Crossed Paths // Ross Lynch

nineteen

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Chloe was roughly woken up.

She lay in the spare bed with Ross beside her, his cold legs pressed up against hers so that goosebumps ran up and down her calves. She shivered a little in her sleep but then gave a small moan and rolled over, pulling the warm duvet over her.

For the past seven months she had been sleeping on the small mattress with Ross in the run down shed of a house they had all shared together. It had hurt her back and had left her with bruises where the springs had dug into her skin when she slept too hard on them. She hadn't pulled a duvet up by her chin or curled up in one in almost seven months, so sleeping on a soft double mattress with Ross beside her, the duvet wrapped around her body so that she was warm yet not too hot that she had to kick it off her, truly felt like heaven.

It must have felt even better for Ross because he hadn't had that kind of experience in over two years. She had laughed at his expression of utter amazement when he had sat down on the bed and felt the mattress sink in under his weight, when he had pulled the duvet over him and felt warmth, when his feet didn't stick out the end of the bed and get cold when the rest of his body was warm.

But she had realized, later on that night when he lay there faintly snoring while her mind raced with thoughts, she realized how grateful he was. His happiness wasn't fake - it was genuine excitement that made his face light up. She had never seen him so happy before in all seven years of knowing him.

And then suddenly Chloe felt cold hands grab onto her bare arms. In her dreams, it felt like she had been grabbed by a ghost, the cold, icy, skeleton-like hands of the Grim Reaper clutching onto her. In her dream she screamed aloud which woke her up with a start and made her look around with wide eyes at the unfamiliar bedroom.

The walls were blue, the colour of the summer sky above them, and the floors were wooden. The double bed also had a light blue duvet covering up Chloe and Ross's thin bodies which were dressed in their old clothes that had substituted as pyjamas. 

"Oh my god!" she cried automatically as she woke up with a start, clutching her hand to her chest in an effort to stop her heart from racing so much.

She looked around panicked and then locked eyes with Ratliff who stood over the bed, his palm pressed against Chloe's arm. She glanced down at his hand and then looked back up at him, confused. She jerked her arm out of his touch and stared at him.

"Ratliff, what on earth do you want at this time? Leave me to sleep."

"Sorry, no can do, Chloe. You and me are going out," he said with a smirk. Chloe furrowed her eyebrows together in confusion. For a second she wanted to roll over and cuddle into Ross's back, wrap her arms around his waist and lock her fingers into his so that they slept together, looking like the couples she had seen on TV where everything looked so perfect.

But the phrase 'going out' had confused her even more, intrigued her. What on earth was he going on about?

"Going out? Ratliff, in case you haven't realized, I'm going out with Ross. I don't fancy you," Chloe said as she raised one eyebrow, a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

Ratliff chuckled, throwing back his head as he laughed so that his auburn hair flopped into his eyes and his teeth sparkled in the sunlight. 

"Not like that, silly! I mean, we're going out as in I'm taking you somewhere. Not like a date or anything like that because, of course, we're not going out or dating cause you're with Ross. I just really need to talk to you about something. Something important, okay?"

"Yeah okay. Where are you taking me?" Chloe asked. She sat up sleepily, pushing the duvet off of her. A cold shiver rushed down her legs, which were bare except from the grey shorts that fell from her thin waist to the top of her thighs.