<UNEDITED>

We were both silent. There was nothing for us to say. Every single time one of us decides to open up our big mouth, we always end up fighting over something. Every. Single. Little. Thing. And each time, it is over something stupid and unimportant. 

That's how childish we are. 

We're both arrogant and we don't want to lower our reputation when it came to quarreling. We always have some smart ass comment to say whenever one of us talks smack to the other. And its driving me insane!

I frustratedly ran my fingers through my brown hair. Why can't I just have a normal life when no one knows me and I won't have to worry about being stuck in a tiny classroom with the school's badboy, a.k.a my arch nemesis, because of a stupid lockdown where there's innocent students and teachers dying for no reason. 

I wanted to just crawl up in a ball and die. 

Actually, I am already in a ball. But I'm not dying, sadly. I leaned my head against the desk and closed my eyes, tightly. 

All I could see was my father. The last time I saw him was this morning, but I never got to say goodbye or at least kiss him on the cheek. He was exhausted from working last night and he was still asleep on the couch when I left for school. He works at an auto body shop from 6:00am to 10:00pm. But last night he had to work extra hours because his coworker didn't show up. 

He works a lot to try to provide a house, food, and cars for the both of us since its just us. I too have a job. I work the cash register at a frozen yogurt place called Fuzzypickles Frozen Yogurt. Yeah, the name is funny but the frozen yogurt there is the best. It's like a buffet, but frozen yogurt style. 

My mind soon wandered over to the accident. Tears pricked the corner of my eyes as I remember seeing the bloody, dead body of both my mom and my brother. I remember seeing the glass digging into the palms of my hands as I crawled over to their lifeless bodies. I can also remember the sound of my dad and I's cries when we realized that they were gone and not unconscious. 

I hadn't realized that I was crying until I suppressed a strangled sob. 

I really need to stop crying. I'm making myself look weak. Especially in front of the arrogant ass next to me. I buried my face into the sleeves of my hoodie. 

I felt a hand lightly touch my back and began rubbing in a circular motion. I tensed up at the feeling of Zeke's hand on my back, but my muscles soon relaxed. I continued to brawl my eyes out into the fabric of my hoodie for a good 5 minutes. 

Zeke said nothing, but continued to console me with the touch of his hand on my back. I felt his hand hesitate as it moved down to my waist. He pulled me closer to him and I leaned my head onto his chest. I sucked in a deep breath as I continued to see the blood dripping from my mother's nose and from her ears. The blood that started rolling down the corners of my brother's lips. 

I choked on another sob and released more tears from my eyes. The salty liquid reached my lips and I licked them because they were dry. 

"Shhhhh," Zeke cooed in my ear as his arms tightened around me. 

He cupped my face with his large hands and gently tilted my face up to look at him. He moved the pads of his thumbs over my cheeks, pushing the tears off of my face. I sniffed as I felt the tears slowly stop. He dipped his head low and placed a soft kiss on my tear stained cheek. 

I gasped, but it got caught in my throat before I could release it. His lips were so soft and it sent chills down my spine at the feel of them on my skin. He pulled away and stared at me in the eyes. 

"Why were you crying?" he asked. His voice was soft and held a lot of concern and worry. 

I felt a huge lump in my throat, but I held it in. I was still shocked by Zeke's act of intimacy. I looked away from him and clenched my fists as I sighed. I was arguing with myself whether or not I should tell him. 

I mean, its none of his business and its not like we're friends.

But then again, he is being nice to me at the moment. Which will most likely change in a matter of seconds. 

His warm hand gripped my chip and gently tilted my head up so that my eyes were staring into his deep brown eyes. An emotion was provident in his eyes, but I couldn't decipher what kind of emotion it was. 

My cheeks heated up at his touch and I'm pretty sure he could feel the burning skin. The corner of his lips tilted up into a smirk. He leaned forward so that he was closer to me. "Didn't know I could affect you like this, Harper." His breath fanned my face when he whispered. 

I rolled my eyes and reached up and pushed his hands away. "Well if you were in my position with an idiot, I'm pretty sure you would feel uncomfortable as well." I said. 

He chuckled softly, the deep rumbles of his laugh filling the room. "If I was in your position, I'm pretty sure instead of talking there would probably be more-" he formed an 'o' with his index finger and thumb and started moving his index finger on his other hand in and out of the hole. He smirked and wiggled his eyebrows. 

My face scrunched up into a scowl. "Ewww! Oh my God you are such a perv." I scooted as far away from him as possible. "FYI, you and I hate each other. And there's no way in hell I would ever have intimate contact with you. It's unthinkable and disgusting." 

He suppressed a laugh. "True. And I feel that same way about you." 

We sat in silence, not knowing what to do. There were a couple more gunshots, but for some reason.... I wasn't as terrified. More than half of me knew that I was going to be okay. I'm not going to lie, I feel safe being in Zeke's presence. Most likely because he's a badass and if someone did come in here, I could just shove him in front of me and use him as a distraction so that I could get away. 

Hey, it's every man for themselves.....

"Well, since we're most likely going to be in here for a while...... Let's get to....um...know each other instead of ripper each other's throats out." he suggested. 

I nodded in agreement. 

"Twenty questions?" 

"What are we? 4th graders?" I teased with a small laugh. 

"Maybe. We fight like them." 

"That's true. I bet the fourth graders these days throw cuss words at each other." 

At that one sentence, Zeke let out a laugh. Not some small laugh, but a loud laugh. "Good one, Harper." he finally replied after taking a deep breath of air after laughing. I smiled to myself when I realized that I made Zeke Anderson, my arch nemesis and the school's badass, laugh. It felt great to a certain extent. 

"Fine, let's play your stupid kid game." I finally agreed with a long, exaggerated sigh following it. 

"Its not stupid." he muttered as he crossed his arms across his chest. His legs were out in front of him while I sat Indian style facing his side. "Anyways, my version is different from the others. It's not really the game, but we ask each other twenty questions and we have to answer honestly. I'll ask you one and you would do the same to me and we would keep on doing it until we both got to ask twenty questions." 

"Okay." I nodded while listening to his rules. 

"I'll start." he told me as he shifted in his spot so that he was comfortable. "What's your favorite color?" 

"Turquoise." I replied without any hesitation. 

"Why is it your favorite color?" he asked curiously. I shook my head and waved my finger in his face. "Ah ah ah, you said one question each. You have to wait your turn." 

He sighed and stuck his lower lip out to form a pout. "Ok...go." 

"What's your favorite color?" I asked, emphasizing the word 'your'. 

"Black." he responded. "Why is your favorite color turquoise?" 

"Because it describes me. And it was my mom's favorite color...." I trailed off at the end. I didn't mean to say that, but I guess it's too late now. 

"Was?" He asked with a confused expression on his face. I looked down at my fiddling fingers that played with the two drawstrings to my hoodie. I was trying to fight the tears that were attempting to fall. He took it that I didn't want to talk about it when I didn't respond and mumbled a 'sorry'.