SCORPION - GRAVITY - CHAPTER 12
Hey, thanks everyone for all the positive feedbacks and comments on this story! I have slowed down a bit my writing rhythm because you know … this thing called work… but I had a few chapters ahead so I can keep posting regularly for now. Late post today, I had to referee a basketball match and it took me hours to get home. So sorry if there are any typos, I'm tired so I didn't double checked this chapter. Enjoy :)
The next day, when Walter arrived on the campus he immediately looked out for Paige. After the events of the previous night, Walter stayed alone in his room until morning and still didn't talk to anyone before heading to college. He realized that there was just one person he wanted to talk to and it was Paige. He knew she wouldn't try to psychoanalyze him like Toby would, or that she wouldn't ask a million questions. She would just listen to him, and then they would do something or go somewhere to change his mind.
When he spotted her with Drew, he was a little disappointed, because he knew that would make things way harder. Walter couldn't help feeling a strange feeling in his guts when he saw they had their fingers intertwined. When Paige was with him, he often tented to forget than she had a boyfriend, but he was real, and from an objective point of view, he was handsome, and they seemed very much in love.
So he just stayed a few meters from them, staring at her back and maybe she felt his heavy look on her because after a few seconds she turned around and gazed at him. Her eyes looked so sad, it broke his heart. He wanted to go and asked what was going on but he restrained himself because he didn't want Drew to see him. So he just waved at her, hopping for a sign from her that would reassure him, but instead she just looked away, going back to Drew with a smile, as if everything was okay. But Walter knew this smile was fake, he saw it.
After that, he was determined to find her a moment she was alone during the day so he could talk to her but it seemed like she was avoiding him. He knew exactly what class she had and when, and she knew that he knew, and yet it was impossible to find her. Then he thought that maybe she felt sick and went home so he tried to call her but it went straight to voice mail. At the end of the day, Walter was starting to really worry so he decided that he would go check at her place, but there she was, talking with her friends. He almost ran to her, forgetting everything about being embarrassed in front of the other girls.
« Hey Paige! I've been worried about you! I couldn't find you all day and you weren't answering me. Are you okay? »
Paige froze at this. She thought that she could just avoid Walter all day and that it would be easy. After all she always had to make to fist step before so if she stopped coming to him, he would just assume that she grew tired of him, even if it broke her heart to do that to him since he told her that he thought that everyone eventually gets bored with him at some point. She didn't want to prove him right, because it wasn't true, but she had to do it. Anyway, she hadn't realized that she had already made him improve, and that she earned his trust faster than anyone.
Paige took Walter by the arm to go aside and talk privately. He followed her and when she dared looking at him, she saw he was really looking at her with worried eyes as he waited for her expectantly to give an explanation. She took a deep breath and repressed the tears she felt coming up. She couldn't cry, it would take off all the credibility she was trying to compose right now.
« Look Walter um… I'm really sorry about this but I think we should stop seeing or… talking to each other. »
He didn't understand. He thought she was different, that she actually cared about him.
« Wh… what? Why? »
Paige bit her lip, thinking that she would never come up with a good explanation for this. There wasn't any good way to do this.
« I'm sorry I just… I can't. »
« If you do this at least be honest with me please. If after all you realized that I was fun for a few weeks but that I end up being this annoying thing you can't get rid of, that I'm not this 'interesting' anymore, I can hear it. Believe me I've heard things way worst. »
Paige couldn't hold back her tears anymore. She knew it would be hard, but she didn't imagine it would be this hard. As he said, they only knew each other for a few weeks. But yet she felt like she had known him for years, like they were meant to meet. And after all the abandonments he already lived, she felt terrible to be one more.
« It's not that Walter. I really don't want you to think that. You're an extraordinary boy and I bet you'll become an even more extraordinary man. »
« So why? I don't understand. »
Of course he didn't. His mind wasn't made to decrypt emotions, it was made to process facts, and she was giving him nothing but facts. So she had an idea.
« Okay Walter, you're a science man, you know how the moon gravitates around earth? »
« Yeah I could tell you a lot about that like the speed of… »
« That's not my point. So the moon, she is clearly attracted by earth. But at the same time, they never collide you see? »
Walter was about to develop her scientific explanation when he realized what she was really talking about. It wasn't about the moon, or earth. It was about them. It still made no sense to him though. She wasn't a satellite, and he wasn't a planet.
« Is it about Drew? »
Paige sighed. He might not be very good at reading situations like this, but he could still pick the obvious. She cursed herself, it would have been way easier if she had just been honest when he asked her to.
« Yeah… kind of. »
« Okay. »
« Okay what? »
« Okay I won't interfere. I don't know what's going on between you two but my guess is that he was the one asking you to stop talking to me. And since you're… doing this… Anyway just do as you want Paige, I'll respect you decision. And if you change your mind well it's not like I'm going to make any other friends around here so… »
Paige was surprised and… a little disappointed. She thought she was being an horrible person thinking that but… she would have liked Walter to fight a little. But he wasn't like this, he didn't trust himself enough to fight for someone. Without thinking, Paige hugged Walter. She knew it wasn't the last of her and Walter O'Brien. But for now she had to keep her distances. So she took a few steps back and stared at him for a few more seconds before turning her back on him.
« Hey Paige. »
She turned around again to face him.
« Thank you. »
« For what? »
« For making me feel appreciated. And making me realize that different could be good. Even if it was only for two weeks. »
He wanted to add that it was the best two weeks of his life but strangely these words never managed to get out. Maybe it was because he was wondering if she had been faking it. He had been understanding but he was still a little bit mad at her. Because she told him, several times, that she wouldn't let him down, and yet she was bailing on him like everyone else did before. She smiled sadly at him a last time and he finally let her go.
Maybe he made it look like he was okay with this, but it was only to make it easier for her. In fact he was crushed. And there was only one thing he could do to go back to feeling nothing now. He had to go home, dive into a problem, and let science do the rest.