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chapter four | accident

"Yeah, sure, here it is" I hand a second copy of the paper to him. Everyone else is currently stepping out while I'm handing him the paper.

"Goodnight, Alexis-" he stops and lifts my chin to look at him with his pointer finger. He continues with "I don't care how little time I have known you for but I'm here for you and you will come to me if anything is wrong, alright?" He asks me. I nodded softly at him.

"Goodnight, Andrew I'll see you tomorrow," I say to him and he smiles back at me. "Come on get your ass out here!" I hear Ariana yell to him and once I lock the door I get into bed and switch off my table lamp.

—

I wake up to my phone ringing and pull it to my ear and answer with a groggy "Hello?"

"Were you still sleeping?" A voice that I now recognize as Andrew's answers. "Sorry, I'm just exhausted right now," I say to him. "It's okay, don't worry about it. Anyways I read through your essay and there was only one mistake with the basketball knowledge information." He says. I did better than I thought I would. With how fast I was writing down all of the information that he was telling me I thought it would be messed up.

"Damn, I did better than I thought I would, that's good," I say to him. "Honestly you looked very lost whenever I was talking about basketball so I was also expecting a lot worse," he says with a chuckle that makes me giggle.

"Can we meet up at the coffeehouse on campus and go through it? If you're good with it I can also tell you any problems with the actual essay if you would like." He says, hesitantly. "That would be great, that may be the final draft before I write the one that I am going to hand in," I say to him. This project is a lot easier than I was expecting it to be. It's already nearing October and I'm already done with it.

"Sounds great. When do you want to meet?" He asks me. "I'm getting ready to head over to hang out with the girls right now, then after that, we can meet. Tomorrow morning I'm flying out home so that I can be with my step-brothers for a few days until the funeral then a few days after that and then I'll be back. I think I won't be back until Friday." I tell him.

"Okay text me when you are-" he starts and stops all of a sudden. "Sorry about that. That idiot Oliver tripped over a chair. Anyways, where are you from anyway?" He asks me, making me realize we've never talked about where we are from.

"I'm actually from Manhattan," I tell him, surprising him. I can tell by the gasp that he lets out. Most people tell me that I don't seem like a big city girl to them. "Now that one surprised me. I'm from right here in San Diego." I'm surprised I've not heard that at some point. "Now that surprises me-" I mock him in a deep voice. "I'm kidding, that's cool. So you are from close to the school?" I clarify with him.

"About 15 minutes away, so yeah" he explains to me. "Sounds nice, being able to go home any night that you want to," I say, sounding a little sad. I try to control my emotions about this entire time, but there have been a few times when you can hear in my voice how horrible this truly has been for me.

"Yeah, it is nice. We have a family night once a month. With all my brothers, their girlfriends or wives, and the five kids." He tells me, enthusiastic. He then tells me about how on an old football team I would get made fun of constantly for loving my family but it's everything to me.

"That's awesome, we would always have dinner together when I was in New York with everyone. They still had them even when I was not there." I say, sounding a little distracted by my phone that was vibrating with Ariana telling me to get my ass outside.

"Sorry, Andrew, I have to go. Amelia and Ariana are here to pick me up." I tell him. "Alright, I'll see you in a little bit. Bye Alexis" he says and I reply with "Bye Andrew."