The Alex Effect // Alex Walter

𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉

HEATHER WAS GROWING anxious. Her mother had texted saying she would pick them up at eight but it was now eleven and her brother and sister were falling asleep. Heather had texted, called, Kathryn had done the same and they were met with the same thing. Nothing.

That's when Heather changed the person she would call. Rather than her mother she called Ben and he answered on the first ring.

"Everything okay?" He had asked.

She turned away from the older Walter boys feeling tears well in her eyes as she tried to compose herself. She may hate the way he treats her sometimes but he makes her feel remarkably safe.

"Can you come get me?" Her voice broke. "Mom was supposed to but she's three hours late and Lily and Luke have to go to sleep."

"Where are you?"

"The Walter's."

"I'm on my way, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Thank you."

"Of course babe. I love you."

"I love you too."

When she ended the call she wiped away the tears, took a deep breath before walking over to her brother and sister. "I got us a ride we're going home soon why not you both get your shoes and jackets on?"

"Why didn't you just ask to stay here?" Alex had asked.

"It's a school night they need their own beds. And it's just better that way, okay."

"Cole could have driven you?" He said again.

"No."

Truth be told, Heather didn't want their help. She had left the Walter's a long time ago and she didn't want to admit that she missed them or needed something from them. To her she lost that right the moment she left and asking them for help would just be a terrible thing to do. It would be something her mother would do.

Heather helped tie up Lily's laces and put on her coat, packing up her bag and then making sure Luke got everything. And once the three were ready she got a text from Ben saying he was there.

"Okay guys, Ben's here." They got up making their way to the door. "Thank you Kathryn and George for dinner and letting us stay here for so long I'm sorry about my mother."

"It's perfectly okay Heather, you're always welcome."

"Thank you. And thanks Alex for helping me out in school. I'll see you all tomorrow."

And with that she left helping her siblings in the truck and sitting in the passenger seat herself.

When they got to her house she watched her siblings run inside having told them both to go straight to bed. And once she watched the door close she kept staring ahead of her, "Olivia's the flavour of the month it seems."

"Heather, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You said it was okay. You said me not being ready was okay and then you go and cheat on me and you keep doing it."

Ben had the decency to look guilty. "Heather I'm sorry. Maybe I lied. Maybe it isn't okay. Sex is important to me, it means love and trust and we've been together for two years I just thought that by now you'd love and trust me."

"I do."

"Then why won't you have sex with me?"

"I'm just not ready."

Ben let out deep breaths looking away from her and at the steering wheel. "Ben?" Her voice shallow as she peered over at him for the first time that night.

"I need to get home Heather. You should get some sleep too."

Heather didn't say anything she just stepped out of the vehicle and went to walk inside. She loved Ben but for some reason she couldn't allow herself to be completely vulnerable with him.

She walked to the door listening as he drove away and entered her house where her mother and her boyfriend laid on the couches with lines of drugs on the coffee table.

Heather took a deep breath, something she had been doing all night in order to not let herself break but this time it didn't work. This time she fell to the ground in a heap of tears wishing her mother would wake up and hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. But that kind, caring, loving mother died the day her father left. Her whole entire world changed and left her in heaps of destruction on that day.

She may of told herself that the reason she wouldn't ask for help from the Walter's was because she had been selfish towards them but the truth was she knew she couldn't bring such a perfect family into her own imperfect disastrous life.

They didn't deserve it, so she'd deal with it all alone.