Lover Boy

chapter twenty

~December 7th, 2015~

I sighed and pulled myself out of bed, not wanting to go to school. I couldn't wait till Christmas break.

•••

Alex and I made our way into the atrium when we met up with each other at his locker.

Not as much people snickered and whispered while looking at Alexander anymore, the rumor was starting to fade away, and they were starting to forget about what happened. That made my baby more comfortable with being in the building, he doesn't like attention, he never has.

I took a seat down on the bench, Alex sat beside me, and Ava sat beside Alex. Only three of us could fit, so the rest of the people stood around us.

"Richie, are you okay?" Alexander started.

I nodded. "Come outside with me."

The two of us stood up, two others took our seats right away. We discreetly walked out the front entrance of the school and I looked down at him with a frown.

"What's wrong, daddy?"

"I'm gonna miss you." I told him.

Alexander, Joanne and Oliver were going to Disney land in Anaheim. They were going as a distraction for Alex because of how much he's been through the past few months. He will be gone for the full week.

"I'll miss you so much." He said, his lips curving down, his eyes filling with purity.

"Can we spend the rest of the day after school together tomorrow, before you go?"

"I'd love to."

•••

"Good morning everyone, today is an important day to pay attention, you'll be getting your end of the semester assignment." Mrs Jackson announced, her eyes directly looking at me.

That caused me to look away.

"You'll be getting into groups of two or three. If you wish to, you may work on your own as well. See the list of American battles from World War 1 and World War 2? I want you to come up here after you've chosen a group and write your names beside the battle you'd like to present. We will go from there." She explained.

I rolled my eyes, but looked over at my friends, Kai and Jordan. The three of us nodded our heads to each other, agreeing to be in a group. We all got up and walked to the front of the class where the whiteboard was. Kai picked up a purple whiteboard marker and pulled off the cap.

"Which one do you guys wanna do." Asked Kai.

"I don't know, you choose." Jordan replied.

I stood there, completely uninterested.

"Rich, any ideas?" Jordan added.

I shook my head.

"Lets just do the Attack on Pearl Harbor then." Kai said, writing his name down beside the battle.

Jordan wrote his name beside Kai's.

"Okay." I said, not caring which one we did.

Jordan passed me the purple marker so I wrote my name beside his. My handwriting was a lot neater than Kai's and Jordan's combined. Theirs were messy and crooked, where mine was the opposite. It was smaller, on a straight line and very legible.

Other students were up at the board writing their names, too. Once we all sat down, Mrs Jackson explained more of the assignment to us.

"There are two sections of this assignment, the first part will be individual. It'll be your essay on the battle you chose." She said, handing out papers with the information and instructions typed. "The second part will be with your groups. There will be six slides and you will do two slides each. If you're a group of two, you'll do three slides each, and if you're on you're own, you'll do all six. Is that clear?"

The class has zero questions, everyone just had their eyes on Mrs Jackson, silent.

"Alright, the instructions for both sections of your assignment are on the papers I just handed out to all of you. The due date as of right now is December 19th. Presentations will be happening during the last week of school before exams. We will go to the library today to begin collecting research." She finished.

•••

After school ended, I waited for Alexander by his locker. When he arrived, he frowned, with a slight groan.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"I just got assigned a project for art class and I have to write an essay. Isn't writing for english? Not frickin art."

"I'm sorry, baby."

"I hate the end of the semester, there's too much work." Alex said as he packed up his things.

"It sucks, but you'll do great, Alexander. I know you will." I added as we exited the building, walking off to my car.

"You'll do great, too." He gave me a smile and got into the passenger seat.

"You have piano lessons today right?" I said, pressing the ignition button.

"Mhm! I do, daddy."

"Okay" I began driving Alex to his lesson. On the way, I held his hand, my long fingers entwined with his short fingers. "You look beautiful today."

Alex's cheeks were suddenly a kissed pink, he crinkled his small freckled button nose and squeezed my hand three times to say 'I love you'. I automatically knew to do it back. That was our thing.

He never left my mind, he was always there; mentally if not physically. It was just incomprehensible. He was what kept me stable, my one stability in a world filled with chaos. I loved him so much for that.

•••

"Richie!" My mom called out from downstairs.

I opened my bedroom door and said, "What?"

"You've got a package down here."

My face lit up with a wide smile and instantly took myself down the stairs. There was a small brown cardboard box, 5 by 5 inches. My mom never asks what I get in the mail so thank goodness I didn't have to tell her. I was so happy the package came before Alexander had to leave to Disney , all the nerves in my body disappeared within what seemed a blink of an eye.

I took the cardboard box to my bedroom and cut the tape with scissors. I opened the flaps that shut the box and took out the two items that were inside. The small things were wrapped in bubble wrap. There was also a folded sheet of paper along with blowing bubbles and stickers as extras. Before I took the wrap off the items, I unfolded the paper. It was instructions on how to clean a pacifier, and how to keep general care of it. I neatly folded it back up after giving it a quick read and took the bubble wrap off the first item.

It was a white based pacifier with shimmery white flat-back pearls and shiny baby blue flat-back pearls glued on to the shield and the handle. The centre piece was a small white bunny sleeping on a baby blue crescent moon. The teat of the pacifier was clear.

The next item was a teether-pacifier clip that was chewable. The rubber beads were white and different shades of light blues. There was a looped piece of string that would connect to the pacifier and the other end was a clip that would latch onto his shirt.

I wanted to properly clean the items, that way it was all ready for him to use. I took the sheet of paper again and read it thoroughly.

Alexander baby regresses from the age of 0-3. He didn't have a pacifier yet. But I noticed he puts his thumb in his mouth often as his other outlet of sucking on something while regressed. A pacifier is much more clean to have in his mouth. Hopefully it would get him out of the habit he had.

After I finished cleaning the pacifier and teether beads, I patted them dry with a clean face cloth and placed them carefully in a white box, adding the stickers and bubbles. I closed it by putting the lid on top of the small square box and wrapped a baby blue ribbon around it, tying it in a bow at the top. Then, I took my scissors and gritted the ribbon against the blade to make the ends of the bow curl.