None Of The Above

Chapter 11✔️

"EVERY PRODUCTION OF AN ARTIST SHOULD BE THE EXPRESSION OF AN ADVENTURE OF HIS SOUL."

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I NEVER UNDERSTOOD how girls in movies wake up with unrealistically perfect appearances. For instance, I woke up in the middle of the night with a ratted mess of hair sitting on top of my head, and shockingly dark circles under my bloodshot eyes.

"Well you look gorgeous, as always." Chris says through a yawn, eliciting a scowl from me.

I look out the window. "What time is it?"

He glances quickly at the numbers illuminated on the dashboard. "Almost 2 o' clock."

"Do you want me to take a turn driving?" I ask, running a hand through my hair in a desperate attempt to tame the wild mane that is my hair.

I am just now realizing that Chris has been driving for over seven hours to get to the drive-in movie theater we found on google maps, and just by looking at the bags under his eyes, I can tell he's exhausted.

"I'm not sure if I trust you to drive," he teases, his chuckles interrupted by yet another yawn.

"Ha-ha. Very funny. But in all seriousness, you look exhausted, Chris. If you don't want me to drive then just pull over for the night." I rub my eyes in an effort to wake up a little as Chris glances over at me, his eyes gently skimming over my face before coming to rest on the road again. He doesn't answer my question and instead remains silent, his eyes trained on the road as we drive down the never ending highway. We fall into a comfortable silence, the only sound to be heard the gentle tapping of my fingers against my knee as my eyes drift closed again.

"Did I ever tell you what I was doing that night at the gas station?"

I snap my head over to Chris as he asks that question, the sudden realization that I never thought to ask what he was doing at a gas-station in a small town in North Carolina coming to me all at once.

"No, you didn't." I mumble, furrowing my eyebrows in thought. "What were you doing there, anyways?"

He sighs, running a hand through his brown hair. "Alexis, I'm not who you think I am."

After those words, I take this time to take a proper look at him, suddenly noticing how his hands are shaking as they rest on the steering wheel in a lazy grip. "Chris, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, it's just, if I tell you, you'll look at me differently." he says with a quiet voice.

"I'm not going to judge you. You know that, right? Whatever it is, it's not going to make me hate you, or anything like that." I reassure him with a gentle voice.

He looks at me with an unknown emotion swimming in his eyes before he opens his mouth to speak.

"Last year, I decided to take a break from college because I was having a hard time focusing on my studies," he clears his throat. "I had always had a hard childhood, but my older brother was usually there to tell me what not to do, you know?"

I nodded my head in a silent encouragement to keep going, my eyebrows furrowing as Chris continued to talk. I never knew he had a brother.

"Well, I kind of, uh, fell into the wrong crowd and started doing some things I'm not proud of." he says quietly, avoiding eye contact as his words process in my mind. And suddenly, it all makes sense. How did I not notice it before? all the symptoms are there.

"Chris, you don't have too - "

"Drugs consumed me, and it was all I could think about for a long time. I couldn't go a day without them, Alex, and I didn't know how to stop it." he mumbles, and I suddenly realize that we are pulled onto the side of the road, my eye crinkling up in sadness as Chris continues his story. "I started going to therapy, and I was clean for four months. But then one night it was all too much, and I drove to a gas station to meet up with the guy who sold them to me before."

My eyes widen as he says that, the whole story suddenly coming together before my eyes.

"I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I didn't know how to stop it and I had no one to tell me to stop."

I frowned, tears threatening to spring to my eyes as Chris talked so openly about his addiction.

"But then the weirdest thing happened," he looked up at me with amusement written across his face. "A crazy girl crashed into me and asked for a ride."

{ yah, so that happened. I know that this story is all over the place, but I've really enjoyed writing it and I hope you guys have enjoyed reading it. It's not over yet, but I'm assuming that it will only he a few more chapters. I like to keep them short and sweet(: }

Ps: I was listening to the song above when I wrote this and I really thought it fit the chapter nicely (: