Flynn - a kissing booth fan fiction

Wishes

I shrug and grin at her, knowing she's right, but not willing to admit it. At least not out aloud, anyway.

"I should let you go, so you can work on your essay," I say, reluctantly. I should also be working on an essay of my own.

"Can we talk for just a little while? You can call me sappy again if you want, but just seeing you makes me feel calmer."

How can I possibly say no when she puts it like that? Truth be told, I'd much rather talk to Elle right now than do my schoolwork, too.

"Yeah," I nod. "Of course we can."

A little while turns into an hour, but I can't say I regret a single minute of it, because when we do hang up, I feel better about things with us than I have since she left Boston. It's getting harder and harder to skirt around certain topics with Elle, though, namely how badly I've been doing with some of my classes - and Chloe. I keep thinking it would all be so much easier face to face. Then again, I'd really rather just improve my grades to the point where it isn't an issue anymore.

I'm not proud of it, but sometimes I dodge Elle's calls. There are times when I'm up late studying and my phone rings and I know it will be her before I even look at the screen. I try to rationalize my actions, thinking that I'm too busy to take a break, that I can't afford to get distracted right then, that I'm too tired to talk. But the truth is, sometimes I just don't have the energy to keep up the façade, to pretend like everything's fine with me. Somehow in my mind it makes more sense to avoid Elle rather than having to lie to her, that it's surely the lesser of two evils.

Of course, there comes a time when I have no justification to not answer Elle's call. It's late one Saturday afternoon and I'm heading back to my dorm after a game. When my phone rings and I see it's her, I stop and sit on a bench just off the walkway before answering.

"Hey, you," I smile, noticing that she's in her room, lying on her bed.

"Hey," she smiles back, propping herself up on her elbows. "How are you?"

"I'm good. Yeah, everything's good. What about you? You look stressed. Did you get wasted last night and grounded?" I chuckle a little, trying hard to give her a disappointed look at the thought of her getting drunk at the party she'd text me about yesterday.

"No, I'm good. The party was okay. I've just come back from lunch with Lee and your parents."

Well, that's interesting. I know Lee's been blowing her off for Rachel a lot lately, so much so that I had been about to phone him and tell him off until Elle convinced me that it would only make things worse. But I still don't believe her when she says that she's fine. She's way less convincing than I hope I am at concealing what's really going on.

"Elle, c'mon. What's up?"

She sighs, obviously debating how much to tell me. I know the feeling, so I wait her out.

"Lee was kind of a jerk last night, at the party. To everyone, not just me. That's why I went over to your place, actually, to talk to him."

"And?"

"We're good," she says breezily. "He's gonna try not to ditch me for Rachel so much."

Where have I heard that before, I wonder?

"Maybe I should talk to him, or something. I don't know."

"Seriously, don't. He'll probably just feel worse if you try and talk to him."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I frown.

Elle grins at that. "Damn straight I'm right. I'm always right."