and then you left // cth

chapter 32: marry me, alexis

seven months ago
alexis

"Lex," Calum whispered from behind me. We were in English, our last class of the day. He sat in the row of desks directly behind me, after the teacher had moved him away from me due to our constant chatter. But there was so much to talk about, and so little time.

The classroom smelled of sour perfume and sleep deprivation. The class was relatively quiet, due to the exhaustion that tended to set in for teenagers towards the end of the school day. It was only the beginning of the second semester, a few weeks after the end of Christmas break. It was a time of year that painstakingly lacked motivation, seeing as spring break was looming, but still months away.

"What?" I whispered over my shoulder, craning my neck to look at Calum. He laughed and flicked a rubber band at the boy who sat next to me. The boy reached behind him and flipped Calum off, without even looking back to see his reaction. Calum responded with an exaggerated gasp, and I rolled my eyes at their level of immaturity, turning around to face Calum. He was wearing black jeans and the infamous Santa Cruz hoodie that I had bought him for his birthday. I remembered his smile when he opened the box, and how he squeezed me tight as a thank you. He was so pure and innocent sometimes, and I loved that about him. It amazed me how he could sometimes act like such a kid but then when necessary, he was suddenly a protective and responsible adult.

Foreshadowing is a powerful concept, but it was one that I had not yet picked up on.

"What do you wanna do after school?" he asked me, and I weighed our options, noticing the way the hood was messing up his hair in the cutest way possible.

We would hang out almost every day after school, usually grabbing food or coffee before going out on an adventure. We both hated being home with our parents, and so we spent most of our free time together. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was beginning to realize that I might have been relying too much on Calum, but the love and comfort that he surrounded me in seemed to be blinding my senses.

Maybe if I would have listened to this voice in the back of my head things would have ended differently.

"I don't know, Cal. I'm exhausted." I told him honestly, and he nodded. Our sleeping patterns lacked logic as we stayed up most of the night, and I was usually left utterly exhausted during the day. I'd begun drinking coffee to help with this, but soon one cup a day turned to two, and two turned to three. The caffeine was worsening my anxiety in addition to my sleeping pattern, which had just started to subside.

"We could just watch movies, I guess," he decided, looking slightly disappointed. I nodded. At that moment, the teacher began instructing the class and so I faced forward once again. School was an endless bore, but it was better with Calum there. He was always there to entertain me, at least in the classes we had together. I didn't have many friends aside from him, but I was friendly with most everyone. Our classmates all hated each other and kept to their own friend groups for the most part, so my case wasn't too unusual.

Calum was popular enough, I guess. He was the caption of the varsity soccer team, which instantly earned him a big group of friends who welcomed him with open arms. But as the weeks went on, he began trading his popularity for more time to spend with me. He also wouldn't shut up about his friends back home in LA, and I don't think he ever put much effort into his friendships with other people at our school, apart from me at least. It seemed he had such a strong support system for him in California, that he didn't feel the need to make an entirely new group of friends here.