, I smiled foolishly, still drunk on happiness before snuggling closer into the pillow. When I realized what I was doing, I opened my eyes, quickly sitting, and instantly regretting it.

Caelum wasn't beside me on the bed, so I assumed he was downstairs. After sitting for a few minutes, I stood and walked out of the room. On my way to the bathroom, I heard voices from the other part of the hallway so I decided to go check on them.

Because I was curious.

I spotted Caelum first since his back was facing towards me, oblivious to me approaching. However, I had a feeling Wyatt saw me because he maintained eye contact with me for some seconds before averting his gaze back to Caelum.

When I got closer, I heard Caelum say, "Don't call me that."

Wyatt crossed his arms, blue eyes fixed on Caelum. "Your name's Aatami, isn't it?"

Caelum shook his head. "You're so weird."

I stopped listening to their conversation after that, but Wyatt gave me a small smile and mouthed 'Aatami.' I nodded. Caelum's other name was Aatami, but why did the name 'Aatami' sound oddly familiar?

Aatami Jensen had a nice ring to it...holy guacamoly, shut the fucking front door!

It couldn't be, right?

Right on cue, every of Caelum's words started playing in my head. My mouth opened and closed like a fish as the realization hit me.

Aatami Caelum Jensen.

At that point, I didn't know which was the better option in laughing and crying.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" I quietly asked after minutes of trying to process my conclusion.

I didn't avert my gaze from my feet, but I felt Caelum turn to look at me and I knew the expression on his face was priceless.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" I slowly repeated.

"I'm going to leave you two to sort things out," stupid Wyatt said as he walked past me.

I finally looked up after blinking back the tears I knew were going to start pouring out. "You should have told me something, instead of leaving me in the dark."

He took large strides towards me and when he was finally a foot in front of me, he said, "I was going to tell you, Daesyn."

I shook my head. "Were you? Really?" When he didn't respond, I added. "You should have said something."

"It's not that," he said, raking a hand through his curls. "It's just... you don't understand."

"Well, make me understand why you kept such information from me!"

"Just let it be."

"No!" I glared at him. "You should make me understand."

"Look," he said, running a hand down his face. "Maybe we need a break from each other."

My stomach dropped. He was doing what he did best: walking away. I shook my head, willing myself not to cry because I didn't see why we needed to take the break. Though I felt guilty for not piecing the puzzles earlier, all I needed was him to tell me why he kept me in the dark.

"We—"

"Please."

I stared at him for a second longer, maybe waiting for him to apologize, or explain things, or take back what he said about the break, but I didn't get any. Instead, he turned around and walked into his room.

After the episode with Caelum in the hallway, I walked to Emery's room and quickly changed into my clothes. In the middle of packing, I heard someone come in and I bit my tongue when Emery cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Daesyn?"

My chest tightened, but I nodded slowly. "We were never officially together, anyway. Maybe we do need time apart."

Zipping my bag, I lifted it from the bed and stood before turning to her. "You knew about it, right?" She opened her mouth to speak, but I continued. "I found it kind of weird when you kept shipping us together every single damn time. From the very first day we became friends, you already had your ship sailing."

"It's not that," she said. "He liked you a lot, and I felt becoming friends with you would make things easier."

I blinked repeatedly, trying to process her words. "I thought I was just being paranoid when you suddenly popped out of nowhere and wanted to become friends," I said. "But all along, I was out of the loop and I had no idea. It feels like I was some kind of game you were both playing with."

"I'm sorry we made you feel that way, but I never wanted things to turn out the way they did."

"Well, they eventually turned out the way you didn't want them to!" I tightened the hold on my bag. "Believe me, I feel disappointed I wasn't able to recognize him sooner, but I didn't know! Aside from the fact that we rarely ever interacted back then, he came back to Hill-wood as Caelum Jensen, not Aatami Jensen, so how was I supposed to do the math?"

She shook her head, moving away from the door. "It's not about doing the math Daesyn," she said. "He really does like you a lot and I believe he didn't want you to judge him so he didn't tell you. I chose to become friends with you because I wanted to bring you both together. It wasn't a plan we both formulated, it was my plan."

I sighed, confused at her words. "Just forget about it, cupid. You aren't making any sense."

She pursed her lips at my snarky response, but walked closer and continued. "Daesyn, Aatami knows nothing about me becoming friends with you because I wanted to play cupid. He genuinely thinks I became friends with you because I liked hanging out with you."

My jaw dropped in disbelief at how insensitive her words were. Did our friendship mean nothing to her? When she saw the look on my face, she shook her head, waving her hands frantically. "I didn't mean it like that, I'm just trying to say I became friends with you to bring you both closer, but I realized you were a good friend and I liked having you around."

"Wow," I finally spoke after my brain provided words. "I thought—I thought you liked having me around from the start."

"I'm sorry Daesyn." She said, covering her face with her palms. "I know it wasn't right to use you the way I did, but you should always remember that Aatami's my brother, and if doing something to make him happy means walking through hell and back, I have no problem dying for him."

"Who even told you becoming friends with me was going to be happy?" I shook my head in disappointment. "I really didn't expect this from you."

She removed her palms from her face and ran a hand through her blonde locks. "Are you even listening to me?"

I glared at her. "No."

"Well, I'm going to speak until you listen." I took note of the dark circles under her eyes. "Yes I feel guilty for keeping such a big thing from you, yes I knew he liked you from the start and I didn't tell you, yes I'd do it over and over again if I were given the chance to, but I cherish our friendship a lot Daesyn, believe me."

"Yeah sure." I narrowed my eyes at her, dropping my bag back on the bed. "I should totally believe the girl who didn't break my trust seconds ago."

She sighed. "I know, and I'm sorry."

"I think I should go," I said quietly, glad my voice didn't shake. All I wanted to do at that point was to burst into tears. "I need to process all this."

She blinked repeatedly. "You're breaking up with me?"

I cleared my throat. "I think I—well, we—need some time too."

"I completely understand." She nodded with a small sigh before sitting on her bed. "I hope you sort things out with Aatami though. I found out he liked you last year when we moved to Hill-wood.

I sighed. "Can we not talk about this?"

"I told you I was going to speak until you listened." She bit her lip as if trying to recall something before continuing.

I frowned because she literally just said she understood me when I said we needed to take a break.

"So, it was closing time and I was watching a video on my phone," she said. "I found it funny so I told him to watch it with me. I knew he wasn't going to look at what I was showing him, but then you suddenly stepped out of the school building and his eyes lit up."

I was going to tell her to stop talking because I was still mad at her, but I was curious for answers and she wasn't even looking at me, so I let her speak. "It was the first time I ever saw him that way and I wanted to know more about it. So yeah, you came out of the doors, casually walking down the stairs before slipping and falling."

She giggled. "It was funny when you slipped on nothing and I assumed you were clumsy, but I've spent time with you and I know you're anything but clumsy. Anyway, he was rushing to where you fell to help you up, and I have this 'this dude isn't the Aatami I know' look on my face. But when he was almost there, onion dude popped out of nowhere and started talking to you. He helped you up, and Caelum is standing there looking like somebody who's just lost his child."

I did remember that day vividly.

Nathan was still asking me out and I kept telling him no, so when I fell, he immediately came to my aid and kept asking me how it was possible to fall from just six flights of stairs. I was pretty annoyed by his questions and the fact that I had just embarrassed myself made me angrier.

When I was about to get into my car, Nathan asked me if I wanted to go out with him—for the one hundred and fiftieth time that semester, may I add—so I looked him straight in the eyes with a sickly sweet smile and said, "I sell male private parts for money Nate, and if you're willing to sacrifice yours, I don't have a problem going out with you."

That was the last time we talked.

"On his seventeenth birthday, I asked him to make a wish. And he said: whoever grants wishes, let the girl I've pined after look at me, just once, the way I look at her. It was pretty much then I knew. I just knew he had it bad, and if you could make his eyes light up from a distance without even talking to him, I wondered what was going to happen if you were closer. Here we are, Daesyn."

"Oh," I said, not having any better words to say.

"Yeah oh," she repeated, her voice cracking. "I shouldn't add this, but after the first week of hanging out with you, I knew I didn't only want you to end up with Aatami, I genuinely wanted us to be best friends."

"Emery." I groaned, walking to where she sat before sitting. "I know you did it for him, but I still feel bad because you had all the time in the world to tell me about this and you didn't say anything."

What I really didn't expect Emery to do after what I said was burst into tears. She literally started crying, wiping her tears with the sleeves of her jumper. "He didn't even know I heard his wish. I swear I wanted to tell you everything, but I didn't want to break your trust."

"Eme—"

"Give me one more chance," she hiccupped. "I'll be better, I promise."

Emery had been there for me whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on, she had been there when I wanted a person to rant to, she had been there whenever I had boy trouble and wanted a release, she had been there with me through it all, and even if we'd only been friends for a few months, I couldn't lose her.

She did something wrong but who was I to judge?

"Don't worry about it Em, nobody's perfect," I repeated her words with a small smile. "And for the record, I wouldn't stop being friends with you either way. You're kind, smart, funny, and an amazing person overall. I wouldn't trade you for the world."

"Really?" she asked after wiping her tears and brought out her pinky finger.

I nodded, intertwining our pinky fingers together. "Really."

She flew into my arms seconds later and I chuckled at how some things never change. "Oh my God, I'm glad you forgave me. I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if things ended like this."

"Me too, Em." I nodded, different thoughts circulating in my head. "Me too."

To be honest, a part of me was still hurt that Emery didn't become friends with me because she wanted to but because she needed to. I didn't know I'd feel this hurt after everything, but like they said: time healed all wounds.

I hoped.

I tried speaking to Caelum after my bonding time with Emery, but he didn't respond to me. No sounds were coming out of his room and for a second, I thought he wasn't even in there. After my excessive banging on his door, Caleb dragged me away from the door and told me Caelum wasn't going to open up no matter how hard I tried.

"Don't worry about him," he said with a genuine smile. "He'll be fine, he's a strong boy."

I gave him a small grin—which probably looked like me baring my teeth—in response, before going downstairs. I spent the rest of the night on my bed crying. I didn't even know why I was crying, but I just couldn't stop. The thought of losing Caelum kept popping up every now and then, and the fact that I didn't get a single text or call from him made matters worse. I still couldn't help but hope for the best.

-

Author's note:

Please leave your votes and comments <33

And i'm sorry for mixing Caelum and Aatami in different sentences, I'm trying to adjust too lol.