There are a few things I was never able to understand about the concept "Will Solace." but the one thing I was always able to read in cursive letters off his freckled face; was guilt. 

And at the moment he's giving me an overload of it as he watches me sit at the desk in the library, bend over my books and raspy coughs muffled into my sleeve. 

"You're sick." 

His eyes stay glued on my posture. It's not a question. If it was, I wouldn't have answered it either ways. I try to look past him, ignoring the way my fingers shake around my ballpoint, it's disastrous for my otherwise curly, neat handwriting.

"It's just a cold." 

I continue to write down my vocabulary without even as much as glance up. 

There's loud scraping over the marble floor of a chair abruptly pulled backwards. Before I know it, the smell of pine trees is ridiculously close. Still, I keep my eyes stubbornly aimed at the paper before me, as if I didn't already lost focus ten minutes ago. 

"Yeah, a cold you have because of me." 

I shake my head without looking. 

"You give yourself too much credit Solace." 

The letters before me shoot away in a quick blur. 

"Hey!" I call out, a glare aimed at the blond before me. He's holding my book that now has one long, crooked ballpoint stripe on it, in his hands. His face all seriousness. I scoff while leaning back in my chair and nearly getting a heart attack as I swing a bit too far. I quickly throw myself forwards again, elbows firmly placed on the wooden table. 

"Oh so throwing me in the pool wasn't enough, now you also have to ruin my schoolbooks?" 

He quickly glances sideways at the book in his hands and cringes. 

"Oh god I'm so sorry." 

I snort while giving him a soft pat on the arm, "You never learn do you?" 

He lays the book down again and shyly shuffles it back to my side. "And besides, I didn't throw you, I gently dropped you on accident." 

I pull my yellow marker open with my teeth. I blow the cap out of my lips before furiously continuing with underlining sentences. 

"Ah yes, I recall, I especially loved the gentle, accidental landing you made on top of me." 

"Look I'm sorry okay." Will has both his hands wrapped around my wrists now, "I really, really am and I feel like an incredible douchebag for getting you sick." His thumbs gently trace over my skin, almost unconsciously, I don't think he even knows that he's doing it. The marker nearly falls out of my hand. He frowns.

"You're shivering a bit." 

I gently pull my wrists out of his grasp.

"It's nothing Will, really don't worry about it. It's fine, I promise." 

His eyes linger a second too long on my face. 

"Are you sure?" 

I smile faintly.

"Yeah, just don't drop me in the pool anymore and we're good." 

He scoffs and for a moment a fond look is etched onto his face before it distorts into something close of a grimace. His fingers reach for the side of his head and he winces. I carefully lay down my marker, warily following his movements with my eyes. He messages his temples, eyes tightly closed.

"Will?" 

My shaking hand reaches doubtfully out for him. 

"Will?" I try again, a bit louder this time while softly shaking his arm a bit. 

"Hmm?" through one slightly opened eye, he glances back at me. 

"What's wrong?" I ask but he shrugs me off. He takes a deep breath and straightens his back. 

"Just these headaches, they're getting bad lately." He blinks a few times with his bright blue eyes. He gives me a lopsided grin, "Guess, I'm hanging a bit too much out with you lately." 

I pull my hand back and scowl. "Ha-ha, very funny." But he sees the way my lips curl into a small smile. 

"Maybe you, should go to the doctor instead of me." 

He hums slightly in agreement. His eyes dart quickly over my pale complexion, taking in the bangs under my eyes and my slightly hunched position. It makes shivers run all over my spine. Even more so than the cold under my skin already does. He bites the inside of his cheek in thought. 

I know what's unraveling in that brilliant head of his. He's taking all the blame for it, thinking that I got sick from falling into the water rather than my walk back home. It was Nathan who had dragged me with dripping clothes and wet shirt plastered to my chest all the way back to his apartment through the freezing wind. We were both already around the corner of the half-blood house before Will even got the chance to clamber out of the pool and make a stupid secondary school remark about hypothermia. Nath believed that my own hot-head would keep me warmer than any towel would. I didn't disagree. 

I never disagree. 

"I'm fine Solace," my voice a pathetic croak as the events from last day keep replaying and replaying in my head, "now go to the doctor and let me study in peace." 

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