#provide one

[ruleofexception]

It was absolutely ridiculous to think that he might have considered her anymore than acquaintances, but the words had already left her mouth and she couldn't take them back.

The silence that hangs between them is thick and uncomfortable, only adding to her thoughts that a guy like him could never - no, would never - consider her as anything more than a nuisance. 

Golden eyes stare her down, dancing with emotions she can’t place, and she wishes someone would have the decency to drag her out to the pasture and put a bullet in her - it would be far kinder than this torture.

The silence is getting to be too much to handle - if he didn’t like her that way, he should just say so instead of staring at her like this; tripping over her words, trying to find a way to fix this, she stops short when he starts to laugh.

“Oh, Miss,” he’s still chuckling, his eyebrows cocked in a way that makes her heart stutter, “at least buy me dinner first.”

[ruleofexception]

"What if I told you I've always wanted you and you only?"

The sound from the TV pours into the room and she giggles, shifting from where she’s nestled into his side, reaching across him to grab another handful of popcorn, “Who comes up with these lines?”

He laughs and shrugs, trying not to think about how freeing it must be to tell the girl you love that she’s everything to you; how it might be to tell her that she’s held his heart since the beginning.

“I mean, really,” sighing, she pops a kernel into her mouth and shakes her head sadly, “How does she still not know he’s in love with her?”

“Beats me-” his head is swimming and it feels as though his heart is trying to rip itself from his chest, “Maybe he’s just good at hiding how he feels…”

[ruleofexception]

She scanned the hallway for a place to hide, but all she found was closed doors.

One after another, she wiggled the handles, knowing what the result would be, but not daring to miss one for fear that it would be the key to her escape.

A dark voice taunts her from down the hall, causing her hairs to stand on end and stomach to clench with fear; it calls to her, begging her to come out and play.

One door remains at the end of the impossibly long hallway, the wood is ancient and looks to have been repainted half a dozen times within the last few years; gripping the handle, she slams into the rotting wood, screaming as it grants her passage.

Chilling laughter fills the air as she wearily looks up to meet a malicious grin, “Finally, you’ve come to play.”