Project You

Chapter 23

Months before my parents split my dad and mom were fighting often, to the point where he'd decided to sleep in a separate room, after he moved out, that separate room was changed into the room i'd used for painting, and now I still used it as my art room.

We had three rooms upstairs, two bathrooms upstairs, a kitchen and lounge downstair as well as the small backyard, and that was our house.

It wasn't anything fancy, but it wasn't much of a scrap either because my father had to pay for us to stay here as my mother was unable to take care of us this way, so he was obligated to and thats how I knew he was still alive, because we still had her medical care and we still had the house and water, just that I had to pay for extras, like food, college and nonna's care.

Karsen and I had painted in there after i'd stopped silently crying against him, and we'd barely spoke but I think it was because he knew I needed more time to actually let everything sink in.

I didn't want to jump into a friendship now. I wanted ease into it, one step at a time and thankfully he got that especially after I cried on him, which I had never even done in front of my own mother.

Except that now after a shift at the library that i'd left early from and went to the café then back here, I began to regret the vulnerability i'd shown him the night before, I give him a part of me no one else saw and I had no idea if it was a bad idea to open up, or something really good.

My one hand was holding onto my bags strap over my shoulder and the other was holding that stupid coffee he liked even thought he shouldn't be drinking it, but it was better than smoking so I got it for him now anyway.

I walked to the football field, counting every step because I had nothing else to do, and if I didn't do this i'd probably continue being embarrassed over what happened yesterday and I didn't want to be.

I wanted to think about something else. Anything else. But when I start to think about Karsen and how sweet he was, I shake my head.

An arm was looped through with mine and I looked over to the person beside me, smirking over at Summer as she fanned herself with a small electric fan that was on top of her water bottle.

"Its so hot lately." She says dramatically as she breathes out before she looks to me, turning the fan to face me and surprisingly, it was kind of refreshing, barely, but still better than nothing.

"Yeah, so you just carry that water bottle everywhere or?" I trail off with a raise of my brow and she shrugs as she alternates, fanning the both of us, "Depending on the day."

I look to the bag on her shoulder, down to her brown Uggs on and her ballerina outfit. "Did you have fun?"

"Very much, just exhausted and kinda starving." She grins wickedly, "Wanna go get pizza?" She definitely has a pizza obsession.

"I would if we didn't have to do that project, we only got a few of the art pieces done and painted." And we still had a few more pieces to do before we put it all together.

"Ya'll should pull an all nighter once a while, it helps, not the healthiest but its college so..." She says and to be honest, she's right. Somedays called for an all nighter.

But that meant one of us staying over at one another's houses and I'm not sure if i'd want to leave my mom alone overnight, nor am I sure i'd be okay with him staying over at my place.

"Maybe." I reply, a simple answer as we get down the stairs, passing the never ending bleachers and down to the football field, to the front, where the cheerleaders were standing and putting away their stuff since practice was over.