Chapter 4.

Puzzle pieces are splattered all in front of me and I've got 5 pieces stuck in together. This is the slowest I've gone and that sucks, since I love puzzles and of course I'm not feeling it.

Tonight is game night and thank goodness we aren't doing those group games, I definetly would have sucked as a game partner.

My arm outstretches on the table, to take a piece which I believe is the right one and once my fingers enclose around it, a shadow blocks my view. My eyes rise from my hand to what's in front of me, more like who is in front of me. I'm instantly struck by emereld green eyes which are looking down at me.

He reaches out his hand to touch mine and out of instinct, I jerk my hand away from him, resulting to me dropping my puzzle piece.

With this reaction, his brows pull closely together and that only makes me want to disappear. With no invitation whatsoever, he pulls out a chair from the opposite side of the table and takes a seat, all the while watching me.

I don't know why he does, maybe it's to see my reaction but all I do is stare at him, out of anticipation of what he might do next, I mean with this guy, you never know.

" Hi." He says.

"Hi." I respond.

Silence stretches out between us and I take the time, to distract myself by continuing with my puzzle. Just when I am about to take another piece, he gets to it first and surprises me when he places it in place.

Thinking that he is done, he proves me wrong when he starts filling in the pieces and I don't know if I should be mad that he is in my personal space, or be intrigued by how determined he is about finishing so many pieces.

All I've been doing is watching his hand move and being in awe of how far he has come and how the puzzle has grown, I don't know why but a sudden feeling of challenge hits me and with no further thought at all, my hand starts picking pieces before my mind registers to what I'm doing.

No words are being shared, just the sound of puzzle pieces dropping and being picked up, while our breathes occupy the space between us. We have been at it for so long that we don't realize that there's only a few people left in the game room, except a few guardians who seem to be engrossed in their conversation, but someone's missing. Oh yeah, Vicky.

Where is she?

"You know, I can't finish this alone." I hear him say, pulling me out of my thoughts about Vicky.

I look back at the boy to find him looking at me, I shrug my shoulders and continue with the game. We are at it again until there's only two more pieces left and he takes that one, with a smirk plastered on his face.

Challenge seethes at me when we pass a look at the last piece before locking eyes. His eyes show a glint of a dare and I refrain from smiling in order to not sell myself out.

" 1, 2...." He mouths.

Before he can say three, I've already reached out my hand and taken the last piece. I do an inside victory dance because of me having beat him , I know it's stupid but I'm too in my victory to care. After I place the last piece in its place, I pass a look at him, to find him no more concentrating on the game but staring at me.

At first, all he does is stare at me, which I do too, but then I'm taken aback by his next move, where he holds out his hand to me.

" I'm Connor." He says.

I take a minute before I hold out my hand to shake his.

" Bailey." I say before pulling my hand back.

He gives me a nod before breaking off the puzzle, my jaw instantly drops at this. I mean first he took over my puzzle building, challenged me and now he is breaking it apart. Out of quick motion, I reach out my hands to cover his, trying to stop him from going any further, this pauses his movements and to look up at me.

" What are you doing?" I ask in surprise.

" I could ask you the same question." He raises his brow to me, making me frown.

" I'm stopping you from destroying my masterpiece."

" You mean our masterpiece." He says.

" No, mine." I argue.

" Last time I checked, we built this together." He argues.

" No, I was busy building it by myself when you invited yourself and took over." I shoot back.

" Well why didn't you stop me and tell me to leave you alone?" He asks.

Well I was too in my head to actually act on this.

" Because you challenged me." Wait, did I just say that out loud?.

" How so?" He asks, now frowning.

Still not quite sure of what to say, I remove my hands from the table and lean back on my chair. With this, he follows suit, resting his arms on the armrests of the chair.

I take my time to think before actually answering. " I don't know, your eyes had some form of glint and dare in them." I trail off, not quite sure if that sounded right.

Expecting him to shoot back with some comment, he surprises me when all he does is ask. " My eyes?"

" Yeah." I answer in almost a whisper.

We stare at each other for a second, before he leans forward from his chair, resting his arms on the table, his brows furrowed .

" So you could see all that in my eyes?" He asks, clearly curious .

" Well I'm not sure, I just assumed and adding with that smirk, anyone could have guessed."

Why is he so intrigued by this, I mean it isn't important, or is it?

Well either way, it's none of my business.

" Wow." He mutters.

" What?"

" You must be a good observer." He says, leaning back on his chair.

All I can do is shrug.

Well I can't deny that I do take a good look at someone and try to figure them out, usually it's out of boredom or just curiosity which killed the cat, might I add.

Averting my eyes elsewhere, I see Patrick looking at us and when he notices me looking at him, he looks away, I pay no mind to that. Maybe he's quite surprised that I'm sitting with someone other then myself.

Moving my eyes back to Connor, I see him staring at me yet again, making me to frown at him.

Why does he like staring at me, it really does unnerve me.

I'm not a fan of eyes, especially these emerald green ones.

To avoid his eyes, I start packing away the puzzle pieces inside the box and he helps me, after another minute of staring at me. Once we are done, he pulls the box close and then looks at me again.

" Wanna play a game?" He asks me.

Glancing at the clock right behind him, I see that we still have a lot of time left, time I think I want to spend alone.

I know what you are all thinking, that I want to drown myself in my haunting thoughts and a bit of that may be true, but another is that I want to just lie down and sleep, maybe even excuse myself from these green eyes that seem to look deep in my soul, as if they know everything and that every secret is exposed in their sight.

" Um, no thank you. I think I'll go back to my room now." I say, rising from my seat.

He leans forward again, not moving his eyes away from me.

" Well then I'll go with you."

This totally has me at a near panick.

If he thinks I'll just let him into my room again, he has another thing coming.

" You can't come into my room, we'll get into trouble." I say, my panick totally evident in my tone.

" No, I meant that I'll walk with you, my room is in the same hall as yours." He chuckles.

" Oh." I sigh in relief, the panick dissipating.

" Besides, I've been to your roo - ," my hand shoots out to cover his mouth, before he can even finish the sentence.

I search around with my eyes, hoping no one heard or is looking at us. With great relief, no one is watching us and even Patrick is not in sight.

Totally forgetting what I just did, I feel a hand cover my wrist, reminding me of the current position that we are both in, me leaning across the table and my hand covering his mouth while he sits on the opposite side, looking at me with both our hands on his mouth.

To avoid raising questions, I pull my hand away from his mouth and from under his hand, throwing a warning glare. I totally don't want to get into trouble for something I didn't do.

" So can we go now?"

" Alright." I mumble, pushing the chair back and walking away, not even bothering to wait for him.

He wanted to tag along, so he'll

just have to keep up.

Once I'm quite at a distance from the game room, I feel him fall in step with me and we walk in silence, neither one of us attempting to make conversation.

While in the middle of our silent walk, I feel him glance at me every now and then, which is making me nervous for some reason that all I do is stop in my tracks, making him to follow suit and give me a questionable look.

" Why do you keep on doing that?"

" What?"

" That, just staring at me for too long or glancing at me?"

" I don't know, I guess I just find myself doing it without my conscious mind telling me." He shrugs as if that's the only thing he can say.

Honestly I don't know if I should believe him because there is nothing totally interesting about me, besides my pale frame that looks tortured.

Deciding to let this go , I continue walking and he follows suit.

My room door comes into view and I almost sigh out loud in relief, cause I was getting tired. What can I say, I'm not exactly fit.

" That's my room." He points to the second door from the one next to mine.

Out of curiosity, I ask. " How did you get to my room all the way from there?"

" I have my ways." He smirks at me.

" Dangerous ones indeed." I mutter.

" So if the tables were turned and you were me, are you telling me that you wouldn't do it?" We stop only a few feet from my door.

" I don't know you." I respond.

" Okay then, forget about me for a second and answer this. If you wanted something so badly at this moment and you knew that the only way to get it is kinda risky, wouldn't you take that chance and risk it to get it? "

Thinking long and hard, I realize that I've done some pretty hectic stuff ,out of my messed up mind and being overloaded by my fears and sorrows. But to risk it for something out of my own conscious decision and being filled with the will to do something, no I've never done it or considered it.

" I don't know." I say, shrugging.

His face shows off a concentrated expression, he looks to be in deep thought.

I decide to walk away and give him space to think. Before I can open my door, I watch him head over to his room and stand there in front of the door yet turns to look at me.

" You should try living a little." He says.

" Not much of that happening, when being cooped up here." I say.

" We aren't the only ones with the problem, you know. He says, with a hint of annoyance etched in his tone.

" Ar you saying that because of being in denial or are you venting ?"

" No, just stating what is there." He says.

" And that is?"

" They think they can fix us."

" Maybe or maybe not."

His brow creases.

" We don't need to be fixed, we need help." I state before I open my door and go in without another look back.

Once my door is closed, I hear," goodnight!" Coming from outside my door.

Leaning my forehead against my door, I close my eyes.

" Goodnight" I whisper .