed out.

"Daisy you don't have to be embarrassed." I teased. " I'd miss me too if i wasn't around all the time."

"Ha ha, very funny." She pouted.

Oh she was so cute when she pouted.

I found myself wanting to annoy her more simply to see her adorable expression once again.

"Anyway,  I just have practice all the time and need to get out of school a lot for this and that. You probably just don't notice me Daisy."

I certainly notice her, every single time she walks past in the corridor with her beautiful big brown doe eyes and chestnut hair swaying as she goes.