Day 23

I could live off Belgian chocolate for the rest of my life, not minding the weight gain. Now I know why it's so famous.

We sit around the table, waiting for our last lunch in Belgium, while enjoying the wonderful view. Well, most of us. Arianna is going through the pictures I've caught. The moment she found out I'm interested in photography, she offered to teach me. She's busy checking them, nodding with approval.

I nibble on my chocolate, wondering if one day science could surpass limitations, so a person can have an infinite amount of something they love, without worrying that it'll end.

"I want to dye your hair and see what happens to your eyes," Arianna announces, pulling away the comfortable blanket of silence that had fallen over us.

Snapping my head up with surprise, curious to find out to who she's talking. And when my eyes lock with hers, I realize she meant me.

Adrien and Dylan both laugh and she only glares at them, as I'm unable to quit gaping at her.

She waits for their laughter to die out and starts, "What! I'm serious. When she wears blue, her eyes turn blue-"

"Reflect blue," Adrien interjects, receiving a dismissive eye roll from her.

"What will happen if I dye your hair purple, or pink," her eyes are wide with excitement as I stare at her with raised eyebrows and falling short of words.

"I-I don't think pink is my color," I stammer.

Dylan and Adrien guffaw, Arianna overlooks them as she studies me, squinting.

"She won't stop until she makes sure she has dyed your hair at least a dozen colors. Good luck with that," Adrien voices between his laughter.

"Ha ha, very funny," Arianna replies as she glowers at him, which he deliberately ignores. She focuses back on me, "Ignore them, I know you'll look cool,"

"But she already looks gorgeous," Dylan says, looking at Arianna and then turns to me, simpering, he adds, "I mean it," and locks his eyes with me.

I force a smile as I shift awkwardly in my seat and avoid his gaze; I need to learn what's the proper reply for compliments that have nothing to do with my knowledge and studying.

"Thank you," I mumble earning a grin from Dylan.

I push myself to glance up. The amusement gone from Adrien's features as he forces a smile that doesn't reach his jade eyes, shooting daggers at Dylan.

Does he really dislike me to the point of not being able to stand someone complimenting me?

I can't blame him for disliking or even despising me, but didn't he suggest that we move on from problems we had in the past?

"I guess I'll dye your hair pink and then purple, what do you say El?"

Grateful from Arianna's question, I train my focus on her. "How about we wait until my hair grows longer and decide after that?" I offer, as my fingers fidget while I can't cease my leg from bouncing.

She beams and nods with enthusiasm, "That'd be great!" she claps her hands and for a moment I'm able to push aside the anxious feelings caused by being in the center of the attention, and return her smile.

A waitress comes and places our meal on the table. Dylan's eyes follow her until she turns and is out of sight.

"We need to go more clubbing, these European girls are hot!" Dylan remarks as he shoves a spoon full of his food into his mouth.

Arianna snorts, putting my camera in its case, while one side of Adrien's lips move upwards, a ghost of a half-smile on his face.

I wonder what makes someone hot. What qualities a person must possess for marking the boxes in the list and getting the title? I suppose a huge part of it, is personal preferences.

How come I've never seen anyone that checks off those boxes for me? Maybe I haven't paid attention. Perhaps I'm just incapable of seeing the hotness in people.

Not to mention, it's not fair to judge by appearance.

"Yeah, we probably should. And who knows, maybe Adi ends up finding a girl who will put up with him for over six months," Arianna quips and titters, Dylan joins her. I bite my bottom lip, stopping myself from joining them.

It isn't nice to laugh at his exceptionally unlucky journey of failed relationships.

Adrien glares at her, muttering, "Fuck you," and takes a slice from his food. After swallowing it, he looks up to Arianna and asserts, "and all of my relationships went on longer than six months, all of them," he widens his eyes while emphasizing the last part.

Arianna throws her head back, chortling. The sound erupting from her causes everyone near us to turn and peek at her. Dylan wipes away a tear as he shakes from silent laughter. Adrien glowers at them.

I wish I could be that carefree.

Pressing my left hand to mouth, in an attempt to not join her, it's once again proved to me that laughter truly is contagious.

Between her giggles, she tries her best to look serious saying, "Sure," which only gets her and Dylan laugh harder.

His both hands shoot up, "It did! All of them did!" He defends himself.

Finally, Arianna manages to stop. After clearing her throat multiple times she says, "Not once your relationship lasted more than six months and not once were you the dumper," finishing with a wide grin.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, his index finger pointing upwards. Drawing his eyebrows closer, going back to normal before pressing his lips into a thin line and crossing his arms in front of his chest. "The girls were the problem," Adrien states.

"Sure man, we believe you," Dylan says and laughs, Arianna nods with a fake serious expression.

Jennifer pops up in my mind. Her blue eyes glinting with mischief as she kept on explaining her plan, trying to convince me into helping her out. Jennifer was the only girl in Adrien's long list of girlfriends that I really liked. She had this spark that reminded me of the fictional character, Harley Quin, even though she was majoring in mechanical engineering and not psychology.

Her words play in my head, the glint in her eyes, and our following discussion. I look away to hide my growing smile, pinching my bottom lip with my thumbnail and middle fingernail.

"She knows something," Arianna jumps and I shift to see she squints, a beam playing on her lips.

I shrug, "It's nothing,"

"Girl, spill! I wanna know!" She leans forward, playfulness sparks up her features. Dylan places his elbows on the table.

I avoid their piercing yet encouraging gazes, "One of his exes, about a month before their breakup, requested me to hack all his accounts. Because she was suspicious he was either cheating on her or he was gay," I say, fighting back a laugh.

"What?" Adrien's voice makes me glance up, his eyes wide with surprise or maybe shock.

"Holy shit," Arianna breaths out as if I've given her the juiciest gossip in town.

"You can hack?" Dylan questions with amazement.

"Did you?" Adrien and Arianna ask together, but with very different expressions. Adrien sounds shocked and worried while Arianna is painted with excitement, as if it's the most entertaining topic in the world.

"I can," I answer, looking at Dylan. And then I turn to Adrien and add, "but I didn't,"

Relief washes over him as he lets out a breath, relaxing into his chair.

Arianna pouts, "Well you should have, it would've been fun," earning a glare from Adrien. She ignores, as usual, and adds with a giggle, "but we should give a heads up to your future boyfriend."

I shake my head and allow a small smile to drive its way to my face.

"Who though?" Adrien wonders, furrowing his brows.

"Jennifer,"

His brows raise high as he gapes at me.

"The one who cheated on you with your roommate?" Arianna asks with obvious amusement, not bothering to stop herself from chuckling.

Adrien dodges her comment and looks at me, "That means, she asked you to hack my stuff and when you declined her, she started sleeping with Sean," he huffs.

"Probably," I reply, not knowing what else could be a better choice for this condition.

"How did you catch them? He knew when you were around," Dylan wonders.

"I didn't, Eleanor did," Adrien shrugs.

I attempt to smile at a very surprised Dylan.

Arianna's hand shoots up, "He filled me in on this part," she chimes in.

"How?" Dylan scrutinizes me.

I shift in my seat and explain, "I caught them in the back of the library, they didn't see me... and Adrien and I were supposed to meet to work on the finishing touches of our assignment. I met him on the other side of the building. Seeing how sad he looked, I assumed he had seen them," I push up my glasses, unable to ignore the embarrassment and remorse I went through while the aftermath of the event played out.

Relief eases my fidgeting fingers as Adrien starts with a smile, "She also presumed I have broken up with her or I'm in the process. She was like, it's okay I'll do the remainder if you're not feeling up to it, and stuff like that. I thought now that she has the idea me and Jen have hit a rough rode, I might as well have a female insight on the whole thing," he pauses, chuckling before going on, "so I tell her it's been a tough couple of weeks and she outright tells me, 'no, you've made the right choice with breaking up with her. Cheating must always be off-limits, especially with your roommate'," he laughs, probably remembering my tomato colored face as I realized the outcome of what I had said was.

I hide my burning cheeks, before continuing, "And he stared at me for thirty seconds with a straight face, before saying, 'I didn't know she was cheating on me and we weren't officially over'. It was awful!" I finish. Dylan throws his head back, shaking with laughter.

"But you helped him through the rest of the semester out of guilt, trust me, it made up for it. If he could, he would have sacrificed all his girlfriends to any god that could ensure he'd be the first even for once," Arianna assures with a grin.

"You're exaggerating it, though I can't say it wasn't great having my average shoot up five percent," Adrien smiles at me, the same kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes, brings out his dimples.

I offer a smile before fixing my gaze on my food.

We eat our meal. Adrien and Dylan busy in their own discussions while Arianna scrolls through her phone.

Her eyebrows raise up, "The gang's in Amsterdam," Arianna announces, cutting off Adrien and Dylan in the middle of their discussion.

Chills run down my spine as I freeze at the news.

"That's where we're traveling next," Adrien voices my thoughts.

"They've been watching our YouTube videos, they found out we're heading there. Soph just texted me, they've rented a villa and want to meet us," she looks up from her phone, briefly, her focus lingers on me before shifting to Adrien.

"I think we should meet up," Dylan says. When no one reacts he adds, "It's been years since the last time we met them,"

Adrien and Arianna are busy staring at each other. As if they're communicating in their own secret way.

I wish I could reach to an idea to not see them again.

I'm able to sense it, I've been getting better at controlling my anxiety, at least around Arianna, and that's a huge thing for me. Also, I know seeing them won't end well for me. Even considering it scares me. They won't -can't- hurt me physically, but mentally? They're experts.

Although, I can always skip tagging along with them, but that would be a confirmation stamp on my weakness.

I don't want to be that scared teen anymore, I need to act as an adult, to break free from those nightmares. I've given myself a chance at turning around myself and my life. Going there might jeopardize my progress, but skipping it? Wouldn't that do the same too?

Feeling a gaze burning through me, I look up, meeting Adrien's concerned filled eyes. I swallow hard, readying myself for the inevitable.

+++

((Okay, first off, thank you so much for reading this far! It means a lot! The motive of this chapter was mostly to clarify for those of you who thought why on earth would El agree to go to a party with Adi (referring to first chapters) or even let him and his friends join her. As you can see, they've had some quality time together, studying and all, what happened that ruined their slow-building friendship? I cannot tell you that, because that would be a spoiler and I'm not planning on leaving spoilers in my AN =))

Movin' on, what are your thoughts on this chapter? [You seriously thought I'm going to mention the gang and not bring them into action? *Evil laughter*] Tell me your thoughts! And thanks for reading again ^^ ))