Justice Served

33 | You're No Longer Alone

 

Chapter Thirty-Three
Jayce Mirella

Rhys, with his tall height, reaches his hand onto the second layer of the cupboard holding the lined boxes that were filled with tasty drinks. Flipping open the flap of the cream and brown colored box of what has grown to be my favorite brand of hot chocolate in a short time, Rhys takes out a packet and hands it over to me.

Thanking him in response — something I had gotten good at doing since being here — I rip the packet open and dump its contents into my favorite red mug. Beside me, Rhys is waiting for his bitter black coffee to be done. Grabbing my cup filled with brown powder, Rhys places the cup on the far end of the coffee machine and I watch as hot water begins to dispense from the top.

Looking up at Rhys who's eyes are now trained onto his phone, I can feel a similar feeling begin to stir inside my stomach. I've gotten used to the feeling that roamed violently within me whenever I was around Rhys Chandler. I was unsure of what the feeling was. It felt like I was sick with how breathless I got whenever he was a little bit too close to me, running an ongoing nightmare with how fast my heart would begin to beat whenever I was close to him, disabled with how paralyzed my entire body became just looking at him, and deranged with how fixated I was on him even when he wasn't looking at me.

I don't what this is, I've never experienced anything like this. The only thing I've felt that was anything near what I was feeling right now is that time in elementary school during fifth grade when Diondre Micheal came over to my lunch table with apple sauce in hand for me. During recess, he had pushed me onto the blacktop and I ended up scratching him up with a stick, despite our earlier fight Diondre Micheal had still come over to me with apple sauce; my favorite treat at the time.

Maybe this thing with Rhys Chandler was similar to when I received apple sauce from Diondre Micheal...or maybe it was something else? Something more than that? I don't know.

Rhys doesn't notice that I'm staring as he continues to scroll through his phone or maybe he does and is deciding to ignore me because this wasn't the first time I continued to stare at him like he was some kind of God. Whenever I thought this bastard wasn't perceptive of the events going on, he truly did know everything that was happening from every corner like he had an extra eye at the top of his head. I look at his forehead then back at his entire face.

No extra eye on his forehead, I've confirmed.

My hot chocolate along with Rhys's coffee has been finished for a minute now. Rhys reaches over to grab my cup of hot chocolate as well as his cup of coffee, he slowly travels across the room and over to the glass table. He sets my cup on the table, directly in front of the comfy chair by the wall while he takes his seat on the opposite end and sets his cup down in front of him onto the glass table.

He turns around in his seat, looking over at my un-moving position. "Did a bug bite you?"

Whenever he made comments like that, teased, or mocked me he managed to break me free of the spell he cast me under. With the roll of my eyes, I walk over to my chair and take a seat.

"No, but a pest named Rhys Chandler did though I hardly noticed it." I retort, picking up my cup to take a sip.

"If I bit you, you'd feel it, Jayce Mirella." Rhys looks me straight in the eye, I begin to choke on my drink.