3-|The open

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The open

IT HAD been exactly twenty four hours, thirty nine minutes and forty seconds since the episode with Kayden. 

Forty one seconds..

I was seated at the farthest corner of the library right next to the librarian. I loved this position because no one ever wanted to be around the librarian, let alone sit next to her. So this was a forbidden spot. Perfect for me.

My hands gripped my pen harder as I scribbled away all the notes I'd stupidly given to Kayden the eleventh time. I didn't want any trouble with the Prime Empire or the populars and since my stupid mouth had promised to copy ten more notes for him, I decided to fulfil that promise. Who knew if he'd taken what I'd said seriously and would slaughter me if I didn't copy the damned notes.

Fifty three seconds...

While copying the notes, I mentally cursed my luck over and over again. My heart had warned me to not take that seat yesterday but oh no, I had to be stubborn and sit there. Now I was about to be exposed!

My ranting was interrupted when a shadow was cast over the book I was writing on. I froze and gulped, eyes darting from side to side in terror.

I studied the shadow properly, my eyes widened on seeing that there wasn't just one shadow. There were three of them, in the shapes of human beings! A bead of cold sweat ran down the side of my face.

Why would anyone come to this desk? No one ever came here. I was sure of it. Even if they would come, why would they be standing right in front of me? 

From the shadow outlines, I saw one of them come forward. I leaned back in my seat in fear without lifting my head. 

For a negligible like me, the only reason why anyone would do this was because I'd grieved them. But in all my eight years of schooling here I hadn't so much as bumped into anyone. How could I have grieved someone?

“Hey.” One word that sent chills up my spine. I recognized the voice immediately and no matter how hard I tried to keep my gaze from lifting, it did anyway.

I gasped when our gazes locked.

No. Way.

“Kayden Facro.” His name practically fell out of my mouth. 

He pulled his brows together and tilted his head, intensifying his stare. I felt myself melt into a goo puddle right under him. My eyes couldn't simply leave his, too much mesmerization. He was that perfect.

He chuckled. “That's me.”

I shook my head frantically, breaking free of his daze and wondering what the hell had just happened. My eyes found the other two people standing some inches behind him and my breath caught in my throat.

Tyler Bridge and Reece Warner were standing there, their stares pressing down on me and draining the life from my soul.. My mind went into overdrive again.

Why were they here? Had I done something wrong? I knew I shouldn't have blurted all that shit yesterday!

Tyler's brow arched itself.

“Is that her?” He asked Kayden, motioning towards me with his head.

Kayden put his lips inside his mouth and pinched them shut then he nodded. My eyes darted from Tyler to Reece to Kayden. 

Oh no. I had been noticed! This was it. I was done, kapeesh, kick the bucket. Torn the bag. What were they going to do with my poor soul? 

I stared at them in horror, imagining all the worst things they could do to me. Force me to wear my panties over my clothes, get me to insult one of the cheerleaders! Throw me into detention! Prank the living patooty out of me. The list was endless.. but there was the worst scenario of them. They could turn me into one of their games.

It was bad enough that I found the boys among them cute, but I couldn't burn myself over  that. Everyone found them cute. Being a game was on a different level. That would mean getting really attached to them and getting your emotions toyed with. I knew how bad I was with emotions.

My head started shaking itself automatically.

“No–No. I'm not her. You barely even know me. I've never spoken to you before and I would never even consider making you angry. I promise I'm not who you think I am. I'm innocent.” My mouth was my sworn enemy. At this rate, I was going to bring worse punishments upon myself.

A flash of amusement crossed Reece's features. He leaned to the side and whispered something into Tyler's ear. Tyler in turn, smirked at me. My heart plummeted to my feet and I felt blood leave my face. 

Everyone knew how dangerous Tyler's smirk was. What had I gotten myself into?

Kayden must have seen how my eyes were widening by the second because he turned to Tyler and shoved him in the shoulder.

“Don't do that. You're scaring the poor thing to death!”

Poor thing? Why, if he wasn't so 'Prime' I would have shown him just how non-poor I was. But since I was at the disadvantage here, I decided to go for a negotiation.

“I could offer you some form of appeasement.” Yeah, that could work. Keep going mouth! "Would you like a lung or kidney? I could do without one of them... I hope. Maybe a lung isn't such a good idea, how about a boob?"

I mentally facepalmed myself. 

Congratulations Eiling, you have successfully disgraced yourself in front of the most popular kids at school. After this, there's no way you'll go back to being unnoticed.

An amused smile took over Tyler's face. “That last option isn't such a bad idea.”

Kayden decided that he'd had enough. He turned to Tyler and smacked the back of his head making me blink furiously. Did these guys just goof around? I thought they were feared?

“Stop fucking around.”

Tyler shrugged. “I'm not. Who am I to decline such a generous offer?”

Kayden sighed in exasperation and turned to me. "What's your name?"

I stared dumbly up at him. “My–My name?”

He smiled. “Yes, your name. It's a means of identification. You know, what you're known as.”

My brows creased and I nodded. Gosh, I was bent on destroying myself today. 

“Eiling. Eiling Weasley.”

Tyler didn't waste a beat. He burst out laughing, bending forward and hugging his middle in the process. Kayden and Reece just stared at him with funny looks on their faces. Kayden in particular looked a little ticked off.

When he was done with his fit, he stood upright and wiped an imaginary teary from his eye.

“What kind of a last name is that?”

I bit my lip. I actually didn't like my last name either. It was out of my blabbermouthedness that I had told them my last name. I usually just introduced myself as Eiling.

Kayden exhaled. “Okay E." E? "I just wanted to return your notes. No need for any body parts.” He smiled at me and held out the said note for me to take.

“You sure you don't want to keep it? I've already finished the ten notes I promised you.”

Kayden stared at me in a weird way as I scrambled around and arranged his notes.

“Here.” I declared and put them out in front of me.

Reece gasped. "Wow, that is a lot of notes."

My gaze went to him. Yeah, I didn't want to fall into trouble with any of them so this was just precautionary. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Tyler's jaw on the floor. 

Kaden put my original note on the table and took the notes from me. I bit my lip and stared at him as he scanned them. 

When he was done, his eyes flickered up to mine. 

“You didn't have to do this”," he told me.

I laughed nervously. “I think I did. I hope we're cool now, no bad blood or anything because I won't hesitate to give you that boob I promised.”

Kayden frowned lightly. Tyler smiled.

“I, for one, look forward to that.”

“She will not be giving any of her body parts.” Kayden interrupted in a slightly warning tone that made Tyler fall silent. Then he turned to me. “And there was never any bad blood to begin with. Fuck, I just asked for one note!”

Reece whistled. “You were right, she does have a rambling problem.”

I bit harder on my lip. Did he really tell them that about me? Wait! Hold the fucking bus and rewind! Did Kayden talk about me with his friends? 

Shit!

For some reason, that sent red to my face.

“You know what? Never mind, I'm taking all the notes you copied. You can keep your real note. I'll just distribute these ones to the guys or something.” He arranged the notes in his hand. I watched in awe as ten forty-leaf notes fit into one of his hands. “And please, no more rambling, or notes, or negotiating with your body parts. That's disturbing.”

Okay, now he sees me as disturbing. 

Just great! By this time tomorrow, the "disturbing girl" would be a trending nickname at Stanley. Bye bye sweet negligible spot.

Kayden and his now laughing buddies turned around to leave. I let out a breath and put my hand to my chest to steady my racing heart. Boy that was intense.

Just as they took a few steps away from me, Kayden turned back around, forcing all the air I'd released to rush back in.

He shot me his million dollar smile. I swear I heard someone coo.

“I'll see you around, E.”

And then they left. The drama was over!

One look around the library and my hopes were dropped to the floor, scattered to a million pieces. The attention of the entire library, librarian included, was on me now. I wanted to die from both the attention and the embarrassment that came with it. There was no way I was going to be negligible after this.

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