Fire & Snow

Chapter 16

Aydan’s POV

Pretending not to have been talking to Neva was harder than I thought it would be. For one, she had sat there watching Liav, Faith and I the entire time and barely said anything while I tried to act as though I did not want to talk to her when in fact I really wanted to talk to her more than anything.

I enjoyed our late night talks. They say talking to someone late at night is the best way to know them because they are at their most honest state and I had to agree with that. I learned so much about Neva and in turn she learnt a few things about me. I know it was selfish of me to not tell her more about myself but I did not want her to get too close and comfortable with me. I was bad for her.

I sighed and turned around in my bed. It had been 48 hours since I last talked to her and it was frustrating. I had a busy day with all my classes running back to back the entire day and then having a tutoring session with one of the dumbest freshman I have ever met. Sure the girl was hot and had a really sexy body but she was dumb as f**k and there was no way that I was going to waste my time on such a person. Looks aside, she had nothing more to offer me unlike Neva who was not only smart and could hold a conversation with me but was also cute in this really weird way.

“Snap out of it,” my subconscious said loudly. “You can’t be finding her cute when you clearly remember that Faith had said she would literally castrate you if you so much as got any near to her.”

It was all true but there was something about her. Something that I could not yet place my fingers on. However, all I knew was that I liked talking to her and I wanted that to continue even if it meant only talking on the phone and not in person. I was willing to take what little I was offered.

I turned in my bed once more and stared at the ceiling. The good part was that I had no roommate and I had the entire junior suite to myself. It was a plus whenever I decided to bring a girl over because I did not have to make plans with anyone before I did that.

It was way past midnight but I was not sleepy. It was as though my brain had gotten so used to talking to Neva every night before I slept that not doing it left me wide awake even when my body was tired. Picking the phone from my nightstand, I rolled it around my hand. 

Should I call her? Or maybe just leave her alone for good just as Liav and Faith had told me to? I was between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out what to do.

Would she pick up if I called her this late after how I had acted when we had been with Faith and Liav? Would she remember how I treated her and not want to talk to me? I had so many questions running in my head that I was certain I was going to start running mad from so much thinking and processing that was going on inside my head.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my contacts and contemplated on who to call. There was Riley who was available and thought we were dating. There was also Steph who liked me but I did not like her even though she had a really nice body but sadly she was dumb as hell and I had no time for that and then there was Gina or Gia or something, I had no idea. However, none of them seemed like they would help me get Neva out of my head and make me sleep. The only person who could do that was Neva herself and that realisation hit me hard. I was totally screwed.

My finger hoovered on her contact number and my heart began to beat extremely loud in my own ears. I pressed the call button and placed the phone at my ear. The phone rang for ten times but she did not pick up. It did not even go to voice-mail, just rang and rang until it cut off. I could now feel my blood rushing through my system and I sat up as I dialled her number once and listened.

I told myself that of she was not going to pick up the second time around then I was not going to call her but rather I was going to try and sleep on my own. Something that I knew was going to be hard but I was a man on a mission. 

The phone rang three times before there was an answer and I finally realised the breath that I had been holding.

                                                                         ***********

“Hello!” came Neva’s small voice and I unconsciously smiled at that. 

“Hey, I thought you were sleeping,” I said as I sat further on the edge of my bed bed. I was now happy and all the tiredness I had been feeling seemed to leave me at that exact moment. I felt as though I had rested even when in truth I had not.

“Nope, I don’t sleep this early, I was actually awake,” she replied softly and quietly. 

My smile was huge by now but I was also curious. “Why not? don’t you need to rest?”

I heard her sigh before she finally answered me. “I do, but half the times I have so much work to do that resting really isn’t an option for me anymore.”

“What is stressing you?” I asked. I was concerned, sue me for caring more than I should have. “Is school, your job, family or something personal?”

Neva was silent for a while that I thought I had maybe taken things a little too far by asking something like that. I did not want to seem as though I was trying hard because if Ryan ever found out, then he would never left me leave it down….. forever until the day he died, which considering how much he smoked and drunk was not too far away.

“It’s a little of everything I guess,” Neva finally replied after what like hours but was probably just a few minutes.

“Why don’t you try and rest?” I asked. I was no longer sat on my bed but I was standing by the window looking at the night sky. 

“Then I would fall behind on everything that I have to do and I can’t have that. I can’t be behind otherwise I will…… er,” Neva abruptly stopped talking.

“What were you going to say?”

“Er, it was nothing. I was not going to say anything,” Neva said in response but I could hear the hesitation in her voice and that had my brain on overload trying to figure out what it was that she wanted to say but could not. “I think I should be going now.”

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. This was what I wanted to avoid, the attachment but there was nothing I could do now. I was already too attached to her and I felt empty when I did not get to talk to her. “Okay if you say so.”

“Good night Aydan, have a great night,” she said with a fake cheerfulness that I could easily detect from a mile away.

“You know something,” I said while still staring outside the window. 

“What?”

“I hate it when people lie to me and to themselves. It’s the worst thing that anyone could ever do to me and to themselves.”

There was a pause on Neva’s end but I could still hear her breathing. “Umm… why do you say that?”

“Just because.”

“Okay.”

“Yep,” I popped the ‘p’ and moved back to my bed where I sat on the edge again. “Tell you what, before you sleep, I want you to ask me something, whatever you want and I will answer it truthfully. It could be a personal or general question, doesn’t really matter what it is.” This was me trying to open up to her and letting her in. Something that I never did with any of the other girls.

“Why?”

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. I had a feeling she was going to ask me something like that. She was curious but she knew when to push her luck and when to, something that I liked about her. “Because I know you barely know anything about me while I know quite a lot about you. So it’s only fair t share something about myself with you.”

“Okay and I can ask you anything and you will answer?” Neva asked curiously.

“That’s what I said.”

“Why did you act like we were strangers that day in Faith’s room?” she asked. “I wasn’t really going to bring this up because I was cool with it, or so I told myself anyway,” she was now speaking really fast implying just how nervous she was. She did know and never would but I had been keeping tabs on her ever since I realised I wanted to get to know her. “You acted like we had not spent three straight days talking way past midnight in front of your friends and then did not talk to me for like two days only to have you call me again at past midnight. I really don’t understand and I would like to understand why you do what you do.”

Fuck, f**k, f**k. I should have seen that one coming.   

“Well…? You did say you were going to answer anything and I want to know why.”

“Yeah that’s a bit complicated and I don’t think I have the answer right now,” I replied. I know it was a lie but what was I going so say? That the reason I treated you like you did not exist was because I did not want my friends to start plotting my downfall because I had gone against that one thing that they had told me not to do. Yeah, that was not the best thing and would probably result into more questions that would lead to Neva finding out the actual truth about what happened in freshman year and even though she was going to find out one day, I hoped that day would take longer to arrive. Like maybe when I was senior and only had a couple months left with her.

“Good night Neva,” I said and then hung up.

                                                                              ************

If I was going to do this thing with Neva then I needed a strategy on how I was going to go about it and the only one who had information about her was Chance.

My plan was to find Chance and ask him a few things about Neva, things that would not make me look as though I was interested in her. Then I would go from there with the information that I had gained. Was a good plan? Hell if I knew but that was what I was definitely going to do.

I made my way to Chance’s room and casually knocked on the door. I waited and moments later, the door opened and it was that guy Neva and Chance always hang out with. What was his name again? Something but I barely cared what it was.

“Is Chance in?” I asked. I believed in going straight for what you wanted and not wasting time. 

The guy looked at me and then turned to look back inside the room. “Chance, someone is here for you,” he said.

“Who is it?” Chance asked. “Tell them to come in, I’m busy.”

The guy looked at me in question. “Do you want to come in?”

“Nope,” I replied. Chance get your arse out here,” I said loudly enough for him to hear me.

It did not take long for Chance to get to the door and the other guy left us alone. “Aydan?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.”