The Jock, The Nerd and The Geek

13

Alex stared at the sleeping figure of the male beside her. His habit in curling around her was nearly amusing but she couldn't help the way she felt as she looked at him.

Marcos was intoxicating. She doubted she told him enough, and she always feared that she didn't. The idea that he'd one day think she never did love him destroyed her.

There was already one person that she had disappointed, and she didn't want to do that to him.

At that thought, her head throbbed. Flashes of the past circling around her and thoughts that she managed to bury when she read appearing again.

"Read! You know it's important! If you don't, you know we'd lose everything!"

"You don't need anyone but your family, Alexandra. So stop looking outside your window. If you're not done with that work, you're not going anywhere."

"One more book, Alex? One more, just to be sure?"

"Read! Stop dawdling. READ!"

"You know we need this money. Your Father's a failure and all you have going for you is your brain, so this scholarship is important for you as well. Or would you sell your pretty body? Because if you do, I'd send you away you faster than you can blink."

"It's your fault! If you'd just read! If you had just done as I asked, we'd still be a family!"

"A?"

Alex's eyes opened, and the girl wondered for a second when she had closed them, Marcos' brown ones staring back at her before he sat up, cupping her face. "Eros—"

His thumbs began to brush her cheeks, and to her surprise, she felt the wetness under his hand. "You're crying,"

Alex hummed now, her hand resting at the back of his waist, letting him rest on her as she said under her breath. "I didn't know,"

His face fell. "You never tell me anything..."

Her heart stung a bit at the sadness in his voice but what he said wasn't exactly true. She did tell him things, just not the dark one. There wasn't any need to.

He always made everything better.

"I love you," She breathed out, feeling a relaxed sigh leave her lips at the same time. "Do you know how much?"

"I do," He replied, a relaxed look coming on his face. "I love you too."

"So you've never once thought that I might not love you?"

For a second, the resting look on his face tensed but immediately it relaxed again. His mouth opened, as if he was about to lie but then it shut close again as he mumbled, "Sometimes. But it's really rare though—"

Her heart cracked. The idea he still had any doubts of how she felt made her chest hurt but when he looked at her, he was shaking his head. "But it's not because of you, it's me. You don't have to be with me, Alex. You can have— Have anyone, and I just... I'm not really special."

"Don't say that," She reprimanded softly, pulling him closer. "There's no one like you. And I am glad that you've realized that, some of it at least, but sometimes I feel like I'm the reason you haven't reached your full potential. Like, my devotion to you ties you to me."

"No. That's not it. It's not —"

"It's not a bad thing," She shushed him gently, brushing his hair. "I keep you so close to me that I haven't let you fly out yet. So you can go out and let the world see how beautiful you are."

And one day I'd have to.

"I have to read," She whispered softly now. "I didn't today and my head... Hurts."