Peter

I was so close to telling her yesterday, but I was a coward and didn't say the words she deserves to hear.

I've been teasing Sky about her gift all day, because I love the way she gets annoyed. She's so cute, even when she does a blob-fish impression.

I walk over to her locker, seeing her trying to stash her hoodie into it without it falling out and huffing in annoyance. 

"Stupid locker filled with too many books...Why do I even have these here?" She mutters to herself but it was loud enough to make me and Nat laugh. I walk closer and put my hands on her sides, tickling her slightly, causing her to let out a high pitch squeal and turn around, throwing her hoodie into my face.

"Stop that!" She laughs, hitting me with her hoodie and turning back to stuffing it into her locker.

"I can't, I love your squeal." I grin and hug her from behind. She's okay with hugs every once in a while, and after last night, I really need to hold her.

"You could've worded that so wrongly." Nat laughed, leaving me and Sky confused as to what she meant until it clicked in my mind and my eyes widened.

"Oh my god, Nat, no!" I laugh.

"Do I want to know?" Sky asks warily.

"Nope." Nat and I say simultaneously.

She shrugged and finally stashed her polka dot hoodie into her locker and closed it with a triumphant smile.

"Why did you take off your hoodie?" I ask her. "It's freezing!"

"It got wet." She explained.

"How?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Yeah, Sky, how did you get your hoodie and hair wet?" Nat smirked, holding back a laugh as Sky glared at her playfully, trying to hold back her own laughter. That's when I noticed some of her strands had gotten darker.

"I," She stretched the word as if she was trying to figure out what to say. "opened a broken tap."

Nat snickered from beside her and Sky hit her lightly, shushing her as she bit her cheeks from the inside to stop laughing.

"Now tell me what really happened." I say with an amused smile. Sky finally broke and let out her laughter freely.

"Okay fine, Eve splashed me." She laughed.

"What, why?" I couldn't help myself but laugh, hearing her adorable giggle that she says sounds like a witch, but it doesn't.

"We went to the bathroom, where they always are, probably because there's mirrors, and Eve and Dianna decided to make fun of us...and Sky here retaliated." Nat explained, laughing at the memory.

"I didn't even say it out loud!" Sky laughed, throwing her arms up then pushing her glasses further up her button nose.

"What did you say?"

"I mean, they're in the bathroom most of the times, they're literally hanging out with shit, do I need to explain more?" Sky laughed. "Eve got what I meant and splashed me. Jokes on her, it was refreshing."

I laugh with them but then remember that Sky is only wearing a t-shirt and it's really cold today. I take off my leather jacket and wrap it around her shoulders.

"Stop fighting me." I chuckled at her attempts to refuse the jacket. "I'm wearing a hoodie, no need to worry about me being cold."

She gave up and thanked me, fully wearing the jacket. My jacket. My heart skipped a beat seeing her in something of mine.

Can I just give her my entire closet and then hold her close to me?

 "I have your gift." I smile at her, and it turns into grin once I see her eyes glisten with excitement and clap her hands, making the sleeves of my jacket cover her hands and for a second I forget that time is still going. 

"You got her a gift and she hasn't murdered you?" Nat gasped dramatically. "Teach me your ways!"

"Oh, the murder is happening, but I'll make it an easy death because he made it himself."

"Hey!" I exclaim in mock offense and she turns to me with a sheepish smile.

"I'll leave you two alone." Nat says quickly and leaves us as I look for the item in my bag. I find the jar of messages and take it out, getting nervous.

"I filled it with small notes for you to open every time you feel down or insecure." I lick my lips. "I hope this gives you a glimpse of how amazing you are."

She takes it and stares at it fondly, a sweet smile covering her plump lips.

"Peter, this is perfect." She says to me, looking into my eyes. "I can't thank you enough."

She pulls me into a tight hug, wrapping her arms around my neck, and I hug back, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her closer to myself, breathing in the scent of her citrus shampoo. My heart explodes with emotions as I hold her tightly in my arms, forgetting the world around us as time stops and butterflies fill my stomach. I'm pretty sure she could hear my heart beat, but I don't mind, because maybe that's the proof she needs to know that she means a lot to me.

She's grown to be such an important part in my life in this short amount of time, it almost feels like a movie, but everything I feel towards her is real.

I taped one note to the bottom of the jar I gave her, in which I wrote that I like her a lot; more than a friend. She'd only see it if she dumps out all of the small notes.

I don't know how long it would take for her to find it, but whenever it is, I'll be there with open arms to hold her again like I am now.

At least I hope.

We pull away, but our arms are still around each other as we stare at each other intently, smiles on both of our faces. Sky turns a deep red and my smile gets bigger.

"You should really wear my clothes more." I tell her. "Imagine how many people we'd drive crazy."

"They're pretty comfortable so I'm in." She giggles.

After school we all walked to the university, and this time, Nat and Laura's little brother, Eli, joined us.

Sky is still wearing my jacket and my heart is still screaming.

We were sitting on a bench in a garden next to a faculty near the clock tower because the girls want to be around a crowd to feel safer.

We're playing catch with a water bottle, as you do.

"Think fast, chipmunk." Sky laughed, throwing the bottle to Eli who barely managed to catch it.

"Hey, you're the chipmunk!" He laughed as he threw the bottle to Laura even though she and Anna were not playing with us.

"You bitch!" She yelled, annoyed by her brother

Sky glanced at me, stifling a laugh and I smiled at her.

"I need to go to the bathroom, anybody else wanna come?" Nat asked.

"I will." Anna stood up to follow her.

"Want us to come with you?"Sky offered.

"No, it's okay." Nat shook her head and left with Anna.

"We'll stay right here, be careful!" Sky called out to them. 

We stopped playing since the bottle got demolished by us and Eli started a conversation with Sky about the Illuminati. One thing I learned is that when Eli and Sky are together, conversation topics tend to be extremely weird yet interesting and deep.

"When I get super old I want to both visit the Bermuda triangle and also fly into a black hole." Sky stated, staring at the stars that started to glisten in the sky.

"Can you just imagine walking into a lair by the triangle and seeing a bunch of aliens?" Eli laughed.

"Even Aliens can't tolerate you." Laura mocked her brother and he just gave her a bored look.

"Like you're so much better." He scoffed.

I turn to see that Sky has grown quiet, and she's biting her lip, lost in thought. I nudge her with my elbow and she snaps out of her trance, looking at me with a small smile and humming in response.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just..." She stops herself and shakes her head, "It's nothing."

"Sky," I sigh. "You can tell me."

"It's nothing, really." She smiles reassuringly. "Thanks though."

A long time passed and the girls still haven't returned, and I could see worry in all of their eyes.

"What's taking them so long?"Eli stressed, biting his nails. 

"They should've been back by now." Laura said worriedly. 

"I'm sure they're fine, they probably got caught up with something." Sky tried to reassure her, and it seemed like she was trying to convince herself as well. 

It had started to get really dark, and still no sign.

"They're not answering, and Nat's phone is off." Sky informed us after another failed call. She picked at the skin around her nails and bit her lips as she moved her leg up and down quickly. 

"Well let's look for them!" Eli exclaimed, clearly afraid.

"We shouldn't split up." I speak up.

"What do you suggest we do then?" Laura snaps at me and I flinch.

"Don't worry, Nat knows this place just as well as me, Anna not so much, but they'll be fine." Sky stated getting up and pacing around. "Let's go look over to the dorms, they should be there."

"What if they come back here?" Eli asks.

"I don't know, I'm sure they'll stay here though."

We walk to the dorms, which was only a five minute walk away from where we were, making us even more worried.

Sky goes in and asks if anyone had seen two girls, describing them to the women in the dorm, but none of them had seen them.

This was when Eli lost it and was visibly freaking out. Laura was terrified, but she stayed silent. Sky tried to keep the two calm by reassuring them, and leading us around places they might have gone.

When we find nothing, we go back to where we were in the first place, hoping they'd be there, but they weren't.

"Let's just tell the security!" Eli cries.

"No, we don't want to make a big deal of it." Laura says.

"What if something happened to them?"

"Nothing happened to them," Sky stated. "They're tough, I know they are."

"So what do we do now?" I ask. "It's been too long."

"I'll call my mom to see if she's seen them, and if she hasn't, then we'll tell the security. Eli stick with us, we can't lose you too."

"I just hope it's not like the other night with the van..." Laura muttered, letting out a shaky breath, fighting back tears.

My heart dropped when I realized why the girls are so scared. They went through a traumatizing event, and now they have no idea where the other two girls are. 

Sky kept a strong and calm demeanor for the sake of Laura and Eli, but I could see that she was freaking out just as much as them.

Suddenly, Sky looked up, squinting her eyes at something in the distance.

"What is it?" I ask, not getting a response as Sky walked towards where she was looking. I followed behind her, motioning for the rest of the group to follow. "Sky, where are you going?"

"I think I just saw a flashlight." She explained, pointing to the languages faculty that is covered by trees from where we stood.

We walk over and see the two girls we've been looking for this past hour and a half, looking at kittens and trying to get them down from a high window.

"Oh my god, I hate you guys!" Laura screamed, instantly running to hit her sister and best friend, as did Eli who kept cursing at them.

Sky let out a sigh of relief, rubbing her forehead. "We just looked for you everywhere and you were playing with kittens?" She yelled at them.

"Sorry?" Anna smiled sheepishly.

"Where the hell did you guys even go?" Laura asked, still very mad.

"We went to a restaurant and then bought us water and snacks." Nat explained as she held up a plastic bag.

"Why didn't you freaking answer my calls then?"

"You called?" Anna furrowed her eyebrows, looking at her phone and letting out an 'oh'.

"Like a thousand times!" Sky yelled. "You left me with Laura and Eli and they were on the verge of tears, do you know how hard it was to keep them calm?"

"We're really sorry." 

Sky huffed out in annoyance and ran her hand through her hair, still stressed about the whole situation. I get closer to her and slowly put an arm around her to see if she'll move away, but instead she turns and buries her head in my chest, sending my heart into a frenzy.

"They're fine." I whisper into her hair. "They're here, safe and sound."

"Yeah." She sighed and held me closer. 

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