While Anna waited in the mortal cemetery for Ryan to show up, she kept telling herself that he wasn't coming. She sat under a skinny tree in the cemetery, trying to focus on studying for her science test. Finklestein would get mad if she failed her make-up exam, and she didn't need him telling her parents that she was starting to sleep in class more and more. But no matter how hard she tried to focus, her mind kept jumping around trying to find a reason why Ryan was late meeting her. He'd never been late any of the times before that, and they'd been meeting almost every day for almost a month.
Maybe he changed his mind and didn't want to. Maybe he decided he didn't want to talk to her ever again and that not meeting her was the best way to let her know. Every time she thought of a new reason, it just seemed to get worse than the reasons she'd come up with before. At one point, she'd even thought that maybe he'd gotten killed.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. Being a few minutes late wasn't a crime. Besides, it gave her a few extra minutes to study on her own.
"He's probably not coming anyway," She murmured to herself with her eyes on the book. She didn't understand anything she was reading, but she knew that when in doubt, choose C. Sure, she'd probably fail that way, but it was better than leaving a whole bunch of answers blank. Wasn't it?
A few minutes later, she looked up and saw him running to her. Her heart did what felt like thousands of black flips, and it took every ounce of control that she had not to smile too big when she saw him.
"Sorry I'm so late," He said, "My boss wanted me to stay late and close up, I tried to get out of it but--"
"It's fine," She said. It really was fine, she was just glad he hadn't decided he'd had enough of her. She didn't think she'd be able to shake the habit of coming to the mortal world every afternoon after school to meet with him. It had become such a custom that not doing it would feel strange. "I was able to do some studying while I waited anyway."
"What're you studying for?" He asked as he sat down beside her and moved so he could look over her shoulder. His closeness was making it hard for her to breathe. Figuratively, of course, since skeletons didn't have lungs.
"My science test tomorrow. I failed it last time and my grandpa-- he's my private teacher-- is giving me a chance to make it up."
To her surprise, he took the book out of her hands. "Alright then, let me quiz you." She didn't know if she should, a part of her didn't want him to know how scientifically inept she was, but another part of her was glad to have him help. She couldn't find a justifiable reason to go with the part that was glad he wanted to help, but she did.
That’s how they spent that day. He'd ask her a question and she'd give him her best answer. Most of the time she gave him the wrong answer and he had to tell her what the right one was, but after a while she started being able to get most of them right. Especially when he taught her little acronyms and tricks to remember the stuff she was having trouble with.
"Can I ask you a completely non-science related question?" Ryan asked.
"Sure,"
"Why is it that you wear a skirt over your pants?" His question seemed strange at first, but then it suddenly didn't. "I mean, I know a lot of girls wear their skirts like that, I was just wondering..."
"It’s because I like skirts," She said quickly, putting her hands on the purple fabric with the little spider prints scattered about. "But I can't just wear skirts, you know? I need to hide my boney legs." and something about that made him laugh. After she thought about it, she realized what was so funny, and once she did, she started laughing too.
"Makes sense,"
And, just like that, he'd dropped the topic all together and went back to helping her study. He seemed to like helping her so much, and she wondered why. Maybe it helped him consider her as more human when he thought of her as a student. Just like him. Well, she didn't really care, actually. She was glad he liked helping her, no matter what his ulterior motive was.
While they were studying, Anna had laid down on the grass under the tree and closed her eyes. She only meant to rest there for a minute, and maybe a part of her should've known that if she was tired that meant she was late getting home-- but it was like her mind didn't want her to remember. It wanted her to stay with Ryan, even though it knew she'd get in big trouble for being so late.
Ryan looked over at Anna, who hadn't answered his last question yet. But when he did, he saw her curled up with her eyes closed. He smiled to himself, despite not knowing what to do about it. In the end, he decided that the best thing to do would be to take off his black jacket and put it over her shoulders just so she wouldn't get cold.
He liked that skeleton girl. There had been times during the last month that he'd forgotten she was even a skeleton at all. It took a lot of self control to resist pushing her thick black hair away from her face and placing a kiss on her cheek. He'd never liked a girl like he liked her, but he didn't want to do anything that would ruin their friendship. She was the only real friend he had, and he'd be damned if he would let anything ruin it.
So he didn't kiss her. Instead, he just put her book down beside her and left her to sleep in the cemetery. His own mother would be worried about him if he didn't get home soon, and it never even occurred to him that Anna might get in trouble with her parents if he didn't wake her up. It had somehow managed to slip his mind; maybe he was too busy trying not to think of Anna in any other way than as a friend.
When Anna opened her eyes, it was the break of dawn and she had Ryan's coat over her shoulders. It took her a few sleepy moments to realize that it was morning and she wasn't home yet. When everything caught up with her, she threw Ryan's jacket over her shoulders and grabbed her text book off the ground. She didn't have time to take Ryan back his jacket, but she convinced herself that she'd do it next time she saw him.
If her parents ever let her out of her room again.
Anna came back to the Halloween town cemetery, half thinking that maybe she could use that 'fell asleep' lie again. But the one thing she didn't count on was to see her parents talking to the Hanging Tree, trying to find her. She half thought she could sneak past them, but she didn't know why she thought that. It was stupid; of course she wouldn't be able to. Especially after one of the Hanging Tree's hanging men pointed her out, making her parents catch her climbing out of the tomb red handed.
She smiled sheepishly. "Hi,"
"Hi," Her dad said darkly, crossing his long arms over his chest.
"I can explain."
"I'm going to love this," He said.
Her eyes flickered between her parents as she tried to come up with some last-resort save-my-ass lie that would get her out of trouble. But in the end she decided she was in too deep to come up with something life saving. Besides, she was wearing a mortal boy's jacket. There was no way she could explain
that.
So, with a sigh, she confessed everything.
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A/N below:
Ooh a cliff hanger! xD I hope you guys liked it! I hope it doesn't seem too rushed, I had some stuff planned for before this, but it wasn't really anything... exact. You know? It’s like...little bits of stuff that no one would miss anyway.
