Chapter 33 Aria
I didn’t sleep. Shocker, I know but apparently when someone you’ve been low-key obsessed with for months casually drops, “I’m not completely human,” your brain doesn’t just clock out for the night. Instead, it does this fun thing where it replays the entire conversation frame by frame like a forensic crime documentary complete with dramatic zoom-ins on Luca’s face.
By morning, I looked like someone who’d been dragged behind a truck. Mom knocked on my door at 7 a.m. and cracked it open. “Sweetie? Breakfast is—oh. Yikes!”
“Thanks,” I muttered from where I was curled on the bed like a Victorian child with consumption.
“Late night studying?” she asked.
“Yep,” I lied.
She blinked slowly and nodded like she was deciding whether to ask more then backed out. “I’ll make extra coffee.”
Bless her!
When I finally dragged myself to school, my head felt like it was stuffed with static. Luca wasn’t at his locker, the hallway, or anywhere which was infuriating because I had about 900 questions and zero stability holding me together.
So naturally, the universe sent me Sienna. She latched onto my arm as soon as I walked into homeroom, eyes bright and braids perfect smelling like vanilla and righteous judgment.
“You look like death,” she said cheerfully. “What happened? Did you stay up scrolling through IG again?”
“Ha!” I muttered, dropping into my seat. “Worse.”
She gasped. “You watched your old middle school reels?”
“Sienna.”
“Okay, okay, tell me.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Luca trusted me with something huge and bigger than I could shape into words, jokes or metaphors. I didn’t even understand it yet but the silence was clawing at my throat and Sienna was staring at me like she was ready to stage an intervention.
So I went with the safest half-truth I could scrape together.
“Luca told me something yesterday,” I said quietly. “Something big.”
She perked up like a cat hearing a can opener. “Oooooh. Spill.”
I fiddled with my pen. My heartbeat suddenly felt too loud.
“He said he’s…” I swallowed. “Not completely human.”
Sienna blinked then blinked again.
Then all I heard was a loud laughter with snorts in-between. Yeah, I couldn't blame her cause that had been my exact reaction.
“Oh my GOD,” she whispered, grabbing my hand. “Aria, babe. He told you he’s emotionally unavailable?”
My forehead hit my desk with a thud. “No.”
She gasped. “Oh! He’s like metaphorically monstrous. You know—‘I’m damaged, stay away, I’m dangerous,’ blah blah vibe?”
“No,” I groaned, dragging a hand down my face.
“Oh, he thinks he’s different,” she continued dramatically. “Like, he’s soooo dark and tortured that being human doesn’t even—”
“Sienna,” I said, desperate, “he meant it literally.”
She snorted. Actually snorted again. “Yeah, but that’s what guys like him always say. It’s code for ‘I have trust issues’ or ‘I punched a wall in seventh grade.’ They always think they’re some mysterious creature of the night. Plus I warned you to stay away from him!”
“I think he was serious,” I whispered.
She patted my shoulder like I’d said something adorable. “Aria, sweetheart. Luca Hale is a lot of things—tall, hot, allergic to smiling but he’s not actually inhuman.”
I stared at her, trying to decide if I was losing my grip on reality or if she was just exceptionally committed to missing the point. Maybe both.
“So what exactly did he say?” she asked, propping her chin in her hand.
I replayed it in my head—the way he paced, kept stopping himself and the way his voice went secretive and careful. The tension in his shoulders like every word was a risk.
“He said he hears things people don’t,” I said softly. “Feels things stronger and moves differently. He wasn’t bragging or trying to be spooky. But gosh! He looked scared to tell me.”
Something in Sienna’s expression softened just a bit.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Real talk. Maybe he meant it in a trauma way like he’s been through stuff. Family stuff and the only way he knows how to express it is through dramatic metaphors.”
I opened my mouth then closed it. Because honestly? If I hadn’t been there, hearing him say it with a seriousness that made the room feel smaller, I might’ve believed that too. But the way he made that statement, it wasn’t a metaphor. He meant it. Deep in his bones meant it.
“And before you spiral,” Sienna added, nudging me with her elbow, “this doesn’t change the fact that you like him.”
My eyebrows shot up. “We are not—”
“Aria, please. I’ve seen the way you looks at him. And he’s always hovering like he’s waiting for someone to steal you.”
“That’s not—”
She rolled her eyes. “He literally almost tackled Ethan Henderson last week because Ethan stepped too close to your locker.”
“That was because Ethan is an idiot.”
“And because Luca is into you.”
I sank lower in my seat. The truth? Last night, when he told me the impossible, there was this moment where his guard cracked and I saw something raw, terrifying and unbelievably real. I wasn’t scared of him. I was scared of how much I suddenly wanted to understand him.
Class began but I barely heard the teacher. My brain was too full. He’s not human. So what was he? And why did it feel like my life had just veered off into a world I wasn’t prepared for but couldn’t walk away from?
By lunchtime, Sienna had moved on to drama club gossip and someone allegedly stealing costumes but my mind was stuck with three words looping like a curse:
Not. Completely. Human.
Because if Luca wasn’t lying, if he wasn’t exaggerating and if he wasn’t unraveling emotionally, then my world was about to get a whole lot weirder.
And the terrifying thing was, I wasn’t sure I hated that.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Aria is officially in her “my crush might not be human but I’m weirdly into it??” era, and honestly same. The way she’s spiraling quietly while Sienna thinks Luca was just being dramatic? Peak high-school best-friend energy, chaos, and denial.
I love that Aria’s brain is trying to do algebra with the supernatural while Sienna’s over here interpreting it as, “Aw, he’s emotionally complicated.”
Anyway—buckle up.The confusion is only just beginning, and the girl has NO idea just how right she is. Till then my lovelies❤️.