Chasing The Stars- H.S

E i g h t e e n

"Fierce Daisies lost to Mighty Sunflowers, yet good so far." I sighed.

"It's fine, better luck next time." he warmly smiled at me and squeezed my shoulders.

"What made you stay for this long around school, Jaden?" Harry inspected, rather in a cold tone.

"I had some business to deal with, you wouldn't want to know about it I bet." Jaden smirked avoiding eye contract with him.

"Where you're upto now?" He shot, indicating me.

"Harry's house. We have some business to deal with, that you wouldn't want to know, I guess." I retorted, snapping his own smart-ass words against him.
He seemed annoyed enough to leave us alone by the tone of my answer, yet he didn't leave. He kept walking along with us and that apparently irritated Harry, a lot.
I eyed Harry to calm down and he seemed a bit relaxed.

"Bye Jaden, see you tomorrow after school!" I shouted and grabbed Harry's hands and started to run off out feet.

We reached Harry's place saving ourselves from Jaden's annoying and uninvited company. As soon as we could we started our rest of the work and finished it.

"Finally over." cried Zayn.

"I think we're gonna nail with it this Wednesday." Harry stated.

"Sure we will. Let's just hope
we would." I retorted.

It was almost evening and all the birds were off their way to their own nests. Sun already had sat and it was my time to get myself home as soon as possible or a huge trouble would be waiting for me at home.

"Harry, I'll just take a leave now." I blurted as always while leaving his house. I bade my goodbyes with Anne and left with their house with Zayn.
We kept walking in silence till the isle of Harry's yard and he finally broke the hush environment.

"Do you like dried plums?"

I looked at him with a confused smile cause I really didn't know if liking dried plums had any consistency with my conversation with him at that moment.

However, I answer him with my utter honesty that I liked dried plums just as any dry-fruits lover yet hated to have them while they're mixed with any kind of cake or pastry.

"You're really cool, Victoria.
I hardly ever thought a cool girl like you would be friends with us. We're so pathetic." saying so he started to laugh his heart out, I joined him along so that he doesn't feel awkward.

We walked till a few blocks and his phone rung. He took his phone and it was his mum.

He stuffed his pocket with his phone and rushed home without giving me any appealing clarification about why he had to leave me on the halfway in such a haste. However, I let him go and headed home on my own.

The streets were dead-clam I started to freak out from inside. I kept on going only wishing that I could make it home remaining flesh and bones in one piece.
I, hopefully could make it alive till the busy and crowdy area of the town somehow and felt like earning a second life. I was doing just fine until I stumbled and tripped over.
I groaned with agony and didn't bother to move even an inch. As soon as I fell, there a boy came to help me stand up on my feet, and as I stood up and looked at him to thank him— there it was, the mesmerising pair of grey orbs again- which I met at the sneak-out party the other night.

"J-Jaden?" I stuttered.

"Are you okay? Come, sit in here I'll check if you got any cuts or not." he spoke the words with pure concern in his voice and his eyes were speaking more than his voice now. How come a person changes this much from daylight to nighttime.

"Thanks Jade, I'm fine. Don't worry." I assured him with a smile.

In reply, he looked at me with a disapproving look and grabbed my hand gently, leading the way of us into a cafe-looking restaurant or maybe a restaurant-looking cafe which I couldn’t tell well enough, and made me sit in a certain corner.

"What are you doing outside at this hours?"
he finally spoke after our encounter outside of the
restua-feteria we barged into.
I gave him an dude,-are-you-drunk look and reminded him the fact that I went to Harry's house after school and we dumped him on our way.

"No, what I meant by that is alone. Let's go, I'll drop you home."

I wanted company to make it home but I didn't know if it was right if the company was Jaden's. Without letting my brain think I said yes and instantly regretted the fact, yet there still a tiny corner of my mind existed that didn't regret it.
We both stood on our feet and headed out of there.
He searched through his pockets and brought out his keys.

"Can we just walk our way to my house?" I plead. He said nothing, just gave me a questioning look and stuffed his keys back in his pockets.

We crossed the street, kept walking on our feet along with the pavements.
Cold breeze was flowing through  the air, fireflies were dancing in the dark of the woods, and then there the busy streets ended. We kept going on in silence as though it was necessary.

"Jaden?" I blurted out.

"Yes?"

"What were you doing there? At the streets?"

"I work there, at my aunt's diner. Saw you tripping over and rushed out."

"Won't she freak out that you're ditching work for dropping some random girl home?"

"Even though she will want very bad to do so but she won't dare to. And you're not just any random girl to me, okay?" He smirked.

"And you sound so different than the locals; don't tell me you're from—"

"I'm originally from Chicago, Victoria." He laughed at my dumbfounded face and assured me that he wasn't lying.

"Why are you here then?" I asked.

"My mom was American, born and raised in Texas. And my dad was from London but he got scholarship to Harvard and settled there down as soon as he met mom. And I was born there too."

I stopped walking, so did he.
Then I faced him just to discover his glimpsing orbs filled with unsought sorrow.

"I'm sorry, Jaden." I whispered, lightly squeezing his hands to comfort him.

J A D E N

"My grandparents we're too old and unstable to take care of me so they handed my custody over to aunt
Melina." I replied to her.

"Are you happy here?"

I looked up at her eyes when she asked me this. Honestly I didn't have an answer to give her.

"Pretending to be. But I really think it's a cool place to live though."

She smiled at my answer as though it was the most satisfying answer I could ever give her. Then we both kept walking again, hand in hand- until we made it till her house.