Nothing makes me happier than when I am alone and just peacefully doing something I enjoy. This evening I was trying to grow crystals.

I know...

A little strange a venture for valentine's day. But I was alone and well when August and I went into town earlier for lunch, we were a little awkward, so I decided to look up how to make crystals.

You see we went to a restaurant that is usually really quiet and cozy and low key.

But um, they were like in full valentines- romance mode and it was sort of hysterical. August looked low key mortified when we were fussed around. It was funny at first, he was stressed but amused too. And then we were left alone. In a very romantic setting.It went a little awkward for a bit. Hence why I got my phone out and googled about a possible science experiment I could do when I got home.

Then I told him about it.

I am sure he was hardly listening. But it kept the conversation going until we both relaxed and got used to the fact we were on an accidental date.

Yeah, so that happened. But it was funny. Like now, looking back at this afternoon it was funny.

At the time it was um, different. Tense. I don't know. He went back to his, I went back to mine and I haven't seen anyone since.

Trev has a big whole day planned out for Luella after she finished her lectures. So they've been gone all evening.

I have been painting. That's why I am this much of a mess. I was dancing and painting and just vibing.

Now I got bored of that so I went to do the crystal things that I had picked up from town after the lunch August and I had had.

So I have a beaker and apparently I am supposed to stir in half a cup of magnesium sulphate with another half a cup of very hot tap water for a minute or so.

So that's where I am.

Stirring.

Furiously.

I am joking. Gently.

I should have read some safety precautions, shouldn't I? I think it's safe. I don't know.

Anyway, I stir until it's like saturated and then I look at my colour options. I have food colouring here but I am unsure which colour to go.

It's valentines. I'll go with red.

It might turn out pink but that's okay too. I add a couple of drops of colouring into the beaker and then I just stare down at it.

Okay so now it's supposed to go in the refrigerator for a few hours.

I just carry it over and secure it in the bottom draw. Removing our salad bits of course and placing them in the shelf above. I look at the lonesome beaker.

That was fun but um, what do I do now?

I'll create some more with different colours.

That's pretty fine.

I am just doing my little crystal making process when my music pauses, my hips pausing too mid swing.

Well.

My phone is ringing so I just sigh and go and answer it. My hands are pretty stained, a mixture of paint and food colouring so I just wipe them on my dress before I answer, getting the mess all over me.

Grand.

I answer the phone, not really checking who it was. Well I read the name, but I only process it's August by the time my phone is up to my ear and I'm saying hello.

"You in?"

Blunt.

"Well um yeah." I say. "Is everything okay?"

"Are you with anyone? Like are you free?"

I look around the flat. I have paint all over the table still, like my painting attempt and the kitchen is a state from dinner but also from the whole um, crystals thing.

"Yeah I guess so August. What's wrong?"

"Um I'm like outside your door."

I frown, hanging up and my music immediately assaults my ears with it's loudness. My phone was connected to the Bluetooth speaker .

I turn it down and then go and open the door.

August is stood there, a weird collection of items in his hands. He has a physics text book, his laptop. Then he has some flour, eggs, a carton of milk and piled on top is a jar of Nutella.

I take him in, then meet his eyes in confusion.

When I say meet his eyes. I look to his eyes, as his eyes take me in.

I was stood here, hair slightly wild down around me, a thin white night gown on, no one else was here. My skin dotted with paint, my dress smeared with ink.

I clear my throat. He looks up at me.

I watch as he swallows and then the first thing he says is "You look a mess."

"Oh Leo how you make me swoon." Was my dry response.

I move to the side and let him in. "What are you doing here?"

"I'll be blunt." He says and I look up at him slightly apprehensively. When isn't he blunt? I raise an eyebrow as he steps in, looking around. "Luella and T just got from their dinner and they're being awfully loud, and I was just trying to study."

"Just tell them-"

"Em I mean they're fucking."

I cringe. "August, Christ sake." I mumble.

He just shrugs. "I am not one to interrupt. But seriously like- can I stay for a little bit? I brought shit to make pancakes."

I look at his arms. "Why?"

"Why the ingredients or why am I up here, but if you have to ask why I wanted to escape the noises-"

"No. No." I say. "Why pancakes."

He walks over to the table and looks over the mess. He uses one hand to clear a small space and sets his textbook down.

"Because you usually need some sort of entertainment." He says. "I need to study. But felt rude just being like, hi, I'm studying here now. So pancakes?"

I just look at him, he was waiting patiently for me to reply.

"Sure." I say. "It is pancake day like in a few days though."

"Call it practise."

"Can you even make pancakes?" I ask, walking around to the sofa and I pull a jumper on, covering me more.

He nods. "Yeah but not in that health hazard."

August looks at me disapprovingly and then he enters into the kitchen, floating around the counter and looking at my display. I just skip over and start putting the beakers in the fridge, ignoring his disapproval.

"Emersyn I don't know why I need to say this. But I don't think you should be messing around with chemicals."

"It's salt." I laugh, rolling my eyes.

"Chaotic person." Is muttered and August starts filling the sink with hot water.

"What ya doing?"

"Cleaning."

I pause. "Um why?"

"Because your kitchen is giving me heart palpitations." He mutters.

"It's not that bad." I laugh, walking to peer around him. "You don't need to do the dishes."

"Em clear your side and I'll do this and then we'll make pancakes."

"Oh the demands." I say, stepping back and I tie my hair back, first going over to the speaker to turn it up before doing as I am told.

"I thought you might have plans." August says.

I just ignore him, not really in the mood to get into the Henry thing.

But again, with the room reading issues, he just turns to look at me, slowly folding his sleeves up as we talk.

"I have been having fun on my own." I say.

He smiles a little and nods. "I see that. You have paint all over you."

"You make it sound dirty." I mutter, turning back around.

"No you just interpret things I say crudely."

"No I just know you." I say, shaking my head and clearing the side, walking to the sink and ignoring the way it feels, the tightness in my stomach, when I press my side against his to clean my cloth under the tap.

He doesn't move, just tilts his head down, watching me.

I squeeze it out and head back over to the side, wiping it.

"So what's he doing? I thought he'd be one for grand romantic gestures to be honest."

"We fell out." I say.

August makes an amused noise. "How have you managed that?"

I just glare a little at the back of his head.

"It wasn't my fault."

August looks back at me over his shoulder. "Emersyn that guy is smitten by you. He's not going to have done anything purposely to offend you. Therefore..."

"He just has things to figure out. And plus. Like... I have made him aware I am not available for that."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't you going for the good guy?"

I pause, his voice is deep, he sounds confused, but I don't know if it is genuine. I grab out a mixing bowl and go to wash my hands.

"Excuse me." I say softly.

August steps a little to the side, his hands washing my dishes. I just slowly wash my hands next to him.

"I asked you a question." He says lowly.

I can feel his eyes.

"Because I can't imagine being with anyone at the moment. I have too much going on."

"So you're just going to let him go? To that Zoe girl?"

This conversation is fucking with my head. I am not going to lie. One second August wants me in his bed and the next he's trying to convince me to go and fall in love with Henry.

"I can't keep up with you."

"What do you mean?"

I pull away, ripping out of the small warming bubble that engulfs me when I stand so close to him.

I crack some eggs into a bowl, adding flour and milk free handily.

I know the consistency. I'll just compromise until I get it.

August watches me.

"Emersyn."

"I mean like- it's weird for you to be wanting me with Henry."

"I mean it's not that weird. We are friends. Family even, that is what you say. I want what is best for my family."

"Family between us seems almost less than." I say softly.

"I mean yeah, don't you worry. I am not comparing you to a sister."

I snort and look at him. "We really need to stop with the incest jokes because someone at some point isn't going to find it funny."

He smiles a little. "Just us here." Our eyes flash together at his words and I turn back to the whisking of the pancake, crepe, batter. We're making crepes.

"Emersyn, we agreed that we're friends right? I harbour no feelings for you, I want you to be with the good guy because I want what's best for you."

I admit. I wince. I don't even fucking know why.

"So why have you been um, like-" I don't know how to put this.

"Like messing around?"

"Mm."

"Um, because why not? I mean, okay, I know why not. Like the whole um, destroying you thing..." He lets out a pained laugh. "It's just I enjoy your presence and sometimes I forget myself a little."

"Forget yourself?"

"Emersyn I am attracted to you."

I lower my face, pouring in some more milk.

He manages to make me blush in fucking seconds and it's so embarrassing. Like I blush and then blush more out of embarrassment that I know he'll notice and that is even more mortifying.

I breathe it away.

"But you don't want anything from me right?" I ask.

"Of course not."

"Okay." I say. "So like we'd still be good if I did get with someone else?"

He walks behind me and peers over my shoulder. "We're good Em."

I am probably still confused. "You never used to be attracted to me." I say.

August chuckled. "Pardon?"

I turn around, looking up at him. "Like um, before we became friends and stuff. Before like I ha, pursued you... you were never attracted to me. So like. Now... I don't really get what- what this is."

"What what is?"

I lift my hand, hovering it over the middle of his chest and I feel the pull to press down, too run my fingers under his shirt, I watch as his eyes bear into mine as I am sure we both feel it.

"It's called sexual tension." He chuckles. "It'll fade. I am guessing it's because there's like anger and stuff still lingering."

"I am not angry with you." I say.

He smiles. "Your soul might be."

"I thought you didn't believe in souls."

"You've said this before. I answer the same every time."

I smile a little and drop my hand. "That you believe in souls, just that you don't have one."

"I think mine may have died with my mother. Ripped out. I think that's why I am so fucked up."

I choose not to scorn his negativity. "You sound like your nanny. Like the way she speaks about curses and souls and demons."

August steps slightly ever closer and I lean back, pressing against the counter and he just reaches forwards and my heart starts to quicken as he sorts of tangled with me, sprinkles a handful of flour into the bowl. One hand of his caging me, the other around me, our bodies very closely pressed together.

I look up.

"August?"

My heart thuds when he looks down, our faces scarily close.

"Are you angry at me?"

His brow furrows slightly.

"Like you said there's still anger. Are you still angry at me?"

"I was never angry at you." He whispers.

"Not even at the hospital?"

He shakes his head. "I knew even then that our whole world had just crumbled. It wasn't only my reality that had been torn apart. It was yours too."

"What would you change?" I whisper.

August's hands trap me, either side of the counter they grip the surface edge.

"Change?"

"About what happened last summer?"

August closes his eyes. "Emersyn-"

"I am just curious."

His eyes open, scarily golden in the yellowish light. "That first day."

I frown.

"That first morning after you came back. You came and read, or wrote, I can't remember. On the beach you came and read and I noticed."

"You noticed." I breathe.

"Yes. I noticed. I had never noticed you before."

My heart was hurting and it wasn't from pain, it wasn't from the heart break, it was beating again, harshly. And okay maybe I had developed a layer of glass around my heart to keep it locked away but my heart was thudding really hard and I was scared.

What if it broke through the glass?

I would surely shatter.

"I was swimming. You were just reading. And then I took on some water, and so I got out. Like I couldn't fucking breathe, and I felt the concern in your eyes and for the first time they burned me. Like I could feel them on my skin."

I let out a low breath.

"And then it was hard not to see you from then. And I don't mean because you were in that skimpy fucking swimming costume which was utterly inappropriate for a family vacation."

I gasp. "August that swimming costume is fine."

He smirks. "I just am saying that I would take back that day. I would choose to leave before you got back. Because yeah obviously I gradually got attracted to you when I was getting to know you later that summer. But it was that day that I first saw you. And if I could change that I would."

I push his hand up off the counter and I duck under it, heading to grab the frying pan.

"So you'd choose for it all just not to have happened?"

"If it would have prevented the shit that hurt you then yes."

"But we wouldn't be friends."

"I am the only one of us that benefits out of this friendship Emersyn, you get nothing from me being around you other than stress. I know we are friends, I know for some reason you'll never allow us to not be friends. But I am the lucky one there, not you. I would accept us not being friends if I that meant I would not have hurt you."

This person is hurting me. It's not the cold August I knew. It is not the care free, wild Leo that I guess I originally fell in love with. It was another man I knew less about. I turned to watch him.

"If we wouldn't have been friends, then the low you just went through this winter would have been-"

"The end." He nods.

I just stared at him.

"That fact is not beyond me." August says.

My heart is heating. I wonder what it would have been like. If I never got involved with August, or Luella... If I just existed without that. I wouldn't take it back. I look up at him and I watch as he watches me, his eyes pained and I wonder why. I wonder how I can take that pain away.

I wonder why I feel the constant need to take his pain away. Even when I hardly even like him.

I let out a bit of a broken breath as I explored his face with my eyes, his light stubble, something he's been lazy with lately, his dark under eyes but bright almost light hazel eyes.

I hate that he's this beautiful. Like I hate him man. I sigh, looking down and shaking my ehad at myself. I exhale my sigh and look up, choosing to smile.

"So what, you thought I was ugly before that day?"

August laughs, making me smile more and I breathe relieved at the lighter mood coming across us.

"Oh yeah, you were a troll to me."

I grin, turning around and finishing mixing the pancake mix. "A troll?"

"Mhm. Definitely."

I felt sunny inside.

"That was the first day I saw you too. Like the first day I remember thinking that you were beautiful. I remember looking out over the water, like at the sun, at how it clashed with your skin and the clear waves..."

August hums, amused.

"So what, before that day you thought I was ugly?"

"Yep, the ugliest. A fish. Just like a fish."

He chuckles, tossing a dish towel over at me and I grin, throwing it back at him.

He gives me a wicked smile. "Don't start."

I turn around quickly.

"It was not I that started it."

"Shut up."

My lips part, and I look at him shocked, my mouth opening and I watch as his eyes flick down to it.

"Close your mouth, you'll catch flies."

I cough a laugh, turning back around. "That's what your mum always says to Lottie."

"I am aware." He chuckles and then places the frying pan on the heat, taking from me the bowl.

I just pull myself up on the counter, sitting the opposite side of the hobs and I watch him.

"Why are we making pancakes August?"

"We is a slightly exaggerated word isn't it? I am the one actually making them."

"Your sarcasm is unnecessary."

"That wasn't sarcastic, I meant what I said."

I pull a face at the back of his head and he just goes about making the crepes for us. I am swinging my legs, listening to the music.

It feels very warm inside this apartment right now.

I just watch, he's not really concentrating much, just easily cooking.

"What about you, no valentine's plans?"

"No." He exhales in amusement. "Although I am sure your father will ask the same when I see him tomorrow." August looks over his shoulder. "I will be telling him I pretty much spent the entire day with you."

"Asking for trouble." I say.

"Trouble is fun."

"You worry me."

He snorts, then looks easily flips the pancake. I try not to stress. He did it expertly.

"Yeah I am in a very limbo stage right now."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Do you have any fruit or anything?"

"Yeah, in the fridge, whatever you want."

He leaves the pancake on the heat and goes to the fridge, pulling out the pack of strawberries I have.

I jump off the side, going to the pan and starting to go round the edge of the pancake with the spatula.

"Why are you trying to grow crystals Emersyn?"

I laugh. "Fun?"

"You are a child."

"A child with access to adult money, it's a problem."