Writer in the Dark - J. HALE

25 - ꜱᴄʜᴏᴏʟᴡᴏʀᴋ

THE FOLLOWING morning, Athena quickly tidied her entire house whilst Jasper mindlessly watched the television. He had offered to help but she turned it down, knowing that he could possibly put something in the wrong place and mess with the entire flow of the room. She listened to music as she tidied, pausing for some dance breaks that he secretly watched with an admiring grin. She also speed baked cupcakes, icing them perfectly because she had a mortal coming to spend the day. Eric and she had been partnered for a project that required working on it outside of the house. She had offered her house, knowing it would be quiet and safer for her. Given the whole vampire situation.

But for this particular project, Athena wanted to be rid of any distractions so she could catch up with Eric's life more than they had the ability to do so in lessons. So Jasper just had to go, politely of course. She listened to the ticking of the clock out of the corner of her eye, listening and counting until the exact mommet when he would have to leave. She wanted to leave at least a five-minute gap before the time that Eric was due to arrive and convincing Jasper to leave would take a few minutes at the least.

With two minutes of pushing, verbally not physically, Athena managed to get a reluctant Jasper to the front door. "Why can't I be here?" he sighed, hand resting on the door handle.

"Because," she elongated in a tone that needed no explanation and caused a soft chuckle from him. "And you have to go back to your family, like you said you would," she replied, all signs of a grin hidden on her face as she caught his gaze with a stare.

He sighed as she opened the door by placing her hand over his, "Can I not just sit upstairs?"

"Nope. Go back to your family."

"Athena..."

She laughed, "You have to go! He'll be here in like five minutes."

Jasper cocked a brow, smirking at her in amusement, "You know how this sounds right?"

She rolled her eyes, fighting the urge to laugh at the comment. "Like a cheating rom-com that I would love and watch, I know I know. Now go!" she replied with a breathless laugh, gently pushing him out of the door in a joking manner that mirrored that of the infamous rom-com scenes.

"Fine fine," he chuckled, finally stepping out of the door at his own will.

She stood in the door, resting her hip against the frame. "They've already forgiven you, just don't look into anyone's eyes. The pity stares can be avoided that way," she chuckled softly and quickly kissed him on the cheek, watching as his smirk grew. She watched him walk down a few steps then watched as he sped off into the forest, taking the most direct route to the Cullen house. Athena smiled as she shut the door back up, turning back to her living room to figure out what else needed fixing. She cleaned the coffee table of all its books, replacing them with the small pile of schoolbooks that she kept on a separate shelf in her library as Jasper called it. She put some new wood in the fire, creating a denser outburst of heat that would most certainly keep the approaching mortal warm for the day.

She finished cleaning just as the tires of a car scattered the gravel off her driveway. She waited for him to knock and gave it a few seconds before she went to answer it, knowing that it often took mortals a few minutes to answer the door. "She's alive!" Eric laughed when she eventually answered the door, throwing both his hands up in celebration.

"It's been three days," she replied, already grinning so hard that a comfortableness around this particular person filled her brain. She stepped aside, welcoming him inside her house with a simple gesture.

"Still, no contact from you gives death," he replied with a laugh as he stepped into the house, dumping his handheld books onto the first table he saw.

"Well I am very much alive," she chuckled at the irony as Eric shrugged off his jacket, hanging it on the stand by the door. She closed the front door then moved to her sofa, choosing to sit in her favourite seat (the corner). "Can I get you anything? Water or..."

"No, I'm okay," he smiled, finally taking a deeper look into the room that he had distractedly stepped into. "This is a lot of plants," he chuckled under his breath, eyes darting between all the greenery that crawled around the room from every surface possible.

"Oh yeah, beautiful aren't they?" she smiled, looking over at her new addition to the household. It was a beautiful dark green ivy crawling plant that covered the middle shelf of one of her bookshelves and stretched halfway across the mantel. She returned her gaze back to Eric and found him fondly looking at the tortoise that currently chowed down on some fresh strawberries that she had given him for a treat. She continued, "That's Benji."

"He's cute," Eric responded with a light sigh as he sat down in the single comfy chair in her living room, the seat nearest to the coffee table.

The two of them took a while to get to work, finding more important things to discuss before actually getting on with the work. Once they hit a groove of working, however, they did not stop until they were so close to finishing. Eric flopped over on the chair, letting out a long sigh of exhaustion that she took as the ultimate sign that it was time to stop. Sometimes she forgot that mortals had to deal with physical exhaustion as well as mental exhaustion, having never experienced such a thing herself. "So, where's your parents?" he asked as she gently closed her textbook.

"Oh Mum's on a business trip back in England," she replied quickly, having rehearsed the answer to that very question in her head a few times before the two of them even decided to do the project at her house. She needed a reason why no parents were ever there for big events or seen in grocery stores. Business trips and illness had forever been her go-to.

"Back in England?" he asked with a raised brow that suggested only intrigue.

"I'm from there originally," she replied with a relief fueled smile. She was glad to not have to lie about one thing, she was from there originally just an origin that he nor his grandparent's parents would have been around for.

"Ohh, the slight accent makes sense now."

She chuckled softly, still believing that it did not come through as strongly as others made it out to be. Honestly, the fact that he noticed it shocked her to a certain extent. "Are you sure you're not hungry or anything? I made cupcakes earlier if you wanted one," she asked, noticing the sudden decline in his energy levels that could definitely be rectified with sugar. She planned to take the cakes down to Billy's, like most baked goods she made nowadays, after they had finished the project so she could check up on Billy.

"What flavour?"

"Chocolate cake with chocolate orange icing," she replied with a suppressed grin, noticing the widening of his eyes.

"No way! That's my favourite," he laughed. She raised a brow in surprise as if she didn't already know that specific fact about her friend. She had overheard him talking about a cupcake very highly and made a note of it in the endless pit that was her mind. She hopped up from the sofa and walked to the kitchen, grabbing one of them from the cake stand that they had effortlessly been placed on top of. She handed him the cupcake and sat back down just as he took a bite.

"That's so good," he chuckled, mouth still half full but covered with his hand.

"I've always loved baking but I don't get to do it very often nowadays," she smiled softly, flicking her gaze to the fire that had begun to die out in front of her eyes.

"Why not?"

 "Schoolwork and other priorities," she shrugged, having not planned that response. She thought it was relatable enough to convince him and was deemed right by a nod that suggested he understood the situation fully.

"I get that," he sighed awfully dramatically. "We're so overworked." Athena just nodded and flicked on the television, picking a movie that the two of them would watch until Eric had to head home because of curfew. She sat alone in her living room, enjoying the peaceful hum of the television as she swam amongst her thoughts.