[1]
She almost mows him down by throwing open her car door before school.
Then she stares him down without even a trace of fear. He likes it.
(He's intimidated by it.)
When he sees her at that party, an impetuous decision on his account, he tells her the truth. She doesn't want to believe him, he can see that. But he hopes part of her does.
[2]
At the concert, he can hardly concentrate on the band, she smells like freesia and tangerines. It's so girly and unlike her, but that's what he likes. One moment she will be totally bat shit out of her mind insane. And the next, she's giving him a real smile, albeit while kicking him in the balls, but still.
He wants to kiss her when she's leaning in and he's leaning in and then.
Thanks a fuck load, Bianca.
[3]
Sneaking into her window was hands down one of the better ideas that he's had. For many reasons, but the most would be: she's dancing in her pajamas. Awesome. It's enough blackmail for a lifetime. And because there's a natural disaster and there's nothing like a natural disaster to initiate hooking up.
He's been looking forward to it.
When they kiss on the rooftop, it feels like it should be cliché and ridiculous and he tries to wrap his mind around the concept of she's just another girl, but she's fitting perfectly into his frame, almost like she was made to be there. He doesn't believe in much, but he thinks that the rest of the world may be conspiring against him to change his mind.
[4]
He's always leering. Like some asshole in a bar, smirk permanently etched into his left jaw line. Undressing her with his eyes, giving feminists everywhere something to get riled up about. Oh, he knows he does it. That's why he continues.
I mean, he has reason to stare, don't get him wrong. Scowl rarely absent from her seashell lips. Long, long legs tapered off with peek-a-boo heels. Curves accentuated with every twist and twirl of emerald green silk giving his wild imagination even more to suckle upon. Cocoa eyes embarrassingly admiring his own attire and appearance.
(Okay he's wearing one jacket short of a suit. Don't fucking mock.)
When he asks her to dance and sets his strong hands along the swoop of her hips, warmth flows from her bodice and she flushes cranberry in her sculpted cheekbones. He doesn't allow a real grin to blossom on his own mouth, but his body has a mind of its own.
He's never seen her like this. Shy. Naïve looking (he will never tell her that). Easily broken.
[5]
He doesn't give a shit about being suspended. It's happened before. His mom doesn't care. His dad isn't even in the picture. Why should he give a shit?
His brain twinges a bit when her appears. He pushes it aside and kicks up the stand on his bike.
Pittering footsteps sound in his rearview and he almost laughs when she grabs his abdomen and they fly off into the sunset. If he believed in fairy tales, the irony wouldn't be lost on him. Too bad he doesn't.
(Or he didn't until she didn't cast him as her own Prince Charming.)
The beach is quiet, deserted, and completely lovely. She is flinging her coat and shoes and messenger bag all over the damn place. Laughing at the top of her lungs, she rests her nose on his lips and he smiles against it.
He likes her like this. Carefree. Passionate. Beautiful. And when he kisses her, hard, he feels like he actually might, maybe, could love her.
(He is sure that part of him already might.)
[6]
Being suspended sucks. If you do it wrong, and she of course is no exception. Hell they could've stayed in and painted all day and it would have been better than sneaking back into school.
(But he's starting to wonder if he has an Achilles heel and whether or not she is the one with control over it.)
[7]
That Blank kid is a total douche. And a fancy, expensive drink of upper-crust British water. Douche.
But he's not jealous.
(Fuck you. He's not.)
[8]
He is livid that she followed him. Absolutely pissed, but when they're sitting in her car, silence comfortably settling, he goes weak when she says that she cares about him.
No one else does, why would she? He figures that it doesn't really matter why she does, just that she does. He doesn't do PDA well or at all generally, but really he just wants to hold her hand. So he laces her fingers through his, knitting them together and she smiles a real smile. One of those ones that's just for him.
And he knows why it matters that she cares: because he does too.
[9]
He's been in a lot of fights (mostly that he's won), but none of them, and he repeats, none of them have been over a girl. No girl is worth it, yet here he is at a fucking foreign film, stalking her like Cameron does Bianca. And each time Douche touches her, the nerves in his blood stream bubble and fizz with rage.
That is his girl- what the fuck.
(Okay, he knows what she is, not that he's ever going to say. Ever.)
Then Douche grabs her hand and he snaps. Oh no way in hell is that going to happen. The hallway is shook by his voice, sounding out, and she looks surprised and well, kinda really fucking shocked that [a] he is there to begin with and [b] that he is standing there fighting with Douche who is doing a shit impersonation of the Karate Kid.
And when the words slip from his mouth, he flinches, but quickly recovers himself when she flushes strawberry pink in her cheeks.
It was worth it.
[10]
He fucks up. Majorly. And is pretty sure that he isn't going to get a second chance.
Her escape to Nepal proves him right and he chases anything in a skirt without a mind to push her far from the reaches of his thoughts.
(And wishes he would have had the nerve to ask her to stay.)
[11]
He casts himself as Prince Charming when presidential elections happen. Blank crushes her via Tabitha, and for the second time he sees innocence and naivety. It scares him, and he knows he's lost it when all he wants to do is anything to save her.
He has thought all this time that they were writing a new fairytale, but as it turns out, every teen feminist activist needs somebody sometime. And every sorry excuse for a badass needs someone who cares sometime. They are a cliché that was never meant for a fairytale, but somehow found their way back to roots in reality.
She knows him like he was written on the back of both of her shaking hands. And so he stands there, sacrificing himself on the altar of dignity, holding his sign, waiting. Waiting for her.
(He's always waiting for her.)
[12]
She asks him not to break her heart, and he doesn't get a chance to tell her what he's wanted to all this time.
(Don't break mine.)
[13]
It's never going to be perfect, but most of the time, he thinks, for them, that's better.