Board Thread:Short Stories and Fanfictions/@comment-72.205.23.158-20190712212346/@comment-68.98.145.50-20200109190323

The next day at Foxfire....

     Sophie took a deep breath.

'''     No more waiting. '''

     No more wasted time.

     No more letting fear control her.

     Today she was going to get over that.

     She was finally going to tell Fitz what happened.

     That Sophie Elizabeth Foster was unmatchable.

      And then afterwards she might throw up.

'''     But hey, at least she was going to try. As Sophie went through Foxfire that day, she felt herself still avoiding him, but she told herself that she needed to talk to him before he lightleaped home.'''

'''     Slowly the day dragged by, equal mixtures of dread and the desire to just tell him. Despite her trying not to think about it, her brain kept throwing different scenarios for what might happen, from Fitz totally rejecting her to caring about her more because of it.'''

     Minute by minute, time passed, until at last, her time at Foxfire came to an end.

'''     As Sophie walked out of her class with her bodyguards trailing behind her, she was lucky to see Fitz ahead of her. She ran to catch up with him. "Fitz!" she called out, trying to catch his attention, but the sea of students around her was too loud for him to hear her.'''

'''     "Fitz!" she called in another desperate attempt. Suddenly she crashed into someone else, falling backwards painfully. “Oof.”'''

'''     “Foster?” Keefe asked, jumping up and offering her a hand to pull her up. “Where are you off to in a hurry?”'''

     “Sorry, I was going to talk to Fitz,” she said, accepting his hand.

     “Oh,” Keefe said, his eyes turning downward to stare at the ground.

'''      Sophie scrunched her brown. “Is there something wrong?” She had thought he’d be happy with her.'''

'''     Keefe’s head snapped back up. “No, nothing! I’m glad you’re talking to Fitz about it.”'''

     “So, is there something else then?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

'''     Keefe was quiet for a moment. “No,” he answered at last. “But… it’s nice to see you smiling again.”'''

'''     Sophie could feel that Keefe wasn’t lying, but he was definitely hiding something. '''

'''     “You’d better go catch Fitz before he leaves. I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hear from you again,” Keefe said with an obviously-forced smile.'''

     “Yeah,” Sophie said, silently promising to herself that she would find out what was bothering Keefe later.

'''     Sophie continued after Fitz, but her thoughts felt scattered. She hated seeing Keefe so sad. He almost seemed ... hopeless.'''

'''     Walking through the doors to Foxfire, she saw Fitz. He hadn’t light leaped away yet. In fact, he was talking with Linh.'''

     Sophie didn’t want to interrupt them, so she walked towards them but stopped just out of range of hearing their conversation.

     While she waited, her brain started rehearsing how she should break the news to him, and slowly she felt her courage drain away.

'''     She glanced over at Fitz and Linh, hoping their conversation would come to a close soon. She couldn’t take the suspense much longer. Then she noticed tears falling from Linh’s eyes, and a pang of guilt dropped through her.'''

'''     She had neglected all her friends in the time she had learned about her being unmatchable, and some of them had way worse issues than she did. '''

'''     Sophie couldn’t hear what Fitz was telling Linh, but she could see that he was taking the time to listen to her and encourage her. Her heart swelled at the thought of what a great guy Fitz was.'''

'''     Fitz raised a hand up and wiped away a tear from Linh’s check. The action froze Sophie. '''

'''     Linh sniffed, then looked up into Fitz’s eyes, and said something to him, then they hugged, tightly holding each other for several seconds longer than necessary. '''

     They let go, Linh saying something else that Sophie couldn’t hear to Fitz, then smiled as she pulled her leaping crystal up to the light.

'''     Sophie couldn’t stay a second more. She ripped out her leaping crystal and shone it into the light. The last thing she saw was Fitz’s surprised eyes staring right at her before she glittered away.'''

-NinjaTeddyBear