Entangled (Entangled Trilogy #1) (15 page)

He loved me? As in the real love?
I knew I wasn’t his type, but still. Oh, what am I thinking. Of
course he doesn’t love me. Does he? The scene before me says
otherwise.

“
Do you like it, Roza?” he
whispered.

“
I love it, Adrian. Thank you so
much. And of course, I love you too. You’re a really great friend.
Actually, now, you’re my second best friend,” I said. He loved me
as a friend only. He didn’t love me in any other way; it was
obvious. I can’t believe I thought that he loved me some other
way.

He loved me, as a friend. I
couldn’t believe it. Here I am, thinking that he loved me in the
other way, but he only loved me as a friend. I forced a small smile
on my face and saw hurt swallow that sparkle in his aquamarine
eyes.

“
As a friend?” Adrian asked as his
voice cracked in the end. He swallowed audibly and his eyes looked
glassy. Why is he sad?

“
That’s right, isn’t it?” I
asked.

“
Umm . . . Yeah,” he sighed and
slumped his shoulders. He looked as if he failed miserably at
something very important.

“
What’s wrong?” I
asked.

“
Nothing.”

“
Nothing?”

“
Nothing, Roza. Really,” he
smiled, but I could tell how hard he was trying to plaster that on
his face.

“
We should go,” I said, breaking
the growing silence.

“
Yeah, I’ll drop you off so Elliot
wouldn’t worry.”

“
How do you know my
brother?”

“
I just do.”

“
How?”

“
Everyone knows your
brother.”

“
. . . ”

“
. . . ”

“
. . . ”

“
Roza, am I a bad
person?”

“
No, but why do you
ask?”

“
No reason.”

We arrived at my house and this
time, he just hugged me and kept his space.

“
Will I see you tomorrow at
school? I’m really sorry about tonight,” Adrian said as the pain in
his expression was replaced by concern.

“
Of course you will,” I tried to
smile.

“
I really want us to be friends. I
don’t want anything untrustworthy to happen between us. I want you
to feel safe around me, Roza,” Adrian said, taking my hand in his.
Now I knew for sure that he wanted to be friends and friend
only.

“
Is that what you were worried
about?” I asked and he nodded after a moment’s
hesitation.

“
I do feel safe around you. It’s
just, after what happened with James . . .,” I trailed
off.

“
Look, Roza. He isn’t good enough
for you, literally. He would’ve hurt you eventually. All that love
was fake. You deserve better than him. I don’t want you to be upset
from all of this,” Adrian said and kissed my cheek.

“
Okay,” I said and hugged him
goodbye. This was definitely going to be a night to remember. His
words had so much power. James’ words had a lot of power, too. He
said he loved me, but he lied. Elliot’s words were pretty powerful
enough to get me suspicious.

I’ve never known this before.
Words had a lot of power, positive and negative. I guess we had to
figure out whether it was positive or negative. I wish I knew if
Elliot’s Words were positive or negative. If I asked him, he would
deny everything and pretend not to know anything. Typical Elliot. I
dismissed everything and entered my house, going into
innocent-little-sister mode.

CHAPTER 13

A CALLOUSED HEART

“
Hey! Roza! Wait up!” Adrian
yelled as he jogged to catch up with me. I stopped and let him
catch up. Adrian could be so annoying sometimes, but he was the
kind of person it was impossible to stay mad at.

“
Oh, come on, slowpoke,” I teased
as he playfully punched me on the arm lightly and my whole body
became a tingling firework. My whole body was flooded with tingles,
making their way to my heart and I clutched my arm, not in pain,
but to try and stop the tingling.

“Oh. My. God, Roza. Did I hit you
too hard? I swear on my life that I did not mean to do that. I am
so sorry. Let me see; does it hurt?” Adrian said as that contagious
smile of his was replaced by a frown. I flinched from his touch,
suddenly remembering what happened last night. My cheeks turned red
and a single teardrop fell out of the corner of my eye.

“Oh. My. God. It
does
hurt. I am so
sorry. Man, such a friend I am . . . I have an idea,” Adrian gasped
as he pulled me closer to him and pressed his lips onto mine, in
front of the whole school. Everyone in the hallway stopped and
turned to look at us. I closed my eyes and got lost in the moment.
Why, Adrian? Friends definitely didn’t do this in public. He pulled
away and gasped for air.

“Is the pain gone?” he asked,
concerned.

“First of all, that wasn’t pain. I
felt all . . . tingly so I clutched my arm to stop the tingling. I
didn’t get hurt. You didn’t hurt me,” I said softly as the whole
crowd in the hallway started hooting and pumping their fists in the
air. Some of them yelled out, “
Get a room
you two
,” but we ignored them. Adrian
buried his face in my neck and wrapped his arms around my waist,
embarrassed.

“I-I’m sorry,” he
stammered.

“It’s okay, Adrian,” I said as he
held onto me tighter. We stayed like that until the bell rang and
sent us off to our classes.

“Roza, will you meet me in the
greenhouse for a surprise tonight? I know you are staying in school
until nine o’clock because of the afterschool thing so . . .,”
Adrian said as he looked down at his feet.

“I would love to,” I smiled as I
reached up to kiss his cheeks. I turned around and headed off to
class. Yup, we were definitely “friends.”

* * * * *

“Roza, you made it!” Adrian
murmured against my hair.

“Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”
I asked as I laughed nervously. Adrian being so close to me didn’t
make me feel comfortable, but it didn’t exactly make me feel
comfortable.

He let go of me and let me look
around and I gasped. The whole greenhouse had a domed glass roof.
There was a button so that if you pressed it, the glass dome would
pull back to reveal a net-like roof. The whole greenhouse was
filled with different types of flowers.

There were roses, daffodils,
marigolds, daisies and even poison ivy, but I doubt that poison ivy
was considered a flower. The whole place was green, hence the name
“greenhouse.” Now, the whole place was red and green. Adrian had
set up the whole place like the Valentine’s Day dance and now, it
had flowers instead of walls. This brought back so many unpleasant
memories and I recoiled and backed away towards the door, only to
bump into Adrian.

“Do you like it? I know that you
hated the dance that day, but . . . I didn’t properly get to dance
with you so . . . I was wondering if you would like to . . . maybe
. . .,” Adrian trailed off as he admired his shoes and scratched
the back of his neck. I gulped inaudibly and thought over my
decisions. It’s not like Adrian was going to kill me so there was
nothing to worry about. I slowly nodded and his eyes lit up like
the Fourth of July. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this happy.
Adrian chuckled nervously and asked, “Really?”

“Yup!” I grinned back as I stepped
into the circle of his arms and we swayed to the slow music that
was being provided. Adrian really outdid himself.

I looked around, avoiding his eyes
which were staring at me, studying me intently. It’s as if he
wanted me to do something. I could somehow sense it so I sighed
audibly before placing my head on his chest. Adrian’s grip on me
tightened as he carefully buried his head in my hair.

We stayed like that for a while,
holding onto each other, swaying to the music, listening to each
other’s heartbeats. I tried to cherish this moment as much as I
can. I knew that we were friends only and we had to keep it this
way. He kept acting as if we were dating. I slightly pulled away
from his embrace, but he only tightened his hold on me. Adrian
sighed and I flinched.

He raised an eyebrow at me and I
had to look up to meet his stormy gaze that was filled with hurt,
agony and something else I couldn’t pinpoint.

If someone had told me that I
would face my nightmare today and dance with him, I would’ve
laughed at their positivity. There was no way I was going to face
my nightmare. But, who knew that our fate could be so
blunt?

It happened anyways. Aquamarine
mist surrounded me as a beautiful silvery-gray mist surrounded
Adrian. The mists mingled together and increased in size,
stretching all the way across the greenhouse. The mists somehow
represented our eye colors and they were so beautiful.

I looked up into his aquamarine
eyes and he looked into my dull, pale gray eyes. I tried to look
away, but I couldn’t I gasped and tried to take a step back, but it
was way too late. I was pulled into my nightmare once again. It was
Christmas Eve all over again.

* * * * *

It gave the impression of a
ruthless snowing season this monotonous December. Well, not so dull
because this year, I won’t spend it sort of alone. The entire city
looked like a colorless, pale land full of lumps of snow all over
the place. Usually, you would expect a white winter to be very
striking and look like a winter wonderland where Snow White would
most likely live. But not this dreary winter. Living through this
mind-numbing season was like wearing only glitzy pink or yellow for
your entire life while being imprisoned in a large, inexpressive
box with only one shade surrounding you for what seemed like
forever. Everywhere you looked was white, snowy and . . .
unadorned. On top of that, the weather had not been so neighborly
either. The wind was so strong, people would be constantly afraid
of being knocked off their feet. Well, that is your typical New
York City winter.

I bestowed a sideways glance at
the curly haired boy sitting next to me in the car, driving. This
was our first ever Christmas together so I was a bit zealous about
it, despite the frigid month. I really, really love summer but for
now, just for now, I love winter. I tried to appreciate every bit
of it.

For Christmas, I got him an
instant taco maker since he loved tacos for Christmas. And in case
he didn’t like that, I also got him a medieval sword set with each
of the edges of the swords bordered with what looked like
rhinestones making it easy to wound deep into any flesh because he
also loved swords. I had once asked him what he likes and feels
somewhat of a passionate link to. From what I heard, he noticeably
doesn’t like anything that is safe or unhazardous.

“Anything that could perhaps prod
someone’s eye out or injure them enough without actually slaying
them in certain cases,” he had said. I had tried to grasp all os
that information, but it simply was impossible. It’s just really
hard to get a guy some sort of a gift for any occasion.

I wonder if he would even like any
of the gifts I had gotten him. To be honest, I always have trouble
getting gifts for people not matter what the occasion is. When I
was ten years old, I had gotten my twelve year old brother a Barbie
doll. Now, every time I think about it, I just laugh at myself, but
hey, I was little with no common sense whatsoever. When I was
fourteen and my brother was sixteen, I had gotten him a whole set
of pretty dresses which he had eventually ended up returning back
to me, telling me that it was my early birthday gift. I had cried
for a whole month, thinking that he had hated my gift, but he
reassured me that the gifts were not macho enough, but it’s the
thought that counts.

“
What’s wrong, Roza?” he asked,
unmistakable uneasiness coloring his deep, husky, British voice. He
shifted in his seat slightly, trying to appear casual, but failing
at it. Sometimes, he looked as if he had forgotten how to do the
world’s simplest of things. One morning, he had gotten up and asked
me how to use the bathroom. Fortunately, Elliot helped him out with
that. If you overlooked all of this weirdness, he was really a
great guy.

By the look on his face, I could
tell that he had seen me moments ago toying with my charm bracelet,
a gesture that mirrored my awkward mood. I always toyed with that
bracelet every time I was nervous, upset, or even uneasy around
something or someone. He was the one who had gotten me that
bracelet the first time we met about ten months ago. I loved it and
made it a permanent part of my mundane life, adding a little pizazz
to my life.

Even though he obviously knew my
name was Rosemarie, he insisted on calling me Roza while most
people called me Rose. He told me that he loved that name; it’s
like an affectionate name for me and just for me. Since the first
time we met, he had never ever called me anything else but Roza;
unless he was uptight with me which was just once. I told him I was
fine when I was really sick therefore, he got mad at me for a whole
hour before finally giving up.