ANDREW DAVIS
It's now the day after Christmas and I am a little bit concerned about Alexis. She's been acting quite distant for the past day, while I'm sure it's nothing I don't want to assume that if something is wrong.
She went downstairs for a cup of coffee and said she would bring me one up since she would be down there anyway.
Soon enough Alexis comes back up to my room and places her cup of coffee on the nightstand next to one side of the bed, and my cup of coffee next to the side of the bed that I sleep on.
"Hey, baby c'mere," I tell her so her back is up to my front. She grabs her cup of coffee and takes sips of it slowly.
"I... I think that you were right." Alexis says, very vaguely. "About what?" I question her, not knowing what she is referring to.
"I think I should talk to a therapist. I mean I think that it might help." She tells me, making me feel better.
It makes me happier knowing that she is willing to talk to someone. "That's great, if you need I can help you find one," I tell her.
"If you can I really would appreciate it." She tells me quieter than usual. She seems tired, even having downed an entire mug of coffee in the last few minutes.
"How did you sleep, sweetheart?" I ask her, noticing her bags under her eyes and the droopiness of them. "Not goooood." She slurs out, telling me that she is about to fall asleep again. "Hey, hey I'm sorry baby but you can't go back to sleep right now," I tell her while maneuvering her so that she is sitting up more, but still leaning against my chest.
"Why not?" She whispers against my chest. "You and Lesley had plans to go shopping now that she has her.
"Mmm," She groans and rolls over a little bit to stand up. "Come here," I tell her turning and putting my legs off the side of the bed on the floor. "You don't have to go if you don't think you can," I tell her, knowing that sleep might be better for her right now.
"I'm so tired but I can't keep sleeping all day I don't know what's wrong with me." She says- although it comes out as more like a whine and I see a tear drip down her face.
"Nothing is wrong with you, okay? You are going through a tough time but you will pull through and I know that because you are a very strong person, okay?" I ask her, I don't care if I have to engrave it into her brain but she is strong and will get through this.
"I'm going to go with her." Alexis mumbles and I don't completely hear her. "Hm?" I ask, to clarify. "I'm going to go shopping with Lesley. I need to get out." Lex says after a minute.
"Okay. When are you guys leaving?" I ask her and she looks like she is thinking for a minute. "The same time we were supposed to leave. Still at around twelve-thirty-five." She tells me.
"Alright, well I'll be in here. You should get ready because that's not too far away." I tell her and she gets up to walk into the bathroom.
I grab my phone and text, Lesley, back that Alexis is going to come.
—
Lesley: Hey, I know that Alexis has been having a hard time does she still want to go shopping?
Andrew: Let me talk to her. She's really tired today so I am honestly just not sure.
Lesley: Alright, whatever is fine. Just let me know when you find out, please.
Andrew: Okay, she is up to coming she said just don't have her walk around too much, and if you think that she is tired take a break.
Andrew: Also, make sure that she eats while you guys are there. Got it?
Lesley: Yes, dad. *eye roll*
Andrew: She's getting ready now.
—
A few minutes pass of me waiting for Alexis to come out of the bathroom. "Hey, baby," I say and pull her so that's he is standing in between my legs again. "Hey." She softly smiles at me. It pains me to see the exhaustion in her eyes.
"You are sure you can handle going right? I can come or have one of the guys come just in case." I tell her, nervously. I just don't want anything to happen to her.
She giggles and then replies with "Don't worry. I'll be okay. I'll text you every half hour."
"I'll be counting on that. Okay, so you need to eat while you are there at some point and stay with Lesley, okay?" I clarify with her. "Yup." She says as she walks out the door. "Bye, gorgeous!" I shout to her after she was out of the door.
I put on a pair of basketball shorts and head down to the gym in the basement.
Growing up I was bullied because my parents had money, however that works. I got used to people telling me that it was my parent's money and I wouldn't be successful.
Right now I technically own the tech business that my dad created when he was in his twenties. I am currently not running it because I'm still in college, so my brothers are helping me out until I can run it as I should be.
Anyways, now that I and my brothers are all older we know how lucky we truly were to grow up with not only parents that love us but also two parents who worked hard so that we could live more than comfortably.
I snap out of my thoughts about my family as I reach the bottom of the stairs and step into the gym. I didn't bring a bag so right away I head over to the treadmill and start running.
Starting to feel a little bit tired I slow down to a very slow jog for about a mile. In total it was still three miles, so that's not too bad.
—
I've been sitting in the entrance room of my house for about fifteen minutes just waiting for Alexis to get back. Well, Lesley to I guess but mostly Alexis. I hear the front door click, signaling that someone is either opening it or closing it.
I get up and walk over to Alexis and Lesley to help them- again, mostly Alexis- with any bags that they have from the mall.
"Did you have fun, baby?" I ask her, knowing that last time they tried to go she only got to go to one store since Lesley didn't have her debit card.
"Yeah, it was fun." She says, smiling happily. I am glad to see her happy like this after the rough couple of days she has been having. "Did you get something to eat while you were there?" I ask her and grab the bag that she is holding out of her hand. "Yeah, I ate some Chinese food." She tells me.
"Good. Want to go somewhere else?" I ask her, thinking of the spot that I loved going to when I was younger, but haven't been in a few years.
"I guess so. Where are we going?" She asks me making me smile. "It's a surprise. I'm going to pick out an outfit for you." I tell her with a devilish smirk. She just shakes her head at me. "Okay." She shrugs.
About five minutes later I have a pair of leggings from some weird brand that I noticed she likes to wear and a sweater to go with it. "Wear this," I tell her, placing the clothes on the bed next to her.
She grabs the clothes and gets up to change. She walks into the bathroom and I hear some rustling. A few minutes later Lex walks out of the bathroom that I picked out and it looks great.
"Want to tell me where we are going now?" She asks me, looking hopeful. "Not yet, beautiful. You will find out in a few minutes when we get there." I tell her. She just rolls her eyes and looks out the window for most of the car ride there.
We pull up to the bottom of a hill. I have a feeling that I am going to be getting something sarcastic for this one.
"Alright, we have to walk up so we should probably go now," I tell her, not being able to wait for her to see this.
"Ugh. I need to work out more often." Alexis says as she wipes the invisible sweat off of her forehead. "Yeah. Right." I say sarcastically.
"Okay, I am not even joking right now. I am literally like a cow in the Florida heat." She says and I hear a tiny bit of an accent but choose not to comment on it.
ALEXIS MAXWELL
After about half an hour we made it to the top of the hill that Andrew drove us to. I was so surprised when we got up there. There was a beautiful view of a cliff and the ocean was under us.
"How did you find this place, it's gorgeous!" I exclaim, surprised that he was able to find such a pretty hidden gem like this.
"When I was in high school I always loved hiking at random spots and one day I stumbled upon this place." He tells me as we walk over and sit on the edge.
"It is so peaceful here." I sighed leaning back against a tree and looking down at the water. "Yeah, I used to come here to clear my head." He tells me and chuckles. I don't know what was funny about that.
"One time in high school I was up here doing peaceful, just doing some homework and I got frustrated and threw my math book of this cliff." He confesses which makes me giggle.
"That's kind of funny." I softly say and just thinking about a high school Andrew doing that, which I could see him do, even now. "Yeah, thinking about it now it is. When I did it I thought when I told my mom she was going to kill me." He tells me with a chuckle at the end.
"I don't want to kill the mood but I figured I should tell you this now," Andrew tells me, worrying me a little bit.
"What's up?" I ask him wearily. "I was looking into a good therapist for you and I found one that I think would help you out a lot." He tells me, I love how he is always thinking about other people before himself. I love him so much.
Wait for what?
I shake that thought out of my head. I don't know where that thought even came from. There is no way that I can live him. Right?
I spend most of my time with him, spending two weeks living in the same room as him, I met his family, I've imagined our kids (although I would deny it if anyone asks me).
I love him. Do I tell him or do I wait? Does he even love me?
"Lex, baby?" Andrew shakes me startling me a little bit. "Sorry about that. I just zoned out for a second there." I explain while shaking myself out of those thoughts.
"I appreciate it. I honestly don't know what I would do if I didn't have you in my life right now." I admit the truth to him.
"I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you in my life either," Andrew admits to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder.
"Anyways, I'll have to check them out, whoever it is," I tell him. "Okay, her name is Dr. Elena. Her office is about twenty-five minutes away from campus. The only reason I'm not sure about her is that I don't know if you would want to drive that far." He tells me. Anything that could help with this is worth it.
"That's worth it. I have my car anyway, so I'll check her out." I say and hear him let out a breath. "Do you want to start heading back down the hill and go get something for dinner?" He asks me and I agree. We both start heading back down the hill. It's a comfortable silence.
It takes a while because there are a lot of tree roots and rocks. We finally make it back to the bottom in about fifteen minutes. It's downhill this time, hence being only half the amount of time that it took us to get up to the cliff.
Once we reach the bottom we both get back into Andrew's car. We make small talk on our way back to his parent's house.
Amelia and Xavier finally picked out a date for their wedding. It's going to be June thirtieth. I was FaceTiming Amelia and Ariana so that we could talk about all the wedding stuff that the two of them had planned so far.
So far it seems like a nice wedding and I am so happy for Mel. "We are both roughed up a bit and probably smell so do you want to go back to my parents so we can shower and get ready, then go to eat?" Andrew asks me and I nod knowing that he is probably right.
We were hiking for a bit and then by the ocean with all that salt and I probably stink right now.
"What are we going to get to eat, anyway?" I ask him, curiously. He knows that I don't care what we get because I will eat pretty much any type of food.
"I haven't thought about it. I thought that it would just be nice for us to be able to get out and go have a nice dinner together." He explained to me. I don't think that he was implying anything like this but my stupid feelings are tiring for him too.
Part of me feels like I should break up with him so that he doesn't have to deal with me in a rough spot but I love him and I don't think that I could do that.
I shake off my thoughts. I don't think that I would be able to physically handle not being with him, I just feel bad that he has all of these burdens on himself because of me.
We pull up in front of his parent's house and we both walk up to the door. He unlocks the door and we both walk into his room. I have all of the clothes that I brought with me clean since Skylar let me wash all of them earlier this morning.
I pull out some ripped black jeans and a light pink long sleeve top. Moving from New York to California the cold doesn't affect me here.
I put on some mascara and then follow with some concealer to cover my new eye bags. I finish with some setting spray and walk out of the bathroom when I finish getting ready. I pull on some Nike court sneakers and tie them up.
I see that Andrew has on some dark blue jeans with a heavier hoodie on. He is originally from San Diego so he is not as used to the cold as I am.
"Baby, come here I want to talk to you before we go anywhere," Andrew tells me and I walk over and sit next to him on his mattress.
"I know that you keep zoning off and I want to know, what are you thinking about all of the time?" He asks me and I panic. He can't know that I love him and he also can't know that I was debating breaking up with him.
"Just everything thing that has happened recently, you know," I say with an awkward giggle at the end of my sentence. I am just going to guess that he didn't believe me because he just shot me a stern look.
"I don't care what the truth is, okay? I just want you to be okay again." He tells me and I decide to tell him the truth- well some of the truth.
"You are not going to like what I am about to tell you." I quietly admit, ashamed that I was even thinking of this after all that he has done for me throughout the entire time that I have known him.
"I was thinking about breaking up with you." I softly admit. I don't look up to see his face because I don't think that I would be able to handle it.
"Did I do something wrong?" He asks me, immediately making my heart hurt that he believes it's his fault.
"It's nothing you did. I feel like I am using you because you are always helping me and doing stuff for me but I am never doing anything for you." I explain to him, feeling bad.
"Listen, princess, you are mine and I'm not going to let you break up with me because of something as small as that. You are mentally struggling and I am going to help pull you out of this okay?" He asks me and pulls me over onto his lap.
"Yeah." I nod and speak. I cuddle into him and realize how comfortable this is. "Do we have to go out to eat?" I ask him, hoping that the two of us can just stay here and not have to deal with other people right now.
"If you want to stay here we can. I don't know about you but I am perfectly fine with eating leftovers and then staying here and cuddling with you all night." He tells me and I did with my droopy eyes.
"Let's go eat before I fall asleep," I say and we go downstairs to get something to eat.