9

Vanderwood, Izumi, Xander, and Xerope walk down their driveway and towards the van waiting for them. The sun sets, signaling that it's night time.

"So how was your day?" Xerope ask Izumi, he doesn't bother asking Xerope but he can see him from the corner of his eye.

"It was fine, the new school was much less boring than before, the teachers weren't that bad, though. Also, you got a new student today" Izumi reply, he looks over at Xerope for a moment before continuing "You know she's the first girl that was able to talk to me, I wish the others could see her too. She seems nice. Her name is Elizabeth..."

Izumi gets interrupted by Xerpe "Who cares, just hurry up and drive!"

Vanderwood gets into the car and turns on the radio. He watches as Izumi drives the van forward, driving slower than usual to try and get home as soon as possible.

After they arrive home everyone walks inside their respective rooms and start getting ready for bed.

Izumi wakes up early in the morning before anyone else, he decides to spend some quality time with Elizabeth before it's time to wake everybody. He finds her sitting on the couch reading a picture book he lent her a couple of days ago, she looks very focused on the book.

Vanderwood sits next to her on the sofa and leans against the armrest smiling at her. She looks at Vanderwood when he stops moving and sees that he's awake, she looks down to continue reading but Vanderwood takes the book out of her hands and places it on the table beside the couch.

Elizabeth notices and turns red embarrassed by the fact she was caught off guard.

"Why'd you sit there and read instead of waking everyone up like you normally do." Vanderwood says, raising an eyebrow at her.

Elizabeth nervously bites her lower lip "I wanted to get some extra studying done before we had to go to work today."

"Well why don't you do that tomorrow? You've been working really hard lately, I know for sure you'll have plenty of time to study before we leave." Vanderwood suggests.

"Um....okay" Elizabeth answers sounding unsure.

"What did you get for homework?"

"Oh, uh well I actually forgot to do any... I think I left them in my locker, but I should probably go check on them"

"Sure, I'll go with you" Vanderwood says smiling at her.

The two walk to the basement and head to Liz's locker. After searching through most of the books inside, Vanderwood comes up empty handed and gives the last book to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth sighs and opens the book hoping to find some answers but it's filled with pictures of girls and boys kissing.

"Are you okay?" Vanderwood asks concerned.

"Yeah, I just didn't expect this. Why would a book be filled with these kinds of things?" Elizabeth says looking up at Vanderwood confused, she didn't want to tell him how she likes girls. It was embarrassing and she didn't want him thinking differently of her. But it seems that she couldn't hide it anymore.

"I don't know, you're welcome to borrow anything you want as long as you return it."

"Thank you" Elizabeth said blushing slightly, she didn't expect him to lend her something so intimate. If someone else told her they liked girls she probably would've gotten upset and ran away without looking back at them, but this was Vanderwood, he wasn't like that.

"Come on, let's go back upstairs. I bet it's almost 6:30, you've probably slept quite late" Vanderwood says giving her his hand, she stares at his hand for a while before taking it and they go upstairs.

After a few minutes they reach the top floor of the house,they stop walking and turn to look at each other. Neither of them say anything but neither of them wants to end the silence. Vanderwood smiles at Elizabeth who just looks away from him with a blush on her cheeks.

The awkward silence continues for another minute, the sound of their heartbeats are loud in the air as they stare at each other waiting for the other to say something. They both know the reason behind all this tension between them but neither of them dare to admit that what they felt were feelings; they were afraid of being ridiculed for liking one another or losing each other once they knew the truth about the other. They never imagined themselves having feelings for each other but they knew it was inevitable and that they have to deal with the fact that they liked each other.

Vanderwood broke the silence saying,

"Let's get something to eat before going to work together"

He lets go of Elizabeth's hand and leads her to the kitchen.

They start cooking something for breakfast, Vanderwood puts vegetables in a pan and stirs them a little bit,while doing that he asks her if she's hungry.

Elizabeth takes a seat in a chair while Vanderwood prepares the meal.

After breakfast the two get ready for the day.

As they get dressed, they notice that they're still holding hands, they release their hands and quickly pull it apart. After getting dressed and putting their boots on they walk downstairs and grab a bottle of water and heads to the door, the sun already set and the night's chill already started to take control of the atmosphere; the wind picks up and pushes their hair and clothes into every direction.

"We've gotta run, or else we'll miss our bus" Vincent says as they get out of the house. Everyone grabs their shoes and put them on, the three of them start