Hall of Fame

Chap. 27

Chapter 27

"But what do you want?" my sister asks me, I've just finished telling her the story of basically everything that's been going on in my life. From Mel's cattiness to Xander's confession at lunch toady.

"What do I want?" I ask, confused. I thought that was clear.

"Yea. What do you want? Forget about what everyone else wants, forget what everyone else thinks or feels. What do you want for yourself?"

"I just want to be happy. I want to have my friends and my family, and I don't wanna lose Xander. I can live without Xander, I would be miserable and making terrible decisions but I think I could do it. But I refuse to live without Xander, because without him I'm not me. I can't lose him, I just can't. And now that there's something so much deeper then friendship I have to explore that. I have to see where that goes."

"That makes sense. So what are you gonna do about Cole?"

"Cry?" I shrug. "I don't know. He's really, really not well. He's spiraling, and I can't even visit him. And now he has feelings for me? What am I even supposed to do?"

"That's a sticky situation. But you need to see Cole. You need to talk to him about this. I hate to say it Andy but you could be running out of time and this needs to be done."

"But how? They won't allow any visitors."

"There's this thing called a phone."

"It should be in person." I argue.

"And I should be millions of dollars richer. Some things that should happen don't, and you need to work with the hand you've been dealt." I roll my eyes, "Seriously, this needs to be done. Today."

"Fine. I'm gonna call him right now."

"Okay." She smiles, handing me my phone from where it was sitting on the table.

All of a sudden my stomach is churning. There is so much on the line right now, I could lose Cole, or Xander, or both. I might lose them, but I definitely will if I don't do something about it right now. So I dial Connor's number and Amanda disappears into the house.

This is real, this is all really happening. I have to remind myself of this every few seconds.

"Hello?" Connor's voice comes from my phone and I jump a little, I guess I wasn't expecting him to pick up. Or hoping he wouldn't.

"Connor, hey it's Andy, I need to talk to your brother."

"He's not allowed to have visitors. Even family is one at a time. You know he'd love that but it's not possible."

"Well can you give him the phone? This really needs to happen."

"Code red?"

"Code scarlet red."

"Sound serious. I'll do what I can, and I'll call you back."

"Thank you, so much."

"Of course."

So we hang up, and so I wait.

I sit on my balcony and stare at my phone, sometimes a blank screen. Sometimes Xander's contact, I want nothing more than to hear his voice right now.