Alex
Dear Nobody,
The last couple weeks of my life have been, dare I say, kind of weirdly amazing. And I know that sounds weird coming from Ms. Part-time Doom and Gloom, but when your boyfriend is the spectacularly crazy Elias King, and your best friends are hippie rebels, there's never a dull moment.
It all started with Carmageddon.
And, no I'm not talking about a massive traffic jam, I'm talking about what went down in a certain someone's (formerly) bright pink convertible a couple weeks back.
Elias and I have appropriately named the stink that has followed Roxy around since Karma's horrific bout of the runs, "Eau de Revenge."
That's right ladies and gents, the self proclaimed queen of our quad still totes around a faint odor of dog crap whenever she comes and goes.
It doesn't matter how much Ralph Lauren perfume she puts on or how many showers she's taken.
Karma follows her wherever she goes.
Justice has been served.
Now, I know that letting Karma partake in a diarrhea fest in her perfectly pink car might have been taking things too far. But honestly, sometimes going too far makes life a little sweeter.
Now I'm not saying, I'd ever do something like this again.
But I love the way Elias laughs whenever I even mention Roxy's name. It's a beautiful thing to see because I remember when the guy barely even smiled. All I have to do is pinch my nose whenever we're in the hallway and his whole face lights up at the memory of how things went down.
Apparently, after Roxy discovered our little "gift", she screamed so loudly that the campus police had to rush up to the top of Sunset Rec. to see what was wrong. And boy did they see. Karma did so much damage that our little fame hungry RA ended up in the Daily Bruin---at least, a photo of her car did anyway.
Everyone was talking about it.
And when I say everyone I mean practically the entire campus.
No matter where Roxy goes, people stop what they're doing and step a couple inches away from her.
Okay, so that part isn't actually as amusing as it sounds. Roxy's turned into a social pariah mainly because of people being repulsed by her odor. I kind of feel bad about it, but then again, the petty half of me feels like we properly leveled the playing field.
Sorry Rox, but what goes around comes around.
Fact.
Anyway, onto the next reason life has been amazing of late: Indigo and Ryker.
The two of them are inarguably the weirdest people I've ever met in my life. But I love them. And so does Elias. Sometimes, I feel like he likes Ryker more than me, but details. It's cute watching them hangout together because whenever we double date (which we do--often) he follows Ryker around like an adoring puppy and hangs on every wise word he says.
I'm glad he has a friend. Elias was kind of a loner before he met Ryker, although he'd never admit that. He used to try to make up for it by throwing around his best-seller status, but success is almost always a cover for loneliness. He hasn't spoken to Tanner in forever, and sometimes I worry about the fact that the only person he has is me. But now he has Ryker, who's older, and cooler, and way smarter (do not tell him I said that), and it's doing him a lot of good.
Meanwhile, Indigo and I have become practically inseparable--aside from the times where she tells me she needs meditation space and then disappears into the universe like she always does. But it's nice having someone to talk to who isn't judging me like the rest of the people around campus.
Thanks to Roxy's idiotic debacle there's been an unhealthy amount of attention on the quad from the general public. People who don't even live here show up sometimes to "look around" and see if the rumors are true.
"Does Elias King really live here?"
"How close is he with other people in the quad?"
"Is he hiding a secret girlfriend somewhere in his room?!"
And so on and so forth.
Yes, he lives here.
Yes, he's close with two out of four people living in the quad.
And yes he's hiding his secret girlfriend in his room because you douchebags have made going out in public a literal nightmare.
The truth is, going out on dates has been tricky. If it wasn't for Indigo and Ryker creating distractions in the lobby so Elias and I can sneak out the back, or us having to leave separately and meet up at our date location later, spending time with Elias without being seen would be impossible.
Elias and I usually lock ourselves in our rooms during the hours when the stalkers pass by.
Some of them are worse than others. Most come and go with their phones out, take a couple pictures of his door or wait for Elias to come downstairs and snap a photo. Those are the tolerable ones. The worst kind are the ones who follow him home, knock on his door in the middle of the night, or leave creepy "Letters to Elias" in the hallway.
What do they write to him, you ask?
Let's just say we've spent a good couple nights sitting on his bed reading them together laughing and cringing until we cried.
Sometimes all you can do is make a joke of the situation.
Even though parts of it aren't funny at all.
Like the fact that some people are beginning to figure out who I am now. No thanks to the Just Jared article that came out a few days after the Barnes and Noble debacle, more than a few of Elias's fans here at UCLA have discovered that the Alex he mentioned might be the same one who lives across the hall.
Now this is next level creeping, but if I'm honest about it, it scares the both of us.
Especially, Elias.
He's been especially protective of me lately. Every time I come back from class with a story about how another random person approached me asking if I'm the real life Jersey, or tell him some of the uglier things they've said to me, he freaks out.
And I hate watching it happen.
He'll get on the phone and beg Lisa to do something, or offer to walk me to and from every single class regardless of the publicity nightmare that would be, and as much as I love him for it, I turn him down. I tell him I'll be okay. Even though there are times when I'm not.
There are some girls who trash talk me and speculate things I'd rather not repeat to him.
And class?
Talk about a nightmare. Any friends I might have had avoid me like the plague, and Annie Big Tits Berkowitz acts like she has everything between Elias and I all figured out. But neither of us humor her. I do my best to ignore her and her passive aggressive notes under the table during Professor Hayes's lectures. Even though her guesses are right. Even though she makes it perfectly clear that she knows his book is about me. I confirm nothing.
Honestly, I shouldn't even be complaining because Elias deals with even larger floods of people bothering him everyday. And if they're not harassing him, they're staring at him until he feels like a zoo animal in a cage.
Those days are the hardest. Ones where he comes home and just wants to lay in the quiet and not say anything for a long while . Some days when he walks in he's barely breathing. Just hanging onto his sanity by a thread. Between the long and stressful phone calls with the media and Lisa; to trying to balance the workload of co-teaching a class in addition to attending his own, he's fraying at the edges.
I see the cracks in his smiles.
I see how tired his eyes are when he comes home lately.
How he falls asleep halfway through trying to make date plans that both of us need but barely have the time to act on anymore.
We need to get away for a little while.
We need time for just us.
To build ourselves up.
To heal.
Time away from the noise, from school, from everything.
So I've made a secret plan that I'm going to drop on Elias right in time for Thanksgiving Break (which is in two days so I've got to make sure everything's ready to go).
As far as I know, he's made no mention of having any turkey day festivity plans, so Indigo, Ryker, and I have arranged a surprise "Vegan Indigenous People's Celebration Day" for the four of us to enjoy together.
Over the last couple weeks, I've been low-key ditching Elias to go out on girl dates with Indigo to finalize the plans. She's happily introduced me to the world of vegan raw organic cuisine and is teaching me how to make a killer "no kill necessary" Thanksgiving tofurkey that Elias might love or hate.
I'm hoping for the former.
We've handpicked out all the ingredients for the stuffing, have spent most of our financial aid on groceries from Whole Foods, and have even made a test dish or two to try on our own.
Neither of the boys have tasted anything because we want the entire meal to be a surprise.
I just hope to heaven Elias likes it.
If all else fails, I've got my mom's recipe for Cinnamon Pumpkin Pie I'm making, and I'm sure he'll be happy about that.
Honestly, I can't wait to do this for him. He's been so weighed down lately that I've been scrambling to think of ways to pull him out of it, and I think this is it.
Besides, it's not like Tanner or his dad have called to invite him for Thanksgiving dinner. He talks to his mom all the time, but I don't hear those conversations. He's been really private about talking to her in front of me lately, which is mildly concerning, but I'm sure he has his reasons.
Maybe he doesn't want me to know that he doesn't have anywhere to go this Thanksgiving.
That's why I can't wait to do all of this. So he knows he has a family to spend the holidays with regardless of what's going on at home.
Indigo and Ryker already had plans to spend Thanksgiving in Ryker's van camped out on the beach (which is the planned location of our feast by the way). They're both so independent they have the luxury of having their holiday wherever they want. Normally, I would've gone back to Jersey, but my parents can't afford to fly me home, so I figured Elias, Ryker, Indigo and I could make our own family.
He's happiest when he's with us. Not when he's stuck around fame hungry fans on campus, or standing in front of a class of strangers. He just needs time to just be him, not the person everyone expects him to be.
So I figure a tofu turkey (Tofurkey) surprise party will do him some good!
Although, last time Indigo and Ryker tried taking us to a vegan restaurant Elias got too adventurous and ended up with the runs---but I'm sure he'll be fine this time.
Bodies adjust, right?
Right!
And even if he ends up stuck on the toilet for hours after our meal, as long as he knows that I wanted Thanksgiving to be special for him (diarrhea or not), it should be one heck of a surprise holiday.
Fingers crossed.
-Alex
***
(Thank you guys so much for reading/listening! I'm sorry there's been such a huge delay. It is cold/flu season here in Germany and I'm not one for the cold haha. The next update will be on Tuesday! That's right (no more three week waiting periods haha). We've got an entertaining couple of chapters coming up for you guys so stay tuned!)
PS: BONUS QUESTION OF THE WEEKEND--If you could invite one character from CFTM and/or FHKH to Thanksgiving who would it be and why? Leave your answers in the comments!)