Unwritten Desires-Chapter 48

Eleanor

"Oh come on." Sofia whined. "You’re not even gonna tell me about it?"

"No."

"Not even a tiny detail?" She clasped her hand together, looking like she was going to start spilling tears any second now.

"No." I turned away from her, shutting my eyes.

It turns out—thanks to the unfortunate turn of events—Liam had no other choice than to tell Sofia about our little...adventure.

But of course, he couldn’t stick to the truth.

No, he just had to sprinkle in some "romantic flair" and ended up telling Sofia that we were on a date.

Out of all the explanations that allegedly genius brain of his could come up with, he just had to settle for some spontaneous romantic outing—and now I was stuck playing along like it wasn’t a total lie and I wasn’t passed out in his bed for hours.

God. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.

"Gosh. You can be such a buzzkill at times you know that right?" I heard her sigh before grabbing her tray from the food attendant.

"Wha...what do you want me to say?" I muttered, turning to look at her with my palms spread out as we both waited for my order. "That we fed each other dessert under the moonlight while a violinist played in the background?"

"Yes." She nodded eagerly. "And then I want details—what dessert? What flavor? Was it cake? Was there whipped cream involved?"

"Ugh. I hate you."

"No, you don’t." Her eyes sparkled as her grip tightened around her tray. "You love me. Which is why you’re going to tell me everything."

"No." I glared at her before grabbing my own tray and plopping down at a table.

"Yes."

"Why are you like this?" I groaned.

"Because....I’ve been waiting for this day since the dawn of time!" she whisper-screamed, dramatically grabbing my shoulders. "You and...a guy on a secret date. I feel like I manifested this."

Something about the way she hesitated before saying a guy made my mind drift back to a certain brown haired guy I hadn’t exactly spoken to in days, and something told me Sofia was also thinking the same thing—but I quickly shook the thought off before it could settle.

"You didn’t manifest anything." I frowned at her before taking a bite out of my burrito. "We weren’t even—" I paused, biting my tongue before I could unravel the lie we were already tangled in.

She raised a brow, playing with her food. "You weren’t what?"

I blinked. "We weren’t... really supposed to tell anyone. Like—anyone anyone. Are you forgetting my brother also attends this college?" She blinked, clearly taken aback by my response.

"The last thing I would want is for any of my family members to find out that I’m dating someone. Especially Elvis and Brianna. You know how they can get?"

"Elvis is quite a bit overprotective." She gave her shoulders a little shrug before lifting a forkful of spaghetti to her lips.

"A bit?" My eyes flew open at her comment and she almost choked on her food from laughing.

"And Brianna can be a huge loud mouth at times."

"See you get my point." I sighed, satisfied that we had finally come to an understanding.

"Yeah. I do get your point, but what I don’t get is the fact that you want to keep your dates private and literally half of the students in our batch know you and Liam are together."

Crap.

I fought the urge to let out a low groan.

There goes my satisfaction.

Now what was I going to tell her? Why didn’t I even think this through?

"Mmm that’s the thing..." I paused a bit to chew on my food and come up with more believable lies. "I’ve always told Liam that I want us to keep our relationship private but apparently he wants otherwise."

A smug look formed on her face. "Hmm. So clearly, what you’re saying is he wants the whole world to know he owns you." She wiggled her brows at me and it took everything in me to suppress my wince and not choke on my burrito.

"Uh something like that." I pressed my lips together hoping it actually looked like a smile and not a grimace.

"Ugh, that is so romantic. Who would’ve thought that Liam had a lover-boy mode hidden underneath all that broody nonsense?" She said, fanning her face dramatically like she was about to faint from the sheer swoon.

I let out a nervous laugh, chasing it away with a sip of water so I wouldn’t have to respond right away.

Liam? Lover-boy?!

I was genuinely intrigued by the fact that those two words could be used in the same sentence without the whole world combusting or something.

Even Liam would actually be shocked if he found out someone actually saw him this way.

Oh well, this is what he gets for leaving me to fill in the huge gaps of his stupid lies.

I smiled tighter, feeling my face twitch from the effort. "Yeah...he’s full of surprises."

Now even I couldn’t deny that one.

I mean, I was still reeling over the fact that a guy like him actually had and could play the guitar. He probably even despises Adrian now for telling me such personal details.

Adrian.

The moment his name crossed my mind, my brain screeched to a halt.

There was...there was something about him—something I was supposed to remember.

I blinked, tuning out Sofia’s dramatic reenactment of what she believed had happened between Liam and me in the past twenty-four hours—or whatever other lies it was that Liam had cooked up.

Her voice slowly faded into the background as my mind rewound like a glitchy tape.

Adrian.

Hacking.

The note.

Oh crap.

My eyes widened slightly as it all came rushing back. The folded note someone had slipped into my locker. The gnawing feeling that I was being watched as I read the contents over and over again. The suspicion twisting in my gut.

After seeing how good Adrian was with computers, I’d told myself I was going to convince him to help me break into the school’s security system. Just a quick peek. Just to see who it was.

Just to find out who the hell could have figured out my secret.

I fought the urge to run my hand down my face.

How on earth could I have let myself forget?

I blinked again, snapping back into the present just in time to catch Sofia rambling about the connection she was convinced Liam and I shared and I couldn’t stop the faint smile from tugging at my lips, but this time it was tight with something else.

Because for a moment there...I’d let myself feel normal. Comfortable, even.

Like I belonged here.

In the blur of food and laughter and pretend-boyfriends, I had forgotten that this life wasn’t mine.

And that none of this belonged to me—not the school, not the friendships I started to believe in or the fake comfort of fitting in—and there was someone out there who knew it.

Which meant it was only a matter of time before...

"Thea....earth to Thea." Sofia snapped her fingers in my face bringing my attention back to her.

Right, Thea.

How could I forget?

The only reason I was treated like this is because they thought I was someone else.

Not me. Not Eleanor.

Just Thea.

"Are you okay?" Worry flickered in her gaze.

"Yeah I’m fine, I just remembered one of the assignments I haven’t done yet. But it’s fine...what were you saying again?"

I had expected her to doubt me or question me about the assignment but thankfully she was already in too deep in our conversation that she didn’t want to divert, and it was kind of funny because I had no idea what she was talking about.

But of course that didn’t matter right now.

Because all I could think about was going to see Adrian.

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m