Whether it was of the frightening situation she found herself into for the first time in her life or her beating heart running a marathon, her shoulders instinctively relaxed at the warm sensation she was engulfed in. Twenty-two years of her life, five years to her parents being separated from her, hence, living all on her own, never did she feel what she was feeling the moment. It was a mixed kind of feeling. Fear, uncertainty, panic, terror, dismay, fright, all pulling her down to a murky alley.
Within a few minutes, she had several thoughts riding her mind. What if the third person was a kidnapper? Or a psychopath. It could be a rapist too. As much wildly illogical and ridiculous it sounded to have this thought at times like this, she didn't want to lose her virginity without her consent being involved. She had always wanted it to be someone who would love her to the moon and stars and galaxies.
She didn't dream of a fairytale romance. She wanted a certain someone who would coexist with her and stand beside her through thick and thin. But here she was sighing contentedly in the embrace of someone totally opposite from her. Just like two poles of a magnet. Pushing and Pulling. Pointing in the opposite directions but always attracted towards each other. Just like light and darkness. What if she was the light and grim the dark? Light wouldn't have any significance without dark subsisting in the universe.
Sprinkles of true love dipped in authenticity with a topping of genuineness.
That was all she had ever wanted. Her parents always kept her safe from any type of harm. Even the slightest cut would have their souls coming to their throats. After they passed away, Ellen did her best to not get into trouble. It wasn't that she wasn't capable of dealing with one, she just avoided being part of danger and situations that would make her end to deadlocks.
A drop of tear made its way down to her cheek, falling onto the interlocked hands of grim around her waist. When grim felt a wet feeling against his skin, he rotated the girl in his arms. Keeping one hand snaked around her, he reached for her cheek and traced the exact wet path that the droplet left. The image of Ellen when she shed tears while sitting on a swing flashed through grim's mind. Though they couldn't see each other, based on the vivid flashback, he pictured the little fawn looking down at her feet which were also concealed in the darkness.
Dark. The place was immersed in the obnoxious duskiness filling up the nooks of the library. The breath that Ellen was holding started getting normal. However, she didn't make any movements.
When she felt grim's hot breath fanning over her face, she closed her eyes as if she didn't want to look into his eyes. She was vulnerable, as fragile as a house of cards that could easily be crumbled, not being able to protect itself and destined to fall.
When she felt grim's thumb tracing the wet path, her eyes slightly opened and remained at her camouflaged-in-the-dark shoes. They stayed in the same position, silent filling up the place.
"You would still choose this uncertain and unpredictable life over your parents?", grim's voice sounded soft. He loosened his hold around the girl. When his thumb was at the point of being replaced with his hand, Ellen retreated backwards upon hearing his words.
"You're mistaken there. I've not chosen this life over my parents. I chose them over my life. They always dreamed of me as a successful person. That is what I've chosen, their wish over my life that I thought to end overlooking how disappointed they would be if they knew what I tried to do. So...", if grim could see her face, he would find an enthusiastic girl with the determination of doing something great. His statement worked as the sound of a bullet being fired in the air to snap Ellen back into reality, disentangling her from the web of fears her mind made for her to fall into and be trapped.
"Don't try to bring that nonsense up again", Ellen didn't like it a bit when and how grim talked about her parents. Chloe was always cautious when it came to conversations about Ellen's parents. She even tried not to touch on the matter since the girl would always get sad. Here, it was grim who addressed as if there were stairs going up to the heaven that he would make Ellen step on and boom, the girl would meet her parents. But in reality, there wasn't any such concept existing.
The only way possible was to have her dead and then she would be with them forever. Talking about the only conceivable way, grim wasn't going to throw her from the top of a building or shot a bullet to her head. Would he? Well, he wouldn't have to go to those lengths. Only a pen and Note were enough.
"Can you turn on the flashlight of your phone? I need to find my bag", at Ellen's request, more looking like order, he fished the phone out of his pants. When he swiped the lock open, the brightness of the phone scattered all over his face, his fingers seeming as if doing some work out on the screen.
Roughly after a couple of minutes when Ellen's patience gave in to the darkness around her, especially the thought of a third person also present there, she took a step towards grim and leaned forward to see what was making grim taking this long. What she saw shaped her brows into a crease, her eyes blinking in disbelief, boring an incredulous look at grim whose fingers were tapping on every icon. Taking the advantage of her face being hidden in the dark and the brightness from the phone screen liting up grim's face, she tried to read his face.
Expressionless. As if a vacuum cleaner had swept all the expressions off his face. By judging from his course of actions, it was obvious that he was having a hard time.
Hard time at finding the flashlight. As much disbelieving as it sounded, he looked like someone set him up to find a lost treasure in a jungle. The thing that bothered Ellen more was his blank face. How he kept his blank face in situations like this and why she always failed at deciphering his expressions? Even when he was annoying her, his expressions were unreadable. And now it started irking her to think how grim would always get to her head, sometimes even voicing out her thoughts and had a knack for affecting her mood.
Yes, a natural skill she believed grim was bestowed with to provoke her as nobody had ever made the little fawn lose her temper the way grim had been doing. But she...she couldn't even bring a furrow to his face. She started giving tries to read his expressions after the Iced Americano incident and no matter how hard she tried she would always end up empty-handed.
And as grim had again passed the test to irritate her to the skies, she snatched the phone from his hands, swiped up from the bottom edge of the screen and tapped the torch icon.
Turning to her feet, she walked to where she was standing before and began looking for her bag. She wasn't going to ask him if he had his time to offend her. Perhaps he really didn't know how to turn the flashlight on. But how could this be possible? Maybe he used to use Samsung. Living in the States and using Samsung? It didn't make sense to her at all. And even if he never got to use an iPhone before, he could still be familiar with the device somewhat to the level he would know how to do the least, turning on the flashlight.
Let's assume he hadn't used it or even caught sight of it before having the one he was holding, how come he was tapping on icons like Podcast, Notes, Books, Weather and App Store, the last icon he tapped before Ellen yanked the phone, just to turn on the flashlight? How could one walking in the streets of Los Angeles, all dressed up, driving Audi A5, living...well let's exclude this as the girl didn't know his residence, still not know what each symbol on those icons meant!
Acceptably, one would if he wasn't a grim reaper.