Page 32 of Clichés & Curses

We tried our best to haul Claudia as quickly as we could, and made it into the apartment finally. Then, we went straight into Claudia’s bedroom, gently putting her down on the bed, and plopping her so she was lying sideways.

A bucket had already been there, beside the bed. I assumed Lily put it there when we were still dragging Claudia across the corridor.

Once she was comfortably situated, we left her room, gently closing the door behind us.

‘Mission accomplished,’ Nina huffed out, her breathing at a much normal pace than mine. ‘You ready to go?’

I just nodded my head, still slightly out of breath.

We hugged Lily and waved her goodbye before heading back down to Colton’s car.

I was anticipating some questions from Nina as we waited for the elevator and during the ride back down, but she just said nothing. When we stepped out of the elevator, Nina grabbed my arm, taking me by surprise.

‘You don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but I’m here if you ever want to talk about it,’ she reminded me. After rooming all these years together, and her being as observant as she is, Nina pretty much could tell when something was affecting me. But this time, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it just yet.

While her words were different each time, they held the same meaning: She’ll be there for me when I am ready to voice out the things I’ve been keeping to myself.

‘Thank you.’ I smiled at her.

Colton was on his phone, leaning against the car, when we stepped outside of the apartment building. Upon hearing us, he looked up.

‘Everything good?’ He pocketed his phone away.

‘Yeah.’ I gave him a nod. A yawn escaped my mouth as I tried to cover it with my hand.

Colton smiled. ‘Time to get you two home.’

He opened the door for Nina first, closing it when she got inside before opening mine.

There was a bit of traffic on the way back to our apartment. The night seemed to have caught up to Nina, when I heard soft snores coming from the back. Colton and I were back to sharing the silence, just like we did in the backyard.

Just when I was about to ask him where he had been before he arriving at the party, Colton stunned me with his words.

‘You look beautiful tonight, by the way,’ he said.

My eyes widened in surprise. ‘What?’ I blurted out, thinking I heard him wrong.

‘I said you look beautiful tonight,’ he repeated.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I replied sheepishly, caught off guard by his compliment. ‘Although, I definitely looked a lot better earlier in the night before we had to drag Claudia home,’ I added playfully, trying to brush it off as a joke.

But Colton wasn’t having it.

Briefly turning his eyes in my direction, he deadpanned, ‘You still look beautiful to me.’ His gaze was soft as he looked at me before facing the road once again.

‘Thank you,’ I breathed out, looking down at my hands, trying to cover up the blush on my cheeks. I tried to think of what else to say, but Colton—once again—beat me to it.

‘I’m sorry for not talking much just now. Back at the house,’ Colton continued. I looked back at him. His eyes had been facing the road, but they looked apologetic. ‘I saw you were sitting alone in the backyard and thought you could use some company. You looked like you were enjoying the silence, so I didn’t want to intrude on it and bother you with my talking.’

My heart squeezed listening to him.

This boy.

‘Thank you,’ I said again, speechless over his thoughtfulness. ‘I appreciate it.’

Colton continued to drive, with me in the passenger seat next to him, and Nina with her soft snores at the back. We settled back into the silence while he drove us home.

As I lay in my bed that night, I couldn’t help but go over everything that had happened with Colton that night: right from when he sat beside me in the backyard of the baseball team’s house signing at me, to him dropping us home, and me signingthank youto him when he opened the car door for me.

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