Chapter Eleven

ALL THE THINGS I'VE YET TO DO (6) : WATCH THE SUNRISE WITH MY FRIENDS

Everyone leaves Christian’s house around 9, saying that their parents will kill them if they go missing two nights in a row. I get a few odd and suggestive looks when I tell them I’m not going home yet.

“Sleepover at mine tomorrow?” asks Ariel as she’s hugging me goodbye.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” I assure her.

Now, it’s just Christian and I sitting on the swing again. “You tired?” he asks as he kicks off the ground. “If you want to sleep we can set an alarm.”

“I’m okay,” I say, although the thought of being snuggled up with him does sound good.

He suddenly swats at his arm and jumps up. “Let’s go inside, the bugs are coming out.”

I grab my bag and follow him up to his room. This time, I look around as we go up the stairs. Along the walls are pictures of him and Natalie. At the top, there is a large family portrait. To the far right of the picture is an unfamiliar man. He is around six feet tall and he has one arm around Christian’s mom, while his other hand is on Natalie’s shoulder. My heart hurts for the family, and I pray that he will be home soon.

Christian turns into the first room on the left. When he turns on the lights, I realize that I didn’t look around his room much either. Various plaques and awards adorn his walls: both academic and athletic. I never would have guessed that he is this smart if he never told me about school.

I throw my bag on the bed as he hands me a towel and a washcloth, saying, “You can use my bathroom, I’ll use the one down the hall.”

I smile gratefully and head into his ensuite. The bathroom is fairly large, holding both a stand up shower and a bathtub jacuzzi. “I wonder how many girls he’s banged in there,” I accidentally wonder aloud.

After stripping my clothes, I look at myself in the mirror. I look like a mess. My hair is all over the place, and there are visible dark circles under my eyes. And what exactly am I doing here? I made a promise to myself to not get attached to anyone new. More importantly, I wasn’t supposed to let anyone new get attached to me.

Christian is stubborn. Now that he knows I’m broken, he won’t stop until he thinks I’m fixed. There is no fixing me, why can’t he understand?

I step into his stand up shower and close the door. When I turn the water on, I jump back at the coldness. It finally heats up, and I let the steam envelop me. On the shelf is a bottle of men’s body wash. Shrugging, I pour it onto the cloth and lather myself up. To be honest, this shit smells like crack and I could spend hours just standing here smelling the bottle. After letting the water wash away the suds, I turn the tap off.

Wrapping myself in the towel, I take my face wash out of my toiletry bag and complete my skincare routine. I follow with my lotion and return to the room. At the same time I open the door, Christian is stepping in from the hallway.

We both eye each other up and down in our matching towels. At the same time, we burst out laughing. For no reason whatsoever, we can’t seem to stop. Any other group of people would have found a way to sexualize the situation, but not us. Finally sobering up, I grab my clothes and go back to the washroom to get dressed.

I’ve found that it’s easier to be myself around him now. I supposed, after telling him about my brother, and him meeting my parents, I don’t have much to hide. The only thing that absolutely no one knows about now is where I’m going at the end of the summer.

Once dressed, I exit the bathroom to find Christian laying on his bed in a pair of black sweatpants. He pats the spot next to him and I happily oblige.

I check the time on my phone and note that we still have several hours before the sun begins to rise. “What’s your favourite colour?” I ask, trying to pass the time.

He gives me a weird look before catching on. “Blue, you?”

“Purple. Not dark purple though, that’s easily my least favourite colour,” I say confidently.

“Yellow is my least favourite,” he responds. “I bet it looks nice on you though. It would compliment your skin tone.”

My cheeks grow hot and I playfully hit him for complimenting me. “Shut up.”

“What’s your favourite flower?” he asks, recovering from my abuse.

I lean back onto the pillow behind me before answering, “Sunflowers. What about you? Wait, do guys have favourite flowers?”

“I, personally, like white roses, but no, I don’t think most guys have favourite flowers,” he chuckles.

We go on like this for another hour, just asking each other basic light hearted questions. It’s funny how we knew each other’s trauma before knowing simple things like each other’s favourite foods. Getting to know him is easy and terrifying at the same time. I think that we both have this understanding that whatever we are right now is fine and we don’t make any effort to try and make it anything more. Sure, the banter is fun, but nothing will come of it. I, at least, will make sure of it.

I realize that I’ve been zoned out for a while and when I look up, Christian is watching me. Suddenly, I feel self-conscious under his gaze, and all of my insecurities rise to the surface.

“What happened with you and Olivia?” I ask, trying to find a reason to not feel the way I do right now.

“Nothing,” he says simply

I narrow my eyes at him. “Bullshit.”

He shrugs and moves to lay down with his hands interlocked behind his head. “You don’t have to believe me, but nothing happened. She was kind of annoying and everything she did felt like she was putting on a show.”

I nod, not wanting to audibly agree, but also not wanting to continue the conversation.

“What happened between you and Ace?” he asks.

His question catches me off guard. “Nothing.”

“He likes you, you know. I saw the way he looked at you,”

“He’s like a brother to me, he doesn’t like me like that,”

“Whatever you say,”

“It’s exactly what I’m saying,” I huff, rolling over so that I’m facing the other direction. “Does your mom not care that you have a girl sleeping over?”

He snorts before saying, “For reasons I cannot comprehend, she likes you. She thinks you’re ‘different’ whatever that means.”

I roll back over with a toothy grin. “She’s a good judge of character. She knows you’re not getting in my pants.”

“Only time will tell, Man Eater,” he flashes a smile of his own.

Unfortunately, time is not on our side, Christian.

Instead of dampening the mood, I reply, “In your dreams.”

Christian reaches over and turns off the lam, then pulls me closer by my waist. “If you’re in my dreams, I can’t wait to fall asleep.”

“That was disgustingly cheesy,” I gag, but scoot closer to him nonetheless.

“I think it worked though,” he whispers as his eyes begin to shut. I cuddle into his chest while proceeds to tell Siri to set an alarm for us.

“I don’t think it worked,” I say between yawns.

I feel the vibration of his chest as he laughs and I fall asleep with a smile on my face.

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Shorter chapter but I finished this at like 4am because I kept changing it and I'm not sure if I like how it turned out????? Fuck it tbh.