Belle | #1

17| Marahuyo

1 7

M a r a h u y o 

(adj.) to be enchanted.

❋❋❋

And look at you,

you have so much,

meaning.

– Seeker

❋❋❋

Adam's stare was making Belle feel things she thought she wouldn't feel again.

It wasn't an intense stare per se, it was more of a curious one, as though Adam was looking at a wonder that settled right in the middle of the room. Belle could barely fathom why he was looking at her like that, and even though she liked it, it also awakened the strings of insecurity in her.

Adam saw her – Belle knew that for a fact.

He saw her without her veil or her hoodie, and he saw her as the atrocious mess that she is, which was precisely why Belle was so confused as to why Adam was looking at her as though she was the miracle he was waiting for all his life. This just wasn't making sense, because Adam saw the sagging on her cheek – the abnormality in her face – and the fact that he was here, sitting on her bed, not even mentioning it to her, was driving Belle insane.

As much as she appreciated it, Belle could feel knots of anxiety clog her system because she was just waiting for it – because Belle's face was far from normal – no, Belle had a face that needed answers, that needed clarification, and Adam was showing her that he wasn't interested in any of that.

He couldn't stop smiling either, even if it was just the smallest curve of his lips, and the fact that Adam was here, showing Belle that she could make a smile linger on his face, just made her so, so happy. "So what do you do for fun around here?" Adam asked her, lying down on the edge of her bed. In all honesty, Belle's breathing hitched, just because she's never had a boy in her room before, and she never knew that the strength in Adam's shoulders greatly contrasted the cream of her bedsheets.

He looked like art in the middle of her room.

"I usually just read," she told him, bringing her knees up to her chest. "Other times I sew, but it's mainly reading and homework."

"Sew?" Adam asked her, that curious look back on his face again. His eyes twinkled whenever he would get intrigued. "Like clothes and all that?"

"Yes," Belle said, smiling a bit. She was still shy smiling around Adam like an idiot, and the last thing she wanted to do was scare him away. "It's a hobby, sort of."

"That's cool," Adam said, his bronze curls splayed over Belle's cream bedsheets that she had to count her breathing to three. "The people here are great."

Belle couldn't even hide her smile. "Yeah," she said, setting her stare on her studying desk instead of on Adam because she was getting too shy looking at him too much. "They're amazing – I owe them everything."

Adam's smile was pillow soft. "It's nice to have them around – I barely know them, but I already know that Chip is my weak spot." When Belle laughed at that, Adam was staring at her in that delicate way again, and that was when she couldn't take it anymore.

"So you're not going to ask me about it?" She asked cautiously, biting the inside of her cheek. "Like you're just going to ignore the elephant in the room?"