Two Weeks to Fall in Love

B. The Weight of Dreams / Noah POV

Fuck. I was exhausted.

It's not like breaking up with girls was fun for me. Hell, nothing about this was fun. Especially when you could see the hope in their eyes and watched it slowly die when they realize I wasn't in love with them. And it wasn't even their fault.

All this futile experiment made me realize was that I wasn't going to fall in love. Ever. No surprise there. Dysfunctional should have been our family's last name instead of Archer.

Maybe it was finally time I stopped trying to force it. The fictional concept of true love. Ha. What a joke.

I ran a hand down my face, paused the song playing on my phone, and hooked my headphones around my neck. The noise from the corridors was an assault on my ears. I instantly wanted to pull them back on and get lost in the music. But I had to meet up with my girlfriend before class. And that would require a lot of listening to something other than the sounds of Greta Van Fleet.

If there was one thing Arabella loved, it was talking. She was a kind girl though, that much became clear over the past 2 weeks. She just wasn't the kind of girl for me. No one was, it seemed. My feet dragged as I made my way down the hall where I could see Arabella standing with her friend.

I stopped for a second when the sound of manic laughter nearby caught my attention.

The person laughing kept it.

Skyler Fox. The only girl in school that seemed to hate me with the burning fire of a thousand suns. And I wasn't really sure what I did to get on her naughty list. It's not like I dated her before. There had never been much interaction between us as far as I could remember, and yet if looks could kill I would have been dead a hundred times by now.

Maybe I should have been weirded out by that. But I just found it funny.

The fact that I seemed to play enough of a role in her life that she felt such strong emotions. When, for me, she was just a girl I shared a few classes with. Oh. And the girl that Lily, one of my exes, wanted to matchmake me with for some unknown reason.

I had no idea what that was about. Skyler looked like the kind of person that would rather stab herself in both eyes than date me for two weeks.

"Oh, the horror! And what will they do then? Mascara me to death? Because I have an eyeliner and I'm not afraid to use it!"

I heard her speak and had to press my lips together to stop myself from laughing. Was she getting herself into trouble? It sounded fun. More fun than I'd had lately. Every week seemed so monotonous. Tiring.

If I dated someone like her for 2 weeks, my days would probably be anything but monotonous.

Damn. That was one weird intrusive thought. Not wrong though. Probably.

I'd never find out if that was true either way because there was no way someone like Skyler Fox would ask me out. 

The smile I was trying to suppress pulled up my lips as I passed by her. Unnecessarily close. Was I hoping for a reaction?

I didn't have to wait long for one. As soon as her eyes met mine, her forehead crinkled. Gaze sharpened. Did she realize how damn easy she was to read? Like an open book. Her eyes spoke a thousand words. None of them were particularly flattering. That just made it better.

While I held her gaze, I smirked and did the one thing I knew would spike her anger. I winked.

It took all my determination to keep myself from turning around when I passed her, knowing how outraged she must have looked. Before I could cave into my curiosity, Arabella waved at me. Excited and hopeful.