Amelia | ✔

8. It's Always the Devils Fault. Dammit!

I had plans for after school.

I could have asked Suzy for a lift to the place I was going, but she and Luke were supposed to be having a date that evening, so I opted to take an Uber instead.

When the final bell rang, I spent a few minutes making sure I returned all the books I had borrowed back to the library and double-checked everything to be sure all was in order for the next day before taking my leave.

As usual, the parking lot was in chaos just like I knew it would. This is what I never understood. Seriously though, it's just ridiculous. I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say at least about two-thirds of the students had their own cars. I'm gonna take another guess and say mostly those same students usually rush out of the school as soon as the final bell for the day goes off.

Now, I don't know about you, but it's crazy because all those students with cars, usually end up cramped in a long queue of cars all waiting in line to get out. See what I'm saying here?

Let me try explaining it in another way.

You know how everybody usually wakes up early in the morning to try and beat the traffic so they can get to work, or wherever it is they are in a hurry to get to, only to end up in just as much traffic just because instead of spreading out the time to accommodate everybody's use of the road, they all decided to wake up at the same time and now they are all just standing there in the long queue?

That's what was happening.

There was just way too much bloody traffic just because nobody uses common sense anymore.

"Amelia!"

Luke's voice called my name from somewhere amongst the chaos. I looked around and spotted him just behind the heap of the honking cars, so I stopped to wait for him to catch up to me and started walking again once his steps matched mine beside me.

"Hey, what sup?"

"Not much. I saw you walking, so I decided to say hi. Where are you going?"

"I need to go check on my car."

"I thought Suzy would take you." He reached up and swiped a non-existent hair away from his forehead. "Is it far?"

I creased my brows in a silent question.

Why did he seem restless?

I could feel it, he wasn't acting like himself but I didn't bother with pursuing the reasons behind that. Technically that was Suzy's job.

"Not really, and besides, she told me you guys have a date later, so I told her to just go ahead and get ready."

"Oh!"

Oh? What did he mean, oh?

Okay, so Luke was definitely acting weird and Luke never acted weird before. A short silence followed between us but the persisting honking of the cars was a nice distraction.

"So, I uh, I was thinking about you."

What?

That sounded like something even he himself didn't think he was going to say. I twirled my head around to look at him and the look on his face had confirmed my suspicion.

"You were?"

"I mean, I was thinking about your arm and how painful it must be." Avoiding my eyes, he decided the car beside him on the queue had become a lot more interesting and even when he spoke again, he still didn't look at me. "So, how is it?"

"Oh, well, you know." I shrugged as Luke finally turned his eyes back to me. "Not as bad as it was the first day, and let's just say I am glad It wasn't my leg that got fractured. I would have hated to use crutches."

He chuckled. Somewhat dispersing the weird vibe that was almost about to overtake us. "Yeah, that would have sucked. Okay then, I'll see you around, yeah? Don't get in any trouble, Amelia."

Oh, trouble was indeed lurking around. About thirty-five minutes away if we are being precise. I just didn't know it yet.

*****

"Are you following me?"

This I said to Logan whom after my Uber had dropped me off at Clyde motors, I saw him standing there a few paces away against his car. Busy fumbling with his keys.

He looked up, searched for a second, and scoffed once he saw me. The next moment though, his brows furrowed like a thought had occurred to him just then. With his eyes on mine, he took a slow but purposeful step towards me. Not gonna lie, that step felt so powerful that it got me to take one of my own. Backward, in case you were wondering.

Any sane man probably would have stopped taking any more steps from the way I reacted, but I don't think he was like any other sane man. While the eye contact was making me uncomfortable to the point I held my breath, he took more steps and me being me wanting to stand my ground, I stood still.

He kept coming.

Close.

Too close to allow any comfort.

He bent down then; a bit too close to the side of my right ear I could feel the warmth of his body against my skin in waves.

"Did you want me to be following you?"

Good, God!

For a second, or minute, could have been hours, I froze. Not entirely sure how to react to that.

"All you have to do is ask."

Okay, please don't judge me, but nobody has ever even been that close to me or said anything that sounded remotely sexy like what he had just said. So, I couldn't help the ominous shiver that stood all my small hairs straight on end.

Maybe I should tell it to you in ways that somebody of the same age as me, which is seventeen, would understand.

You know what they say about the troubles of most teenagers? Hormones. No time to beat around the bush and let me tell you, this proximity awakened things I didn't want to be awoken and I hated it. He didn't have the right to and I was going to fight him all the way.

Take note of this. 'Men are devils.'

Unless you find those very few ones who are rare to find that can be considered as Angels. But be careful, even those 'Angels' might as well just turn out to be the wolf in sheep's fur or even worse, like I said, Devils. Then you are toast.

I pushed him on his chest.

"You wish."

He smirked like he knew I had no idea what I was saying before he stood up straight and without anything else, turned around, and disappeared among the many cars parked at the garage.

I stood there to take a minute for myself while wondering what in the name of the devil just happened.

Once I got my bearing back enough, I talked to whom I assumed was a manager who didn't give me any good news about my car whatsoever before I took a bus this time to go back home.

I bet you can guess what was running through my mind the whole way?

You are wrong. I wasn't thinking about that.