CHAPTER ELEVEN: PRIVILEDGE

I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.
-Santa Teresa de Jesús

When Emma Carter woke up she felt like shit. Her entire  body was so sore that it took her ten minutes just to sit up in bed. Apparently Jessie let her sleep in until four the next afternoon and it was almost funny to her how this didn't make her nearly non-existent sleep schedule any worse.

Xavier and Calum were say on the living room floor and Emma felt like ignoring them, felt like walking past them with absolutely no recognition of them being there. She could hear her best friend banging around in the kitchen, she could escape to there.

And she didn't know why it felt like escaping.

Maybe it was because Calum was always nice to her and it made her feel like the other shoe was about to drop. Or maybe it was due to her inability to not be vulnerable around Xavier. Whatever it was made Emma immediately feel overwhelmed and that made her already puffy pearl grey eyes start to go red with tears.

"C'mere Princess," Xavier says, voice a bit drowsy from lack of sleep. "I can tell that you're upset, and you just woke up too."

Emma pauses in step, feet already on the dining room tile and tries to collect herself. "Did you..." She sighs. "Did you even sleep?"

His voice get closer the more he talks, and Emma can feel him stop behind her. "Not a fucking wink, but I don't really care. How are you today—mentally, I mean."

"Fucked up." She replies simply.

"I'm not the best myself." Xavier says, finger tips brushing against her arms. "May I?"

Emma nods and a moment later, as if deciding if he should follow through or not, the Devil's arms slide around her waist. Her shoulders rest evenly against his chest, her head snug under his chin.

It felt good but she hated it, because right now, in this moment? She was being vulnerable again.

The events of the previous day catch up to her, and Emma finds herself clutching onto Xavier's arms, thick tears rolling down her cheeks. This week had all been so much too fast. This was a better outcome, for her anyway.

Previously if she was alone at home—if she could call it that—Emma would have woke up, gone to the graveyard to visit her dad, told him how sorry she was and then she would have gone right back home and felt guilty about hurting herself more.

Her problem was that she didn't die the day she thought she would, and someone just needed to tell her mind that because it hasn't caught up yet to the fact her heart is still pounding.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She repeats. "I didn't mean to, to start crying on you again."

"You don't have to apologize." Xavier tells her, giving Emma a small squeeze. "I understand."

All issues put aside, there's something about the human race that should not be ignored because there are some people who, when you meet them, you're bound to fall in love with them.

And in a big sense, that means you're soulmates.

It's the same thing with friendship, there are some people that if you meet you are bound to be friends, even if you meet in the worst of situations. 

Like being high at a party together. Or because other friends hate each other so you got exasperated by it together. Or because you fight for each other once and realize you can't stop. Or you could just be playing outside one day when you're nine and find them, and never let them go.

That part is up to fate.

See that's what soulmates are, people fated to be together, and anyone has, at the very least, a really good chance of meeting one of them. But some people, just the gravity of them, they find their soulmates and they stick with them. There's trust, and loyalty, and love.

Proof of that is evident, as right now, when Emma feels like a freak because of the wraps on her wrists and a burden because of the tears on her face, nobody is judging her.

Jessamine made her waffles and though Emma barely ate any of it, she's still grateful that her best friend put her own lunch on pause just to make sure she had something in front of her.

Calum joked around with her like normal, not testing the waters and never staring at her arms, and he was the first person to suggest a game of Mario Kart to pass the time. And if him and Emma only liked the game because it was the only game they could beat their best friends in, nobody could prove it.

And Xavier was being Xavier, and that was enough for Emma. He jokingly said "Sad sex?" once and it made every single one of them laugh hard enough they nearly cried.

Emma didn't win the race tournament but Calum did and that was enough for her to hold over the Devil's head. Little did she know that the angel boy was making the exact same smug kind of snarky ha, I won face towards Xavier as well.

Friendships fall apart, love ends, it's painfully true.

But it means something that once you were that someone's everything, even if you had a fight, or don't know where you stand or you hurt each other you're still soulmates. Whether you're growing old together or haven't seen them in ten years you are, and that's the hard part, learning how not to love.

But the thing is, Emma Carter has found a whole group of people who have taught her that kindness shouldn't feel like a privilege that can be stripped away.

And if that's the closest she'll ever get to finding her soulmates? 

Well, that doesn't bother her at all.

↞♡↠

It was the first time that Xavier ever asked Emma to hang out with him outside of school that was strictly not for fucking, and he said they didn't even need to talk if she didn't want to.

Regardless, Emma wanted to go.

When she showed up to his house—which still in her mind was Calum's house, that he just lived at, though she knew he was fully adopted—Xavier simply chuckled at her, pointed back outside and less than a minute later they were on the back of his motorcycle speeding down a backroad.

At the moment, it wasn't the lack of civilization but the pot holes that Emma was worried about.

When they finally parked Emma knew where they were, as long as where they were was the middle of fucking no where. The fact that Xavier looked comfortable tracking through the woods—camera in hand and not worried about anything much at all—was starting to get a bit worrying.

There was an upside if she wasn't about to get murdered, at least she wouldn't get lost. This proved Emma's lack of self presentation instincts to Xavier, and she knew that too.

It was almost funny.

And sure, maybe the smug glances and he way the light reflected off his classic black hair and leather jacket was attractive, but that didn't take away from their horror-movie looking scenery.

"Why are we here?" She grumbles, glaring at the back of Xavier's head as he doesn't answer and just keeps walking. "I have way too much faith in you."

"As the Devil," He shoots her another smug, ultramarine blue glance. "I find that hard to believe."

Emma just waves him off, catching up to him and poke at his wrist—knowing by now not to touch his camera. "What are we here to take pictures of?" 

"A cliff next to a small pond." Xavier says, then instantly backtracks with a grin. "Well, you on a cliff, in front of a pond."

Emma gapes at him, mind reeling when imagining her up that high but dismisses it with a small complaint of, "I literally rolled out of bed an hour ago."

"Yep."

"You didn't prepare me at all." She continues. "And my hair is so messed up because of your stupid helmet."

Now the Devil is smirking at her. "I'm aware."

"You're an idiot and I hate you."

"You didn't hate me last night." Comes his smug reply.

Ignoring him to the best of her abilities, Emma continues to grumble about how Xavier always manages to catch her worst hair days on film.

Xavier reminded her that it's his camera, and the way he remembered her was on a shed roof—even though the moonlight barely showed the two of them in onyx and marine blue—with her hair messy from running around and getting caught.

Emma didn't really care about him getting her picture, it was just something to complain about, and yet it was moments like this that convinced her mind that they went beyond fuck buddies.

She already knew that, she was also just trying to avoid the word love.

"You're unbearably slow," Xavier comments, huffing down at Emma who proceeded to trip on a root—annoyingly proving the Devil's point. "It's almost painful to watch, Carter."

"Oh shut up Wolf," Emma snaps in reply. "Not everyone can have freakishly long legs."

"Well not all of us can be sassy midgets either." He growls back. "Don't make me spank you."

"Don't threaten me, asshole!"

"You're the one blushing, Princess, so clearly you like it." This time, as if realizing they came to a stand still, Xavier shrugs and continues to walk. "It's not my fault you take to threats."

"It's your fault you made them."

Yet again, he Devil shrugs her off but this time for good reason—they arrived at the cliff and Emma could see the cliff and tell that below the dropping edge of the dirt, there was the pond he talked about.

"Wait until you see it from the other side." The Wolf boy's voice drops as he becomes serious. "It's beautiful." 

There were things about Xavier Wolf that Emma couldn't understand. One of them was how he could be so, so gentle, and yet he wasn't kind. Still, there was one thing that nobody really ever mentioned about Xavier.

He was beautiful too.