A few hours went by and the tension I thought that I'd dismissed before slowly came creeping back into my mind. I was sat at the dinner table with my family, who seemed to be all enjoying their meals. On the over hand, I just rolled my peas around my plate without even letting one of them touch my lips. My mother was the first one who took notice of my strange behaviour and eventually all the attention in the room was drawn towards me. Hell, even Evangeline was looking at me with concern, and she would usually be the last person on earth to ever feel emotions like those for anyone else besides our parents and her friend Sarah.

“What ?” I blurted out before even thinking about it. My father gapped his mouth open, wanting to say something in return, but my mother had already beaten him to that.

“Sweetie, you haven’t touched any of your food. You seemed fine earlier on when you came back from school, but are you really feeling okay now ?”

I snickered and looked down to my plate, not wanting to meet eyes with the rest of my family as I was about to tell my lie.

“I’m okay, don’t worry about me. I was suddenly reminded of an exam I had to study for next week. It's math, and you all know how hopeless I am at math.”

My mother wanted to answer back, but my father spoke out before she did, avenging himself from my mom who didn’t let him speak before.

“You don’t have to be so worried about that son ! I was always failing math back when I was in school !”

My mother laughed at him.

“Yeah, but your mathematics course was much simpler than Akari’s, since you were raised at sea.” She mockingly said.

“Hey ! Don’t make me feel bad about not learning anything from that stupid old trout ! It didn’t even seem like you were learning from him, instead you were unlearning !”

“Yeah yeah, whatever you say,” My mother teased, which landed her a sharp embrace from my father with a hand fiercely rubbing into her hair, messing it up completely. They really looked like an old married couple right now. To which well, they technically are.

A little while later the teasing had died down, so I took this opportunity to prepare myself mentally and asked my parents about my vital question.

“Hey, so are you all still going away Saturday afternoon ?”

Once again I caught the attention of my entire family. They were probably thinking why I was asking such a question. To that, my mother hesitantly answered.

“Yeah, there are several primary schools that are still organising that big charity event on that afternoon. Since your father is going to be working and that I was chosen to monitor the students from one of my classes, then that makes us absent on that day.”

“Mom,” My sister whined. “Why do I have to be at the charity as well ?”

“Because your class will also be helping out in this event.” She beamed.

“Yeah but they told us that we didn’t have to go. And I dun wanna go. So why am I going ?”

Jesus, that kid sure as hell knew how to complain like a bratty teenager despite her very young age.

“Evie, I want to teach you how charity works, I feel like it is very important for you to learn that. Besides, it may help you out in the future, you never know. And I don’t want your brother to be babysitting you either way, he just had a very hard week and he deserves some peace and quiet.”

“Okaaay mom.” Evangeline chanted.

My mother suddenly turned her gaze towards me and gave me a wink. I think that sometimes my mom had the ability to read minds, because as she suspected, I sure as hell wanted to be left alone after all the stupid turmoil of events that had happened to me. Too bad that this alone time that I craved so much was not going to happen. My family had no way of knowing that instead of using their absence as a way to calm my thoughts away, I was going to be negotiating with Owen and fight for our entire lives.

Realizing the mess of a situation that I had gotten myself into, I groaned out loud and slumped onto the dinner table. How was I supposed to handle all this stress in such a short amount of time ?

I think that my unexpected action had made my family even more worried about my self-being, because I had not anticipated what my mother was going to say then.

“Would you like to stay at home tomorrow ? You were brave enough to face off your day at school today, and I believe that you might need some time for yourself now. School isn't everything you know, your well-being is so much more important than that.”

I lifted my head up and gaped my eyes wide open. My mother, who is an actual school teacher, had told me to take a break ? Wow, I really must have made them worried.

I had to think about her proposal. Now that the situation had been sorted out (well, sort of), I would usually just say that I was okay, and that I’d be returning to school tomorrow. But right now, I needed some piece of mind, and I would be crazy to refuse such a golden proposition that had been served on a silver platter from none other than my mother.

“I’d actually like that. Thanks mom, you’re the best,” I answered with a calming smile. I then came up by her side and pressed a gentle kiss on her cheek. She took me by the chest and pulled me into her arms, embracing me in a warm and loving hug.

After that, the family conversation had ended for good. Once I finished my meal, I had excused myself from the table and went back to my room. I slowly walked over to my bed and lounged my back onto the mattress, ecstatic that the day was finally over. Only then had I realised the extent of the events that had happened today. After all the fear, the anger, the paranoia and the stress, I was happy to state that most of my problems had finally been sorted out.

Yeah… most of my problems.

My mind kept going back and forth on my discussion with Owen, then onto Mira’s. At that point I did not know who to believe exactly. Although my logic would state that I should listen to my lifelong best friend before anybody else, my instinct said otherwise.

Mira told me that Owen was untrustworthy for the fact that he was a human, but I couldn’t deny the feeling I had when I was talking with him. I had a sense that he was in fact being completely genuine at that moment, like he was someone that you could trust despite the barrier that separates our worlds.

I remembered the worrisome look he gave off once he saw me begging for my life onto the ground. I remembered the expression of disappointment he gave off once I told him that I wouldn’t speak to him, I then remembered the sparkle in his eyes and the joy-filled face he gave me the moment I continued on my sentence and told him that I'd be his friend. Could all of this just be faked ? Was it all just a way to manipulate me like Mira had told me so ? If so, then he was a damn bloody good actor I must say. Not to mention that he was even blushing at some points, so in my opinion you couldn't get more genuine than that in my opinion.

Deep down, I understood Mira. She was just worried about me being hurt and trusting people too quickly, especially when that person comes up with a shady condition like the one Owen had given me. He could have asked for anything he wanted, yet he only asked to be my friend. Knowing that this was the condition he gave me, it made me feel happy and anxious at the same time. Either he was really interested in me and wanted me by his side, or either I was running right into his trap.

The sun had already set a while ago and I could feel the glow of the moonlight shining through my window. I will be fast asleep in a moment, and by the time I would awake I'd find myself only a day away from Saturday.

That day was going to be a scary, yet still a very exciting day. I was already more than certain about it.