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Contrary to popular belief, Milly liked flowers.
They were pretty, smelt nice, and were pleasant to look at.
Milly also liked sweet things, believe it or not. She loved pastries, sweets, lollipops, and other things.
This also applied to a certain boy. Milly considered him to be the sweetest thing that god ever created.
She gazed at him subtly from the corner of her eye, watching as he tucked a loose strand of pink hair behind his ear. His hair wasn’t really long, it was just messy. Her heart swelled as she took in his features, noticing the baby face he had, and how adorable he looked. His glasses were slightly crooked but he didn’t seem to notice. His lips were slightly chapped, and she noticed that he was chewing on his pen. Something he usually did when he was nervous. Milly decided it was probably because of the test they were taking.
Wait. Shit. There’s a test they were doing.
She quickly averted her eyes and got back to her paper.
Milly watched as Elliot adorably rambled to her about the different types of flowers and their meanings.
The tall and lanky boy was hunched over, fiddling with the plants with a soft smile on his face. The sun was fully out today, with clear skies. The very few clouds that were scattered around in big fluffy bunches just made the sky look absolutely breathtaking. Milly also couldn’t breathe.
Not because of the sky.
Elliot.
He had glanced back at Milly, possibly after asking a question with a tilt of his head and a small toothy grin, one eyebrow raised. The clouds had shifted just slightly for the sun to expose its heavenly rays upon his face, making his brown eyes sparkle. A small breeze blew slightly, causing leaves to rain down. Milly watched as one landed on his head, and was snapped out of her trance.
She tried to fight back a smile, but a small snort escaped her lips.
Elliot had asked what was so funny, looking confused as he had a slight pout, eyebrows furrowed.
Milly wouldn’t answer, and only plucked the leaf out of his hair, causing the boy to go into a panicked, flustered frenzy.
“Ugh, why did we have to get cleaning duty?” Milly groaned, dragging out the words as she complained.
Elliot chuckled slightly, sweeping the classroom with the broom, “Well, the rotations changed again today so..”
Milly sighed, wiping down the windows. Gazing outside, she noticed that there were some clouds starting to roll in. She checked her phone and the weather reports stated that there’d be a severe thunderstorm, and that everyone should stay inside. There was a small flash flood warning too.
Distantly, there was a rumble that fell from the sky causing Milly to glance back up at the window. She noticed it had started to rain.
“Great, now we gotta walk home in this too? Cmon!” She complained, throwing out the cloth and crossing her arms. She turned around and leaned against the ledge on the window, gazing into the classroom now.
Milly’s eyebrows were furrowed in frustration as her thoughts consumed her brain.
She then noticed that Elliot had gone silent- er-, wasn’t talking anymore. Which was odd. He usually likes to ramble about flowers whenever it goes silent.
She looked up and found the boy almost glaring at the ground, a white-knuckle grip on the broom as his chest quickly heaved up and down. Another rumble sounded throughout the sky and a small gasp escaped the boy's lips as he screwed his eyes shut.
Oh.
He was scared of thunder.
“Hey- Elliot.. what’s wrong..?” She spoke, concerned.
Elliot took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, “N-Nothing-.. I’m f-fine..”
Milly walked over towards him and took the broom out of his hands, causing him to jolt slightly. She propped the broom up by a desk and stood in front of the pink-haired boy.
“Is it the thunder?”
His eyes widened slightly as he hunched in on himself. Elliot was silent for a moment, before he nodded, staring daggers at the ground as if he were ashamed of it.
Another crackle resounded from the sky and as Elliot flinched violently, Milly quickly raised her hands up to his face to cover his ears on impulse.
Her face burned red realizing what she did, and she was about to pull her hands away with an apology but stopped when she noticed tension seeping out of the boy’s shoulders, and that he was leaning into her touch.
Okay. This works.
Milly had a better idea though.
She slightly raised her right hand from his ear so he could hear her, “Elliot? Why don’t we go to the music room? There’s noise canceling headphones there..”
He nodded.
Milly was having a shit day.
Zoey was picking on her again, her grade in math dropped a level and she was left with a C simply because she forgot to write her name on a test, Drew was messing with Jake again , and she just felt like garbage in general.
Pacing back and forth, she needed to just- move. Her fingers twitched as she fiddled with the nails, hands moving to rub her arms and then flapping at her sides and moving all around.
Milly felt anxious.
Taking a deep breath and abruptly stopping, she clenched her fists and held her arms at her side, trying to calm down.
A small sob tore its way out of her throat, and she exhaled through her nose violently. Biting her lip, she buried her face in her hands and gritted her teeth, desperately attempting to keep the sobs at bay. Pushing her hands up and through her hair, she took in a deep breath, and her eyes fluttered open.
With blurred vision, she tried to blink the tears away but they ended up just cascading down her face. She was crying. Fuck.
Hiding in-between hedged bushes, far away from students, she buried her face in her knees and sobbed. Milly was tired of it all. School was terrible, and there wasn’t even a club practice for her to look forward to today.
With no energy left, she lazily tilted her head to the side, resting on her knees, silently crying.
“Milly..?”
Oh for fucks sake.
Milly quickly wiped the tears away, frustrated that someone somehow found her. She was about to harshly tell them to get lost but the words died out in her throat as she glanced up at who was there.
Red eyes met brown.
“Oh my-” Elliot had gasped, immediately side-stepping over the hedge and crouching down by Milly, hands worriedly hovering over her as if he didn’t know where to place them, “Milly! What happened?”
Her lower lip trembled and against her will, more tears fell down her face as she sniffled. She quickly covered her face with her right arm, frantically waving Elliot away with the left one as she tried to reassure that she was fine.
“I-I’m-” sob “O-Okay, Just a-allergies..”
“I know you’re lying, Mills. Seriously… what happened..?” Elliot asked, voice softening as if he were on the verge of tears just from milly crying.
Not able to form a sentence, she shrugged and shook her head, averting her eyes to the right so Elliot wouldn’t see her face.
A small silence surrounded them for a moment, besides Milly’s quiet sniffling.
Just then, Milly felt herself being tugged to the side, warm arms wrapping around her and cradling her to a chest. She could feel Elliot pressing the side of his face into her hair, trying to bring her a sense of comfort.
Crying a little more but with a smile on her face, Milly just leaned side-ways into Elliot, closing her eyes and savoring the attention.
And if a few little kisses were pressed to her head, Milly wouldn’t bring it up and neither would Elliot. That’d be a confession for another time.