It Started With a Whisper

"Aria, can I see you for a moment?" Dave tried to stop me for the third time in the past two weeks.

"I'm sorry. I really have to go." I ran out of the room before he could get another word out. I had been avoiding him since our "date"...if you could even call it that. I didn't really want to talk to him. I didn't want him to give me an excuse for why he had to leave. I didn't want him to make it up to me. I wanted the situation to be left alone before it got any deeper than it already was. We'd almost gotten busted by Daniel, and that was enough to scare me out of ever wanting to go on another date with Dave again.

"Why won't you talk to him?" Amelia asked, following me out of the classroom.

"Because I don't want to have the conversation I know he's waiting for. I don't want to go on another date. Daniel almost saw us, Amelia. If that isn't a sign, then I don't know what is." She rolled her eyes and shook her head at me. She had been doing that a lot lately, and it was starting to annoy me.

"Why don't you just tell him that instead of avoiding him? The poor man is confused as hell. He's going to start asking me questions soon, and I will not hesitate to snitch you out." Of course she would be the one to tell him everything. I sighed and pushed my hair out of my face.

"You suck, you know that?" I looked around for Daniel, hoping he'd show up soon. I decided to meet him for lunch. Maybe I could learn to like him. He was the better option for me anyway.

"Yes. Billie enjoys that." I gagged and shook my head.

"You're disgusting."

"Yeah, I know. So what are we doing for your birthday?" I was thankful for the subject change, but I didn't want to start on this topic either. Amelia knew better than anyone that I hated discussing my birthday or anything related to it. I hated the attention that came with turning a year older. I just felt like it was unnecessary.

"My birthday was three weeks ago." I pointed out, hoping she'd get the hint that I didn't want to do anything.

"Exactly, and what did we do? Nothing. Come on, you're finally legal. You should at least want to go to a club or something." I quickly shook my head, shutting that suggestion down. I hated the idea of being in a club. I hated the idea of being surrounded by strangers and getting groped by a guy that I didn't know. It just wasn't a pleasant thought for me.

"Not happening."

"Okay, a party?"

"That's not happening either. We're not doing anything for my birthday, Amelia. Our movie night was just fine," I said, looking around for Daniel. I needed him to show his face within the next twenty seconds.

"That doesn't count. We have those like twice a week." She had a point, but I didn't care either way.

"Hey Aria." I sang the hallelujah chorus in my head and said bye to Amelia before pulling Daniel away.

"Everything alright?" he asked as we made our way to the campus food court.

"Yeah. She was just bugging me about some stuff."

"I have something for you," he said, reaching into his backpack.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I know you're birthday passed a couple weeks ago, but I haven't really gotten the chance to see you." He pulled a box out of his backpack and handed it to me.

"You really didn't have to get me anything." I didn't even want to open the box. I hated accepting gifts. I already had more than I could ask for.

"I wanted to. Open it." I grabbed the top of the box and pulled it open, slightly nervous for what sat inside. I found myself staring at a pair of dog tags with a small engraving on them.

"I know how much you love Cameron. I just figured that this way you could always have some part of him with you for when you couldn't see him." I saw that the engraving was Cameron's name and birthday. As much as I hated gifts, that happened to be a really cool one.

"That was really thoughtful of you, Daniel. Thank you." I wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug and reached up to kiss his cheek before sliding the dog tag over my head. When we finally sat down to eat, everything was going great, but of course, the universe just couldn't let me be stress free for a full 24 hours.

"Aria, I really need to talk to you. It's about your grade in my class." I wanted to slam my head on the table, but I didn't want to make it too obvious that there was something going on. I knew Dave wanting to talk to me had absolutely nothing to do with my grade, and the fact that he would stoop to that point just pissed me off.

"Can it wait?" I asked, a harsh tone in my voice. I was actually enjoying my lunch with Daniel, and I could feel the good energy deteriorating.

"No." I glared at Dave and stood, grabbing my trash.

"I'm sorry, Daniel. Maybe we can meet up later in the week and try this again." I could see that he was upset as well. I just hoped he wasn't upset with me.

"It's fine. I'll text you later." He kissed my cheek before disappearing. I threw my trash away, but I could feel Dave fuming next to me. This was going to be an interesting conversation. I could have sworn he had a class right now, and I hoped he hadn't cancelled it just so he could get on my case about something we really shouldn't be having a conversation about in the first place. When we got back to his classroom, it was completely empty. So he had cancelled his second class. Wonderful. I walked into his office and sat down in the same chair I had the previous time I had been in there.

"Why are you avoiding me?" He didn't beat around the bush at all. I was grateful for that. It meant that this conversation would be over quicker than I thought.

"I'm not avoiding you. I've been busy." I didn't know why I lied. Maybe I was trying to sugar coat everything because I really didn't want Dave to leave me alone.

"Bullshit, Aria. What's going on?" It was better to just get everything out now.

"Daniel saw me at the restaurant when you stepped out to take your phone call. No, he doesn't know that you were there. I lied and told him that I was out with my sister, but the point is that we were extremely close to getting busted. If you hadn't gotten that phone call and walked out, Daniel would have seen you. He's already had speculations that something was going on with us, and I convinced him otherwise. Either way, I just don't think it's safe for us to see each other. Daniel almost seeing us is bad enough. Next time it might be a faculty member or someone worse. It's just not worth it." My words had come out fast, but I could tell by the look on his face that he understood exactly what I was saying.

"Then we won't go out in public. I can go to your place. You can come to mine. We'll make it work." I shook my head.

"No. I don't want to be stuck in my apartment with you all the time. I want to be able to go out and do things normal people do. I want to go to the movies and to amusements parks, but we can't do that." He took a couple steps toward me and reached for my hands, but I quickly snatched them away and walked to the other side of the room.

"Aria, why can't we just try?"

"Because I'm not risking my education for you, and you shouldn't be risking your job for me. I'm not that special."

"Yes you are." I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag from the floor.

"No I'm not, and I really think it's best if we don't talk outside of class anymore. Goodbye, Mr. Franco."