Chapter Twenty-One: Sweet Disgust
I could barely keep my eyes open while Violette and I waited for the two boys at lunch the following day. After crying the night before, I thought I'd also be able to sleep like a baby, but that wasn't what happened. In the middle of the night my dreams melted into nightmares and I spent hours tossing and turning, twisting up in my bed sheets and feeling like I was drowning. It was awful.
However the worst part wasn't my sleep deprivation, but rather the nightmares themselves. Even in broad daylight and seated next to Violette, who was gushing quietly about Lysander, I still shivered at the memory. In the haziness of my drowsy mind, I could recall the piercing images of Jason, Mum, Dad and Castiel all yelling at me for being a coward and tossing me back into that burning building as punishment.
"Lilli?" Violette's sweet voice cut through my thoughts and I whirled my head to the side to look at her. "Are you alright, you're shaking?"
I looked down at my hands to see for myself that they were twitching erratically, almost in sync with my escalated heartbeat. Closing my eyes, I ran my hands through my hair and let out a heavy breath in an attempt to calm myself down.
"Yeah," I replied as I opened my eyes and smiled at her affectionately, "I just had a really bad night. Nightmares."
Violette nodded and placed her hand on top of mine, saying something about how she used to get nightmares all the time as a kid but then her parents bought her a stuffed animal. "It's sort of habit now, I can't get to sleep without it! At least they're peaceful dreams though," she giggled, finishing her story with a rosy blush speckled across her cheeks.
Apparently the universe had decided to be a little nicer to me because Castiel and Lysander chose that moment to round the corner into the school gardens. Violette's lips parted in a radiant smile as soon as she spotted the Victorian-styled boy and she waved at him sweetly.
"Hello," Lysander chuckled, leaning down to kiss the top of Violette's head gently. The purple-haired girl just blushed in response and looked down at the ground like the innocent schoolgirl she was.
"Don't think you're gonna get a kiss," Castiel snickered at me as he set down the guitar case he'd been carrying.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I sneered playfully. I watched Castiel sit on the ground cross-legged and take hold of the black acoustic guitar he'd brought. He looked so at home with the instrument in his arms, his red hair gently falling forward and obscuring his eyes while his mouth was still in view and displaying a soft smile.
Lysander sat beside Castiel, with his notebook opened up at a page that had a lot of scribbles and corrections scribbled across it. "I wrote this song for you, Violette. I hope it's not too generic," he smiled.
The next three minutes crawled by slowly, not that I was complaining. Lysander's voice was deep and smooth and I knew that every word sunk deep into Violette's very core in a way that only those two could manage. To be honest though, most of the time my attention was glued to Castiel. The boy was a natural, his fingers moved effortlessly along the strings to produce a sweet and almost sorrowful melody that floated around the gardens beautifully.
I'd never thought of Castiel as someone who would play such a sappy love song, but then again he was doing it for Lysander. I smiled when the song came to an end, thinking about how the last few minutes were a testimony to just how selfless the rebel could be. There was definitely a soft heart beating underneath that jagged exterior.
"What did you think?" Lysander cooed, standing up and smiling at Violette as he did so.
"It was incredible, you two are both amazing," I said when Violette just grinned up at him mutely, apparently completely lost for words.
"I know," Castiel said smugly.
"No you don't," I replied coyly, smirking at him. The redhead looked at me curiously as he put his precious guitar back in its case, but he didn't say anything.
"Was that really about me?" I heard my purple-haired friend whisper. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her standing and peering up at Lysander underneath her long lashes while he cradled her chin gently. The two of them were such cliché romantics; I was uncontrollably happy for them.
"Yuck," Castiel chuckled, his own voice low and sultry as he spoke directly into my ear.
I flicked my eyes to the side and was slightly surprised to see two grey orbs starring back at me, much closer than I'd anticipated. Lucky I didn't turn my whole head then. "The word you're looking for is 'sweet'," I whispered back.
"No, 'yuck' works just fine," he replied. He narrowed his eyes at me challengingly, which I returned with vigor.
"You two alright over there?" Lysander teased, indicating that the couple beside us had stopped their sweet exchange.
"Fine!" I replied all too eagerly, taking a step back from the tall rebel and smiling innocently.
"Smooth," Castiel sneered with a roll of his eyes.
I cringed at my own reaction and looked over at Violette embarrassedly. The beautiful girl just shrugged at me and rested her hand on my shoulder as her way of telling me to forget about it. "Let's go to class," she said, turning to look at Lysander confidently. That boy definitely brought out the best in her.
Lysander agreed and the four of us headed into the main building just before the bell went, signaling the end of lunch. "What do you have now?" I asked as I got my books out of my locker.
"We both have English," Violette responded from behind me, her locker was directly opposite mine and beside Lysander's. I knew she was referring to Lysander by the way her voice carried a little more certainty and it made me smile to myself. "How about you, Liili?" She asked as I heard her locker door close with the distinctive click.
"Princess and I've got Geography." I closed my locker and looked up at Castiel with raised eyebrows. I didn't even see him standing there.
"You're not going to skip?" I teased.
"I don't feel like getting another detention, so sue me," he retorted, nudging my arm playfully as I went to pass him.
Violette gave me a knowing smile as she hugged me and then headed off in the opposite direction, Lysander gliding along beside her and carrying her books like a gentleman. "Come on then," I grinned at Castiel, making sure to swing my hips as we walked to class.
A/N: Hey! So I actually sat down before I wrote this chapter and planned out what's going to happen in the rest of the story; no more just winging it as I go! So I can say that there should be about thirty chapters in total, which means that we've entered the final third of Trouble Always Finds Me (TAFM). Hope you enjoyed and please tell me what you thought! xo