Are you excited for this chapter? Because I AM 😍 lets goooo

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"Forger," called Coach Bobby. "It's your turn to clean up!"

"On it!" Anya nodded distantly, and started to put away the sets of equipment from that day's class as everyone else went to get changed, but she sorely misjudged the sheer volume and weight of it all. Everything was so heavy, and bulky, and the cold metal nearly burned her hands, and it was hard to keep everything in her grasp. It would have to take multiple trips for her to clear everything up.

Not to mention that she was so lost in her own head, in her thoughts about Damian, and her conversation with Becky, that she didn't notice the other pair of hands that had started to help her.

"Need a hand?"

"GAH!"

Everything in Anya's arms clattered to the ground, momentarily bouncing off the field grass, lightly frosted from the long shadows of the school over it, before settling with a dull thud.

She whirled to the source of the interruption, and immediately her heart soared, at the same time that fire blazed through her body. "Oh - er - it's you!"

Damian rolled his eyes. "Don't be so disappointed to see me."

He meant it as a joke, of course he did, but even Damian couldn't hide the real hurt behind his eyes.

She wanted to reassure him, to say something, but it felt like her mouth had gone completely dry. Anya gulped, then immediately bent down to retrieve the equipment. If her hair wasn't in a ponytail for the class, she would have tried to hide her reddening face behind it. While she tried to think of something to say, she busied herself with grabbing the equipment pieces from the ground and arranging them in a bundle in her arms.

It was a moment too long before she replied, and she cursed herself for it. "I'm not. Um, disappointed. To see you."

"Oh," Damian blushed.

"Actually," Anya said, keeping her gaze to the ground. "I thought you were ignoring me."

A guilty expression crossed his face before he sighed, then bent down to retrieve the things with her.

"I thought it would be easier," he muttered in a confession, avoiding eye contact as he filled his arms with the pole pieces and netting.

A flush rose to her cheeks. Did he really find it that difficult to be around her?

"So why change your mind?" said Anya, just above a whisper.

He hesitated, and the guilty look worsened.

"You were crying," Damian mumbled. "That was probably my fault, right?"

Her breath caught in her chest. Her eyes still stung from the flow of tears from earlier, but she thought that she had managed to wipe most of it away, even though some of the puffiness remained around her eyes. She didn't want to know how bad she looked, plus Anya had no clue how to tell him that she had cried about him, but not because of him, but in her turmoil she had been quiet too long, and Damian took that as confirmation.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I should have realised sooner that I was hurting you. It's just," he sighed a ragged breath as he hung his head. "I don't get how it all got so confusing. I'm still mad at you, but I don't want to make you cry, so I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want things to go back to the way they were."

She wasn't expecting that.

"You do?" Anya wheezed, and tried to pretend that his words hadn't just punched her in the gut.

"Maybe?" he heaved a sigh. "Look, I still want to talk, like we did before, and I want to understand, and I want to help, but it's not easy for me to… to be around you like this, so… if you just want to stay friends, then I'd… I'd accept it."

"Oh," said Anya, a little dumbfounded. "Okay."

Anya had really thought that they were past the worst of the awkward silence, but she was wrong. Both stood slowly, arms filled with equipment cold to the touch, and they walked in silence to the relative warmth of the gym storage room. They tidied everything away in uncomfortable silence, the entire time being entirely too aware of each other. Even if she wasn't looking directly at him, his presence burned like the sun. Her skin prickled if he was near her, and even getting too close made her sweat.

It wasn't long before they had put everything away. "Okay then," said Damian curtly. "We'd better head back-"

But he didn't leave, because Anya had unconsciously reached out, and grasped the sleeve of his sports jacket between her thumb and forefinger. It was tiny, and gentle, but just that small gesture was enough to hold him there, silently communicating that she didn't really want him to go.

Their skin didn't touch, and yet it felt strangely intimate.

"Actually, there's something I want to tell you," said Anya quietly. "I…"

Her mouth went completely dry, and it felt like her words had been swallowed up by the air around her. She wanted to tell him. She had just told Becky that she was going to tell him, but suddenly the fear had risen in her once again and choked her.

How was it so hard to say three simple words?

Anya worked her jaw, trying to make the words come out of her somehow, but between the overwhelming realisation, and the crying, and the punch in her gut from Damian wanting to forget everything that happened, her confidence had taken an unprecedented hit. After everything that they had been through together, she wondered if confessing her feelings was really such a good idea after all.

Is this how Damian felt? Anya stifled a gasp as the thought came to her.

Of course. That was why he always found it so difficult to be around her, and talk to her normally, why he still actually hadn't said the words out loud to her yet, because it was that difficult. Baring your soul to one person who mattered most in the world to you, and hoping that they wouldn't reject you, that they would still love you as you were - the fear of it sliced through her, and she began to understand.

It was hard for Damian the whole time. It was still hard for him, and yet here he was again, trying to offer her a semblance of normality, because he loved her so much that her being in pain overshadowed his own discomfort, and perhaps a part of him thought that it was even worth feeling uncomfortable if he could make sure she was okay.

This boy. Emotion flooded through her, and once again Anya realised just how far he was willing to go for her.

"I…" Anya started again, but frustratingly, it was still trapped inside her.

Damian's eyes shone with some mix of hope and confusion, but he had stayed, had let her stop him, and he hadn't even pushed her hand away.

"What is it?" he said in a low voice. His eyes softened on her completely, with the kind of warmth that he saved only for her.

He sounded calm on the surface, but Anya had no doubt that he felt just as nervous as she did.

"I…um…" she paused. "I need to tell you something." Anya winced, knowing that she was just repeating herself, but how was it such a struggle to say it all out loud?

Damian had seen Anya lost in thought before, but something about the way she held herself told Damian that this was different. She wasn't just lost in thought, or trying to concentrate - she was serious. Gone were the endearing quirks and mannerisms where she would bite her lip, or twirl her hair, or jiggle her leg, instead replaced by wide eyes that focused only on him, and instantly Damian knew that whatever secret she wanted to share with him, it was nothing like the others. It was the kind of secret that was buried for decades, for lifetimes, and it filled him with unease.

Anya held herself with an air of grace, and expectation, to the extent that Damian wondered if he was bearing witness to a completely different Anya. This was the Anya that saved a fox from hunters, stood up to terrorists, and the same Anya that held a gun to the face of a kidnapper. The same Anya that punched him in the face on the first day of school. This Anya was wild, powerful, unpredictable, and every time, it took his breath away.

Damian swallowed nervously. He wondered what kind of secret was possibly serious enough that brought out this side of her.

He couldn't look away from those hypnotising green eyes, focused solely on him, and it took an embarrassingly long time before Damian realised he had made a terrible mistake.

He had somehow managed to be completely alone with her.

"Damian, I…" she said simply, and his heart jumped into his throat.

Since when did she start calling me by my name?

Damian's brain turned to static as he tried to remember. She had been using his name more and more often, and each time she used it, goosebumps prickled all over his skin, but at the same time it made him feel far too vulnerable. At least the nicknames could be a shield for the both of them.

Sy-on boy. Forger.

Damian. Anya.

Shields, both of them, for the two to hide behind.

With his entire heart on the line for her, Damian felt that he needed that shield now more than ever. The cracks in his heart from the past few days had not disappeared, and had all but deepened, and it took all his strength to hold the rest of himself together in one piece.

"What happened to you calling me Sy-on boy?" he tried to laugh, but it came out in a wheeze. He should have known that trying to make a joke like that would fall flat, and Damian mentally slapped himself for even trying.

"Oh," Anya sighed, defeated, and dropped her gaze. "You don't like it?"

Her uncertainty stole his sanity, and immediately Damian wanted to leap to reassure her.

"N-no, it's fine," Damian stammered, his mouth inexplicably dry, and the blush crept up his neck. "I don't mind."

When she met his eyes, Damian gulped. He knew that she was perceptive, even without her ability to read minds, but with that look he swore that she had seen through his soul.

Then Anya perked up, like an idea had suddenly come to her, and Damian immediately put his guard up. He knew all her smiles off my heart, and her mischievous grin had a special ability to put him on edge instantly. Damian knew from experience that whatever idea had just entered her head was going to strain his heart, and he wasn't sure how much more he could take.

"I can call you something else instead?" she said in a small voice, looking up at him through her eyelashes, and it transfixed him completely.

What was she planning? Didn't she want to talk to him about something?

He didn't know why he said it. Damian knew from experience that he shouldn't indulge her crazy ideas, but somehow his curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn't help himself.

"L-like what?"

A tinge of pink sprinkled her cheeks, matching her hair, and she shuffled her feet together as heat spread through his body. Why was she being so cute? His heart rate reached an intensity that he wasn't sure was even humanly possible.

Her lips moved first, soundlessly, and he creased his brows as he tried to understand, before his brain finally caught up to his ears, and his hearing came back to him in a rush, so that her words were stark against the muffled silence:

"What about 'boyfriend'?"

It was so quiet, almost too quiet, but he heard it. The deafening silence surrounding them almost convinced him that it was some kind of illusion.

Damian could do nothing except stare at her. He resisted pinching himself to see if it was real, but after a long moment of gawking, speechless, Damian concluded: it was no illusion.

It was to be expected, really, that Damian's mind shut down completely.

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has stopped working 😂
It's not a drill! They are really going to get there