Fox's house looks great, it's a two story apartment that looks pretty pricey. But inside, it still has a cozy vibe tho. The warm colours and candle lighting makes everything seem sweet and smell like heaven.
"Wow." I say and admire his loving room. No one is home right now, except for us of course.
"Do you like it? I think it's a bit too... cute." Fox says and glances down at me.
"I love this. It's so sweet and adorable." I smile and inhale the sweetness of the air.
"That's the problem." He laughs and gets me to laugh too. "Do you want something to eat?"
"Oh, no I ate at school already." I mutter.
"How about a coke, you look a bit... tired?" He asks kindly.
"Do you have Coca Cola Zero?" I ask, hoping that he wouldn't get suspicious.
"I think so. Why? Does it taste better?" Fox wonders and walks me to their kitchen which was almost as amusing as the living room.
"Yeah." I lie, once again. Calories made me lie a lot.
He hands me over a bottle of Coke Zero, almost zero calories. Wonderful.
"Liv?" Fox starts carefully.
I glance up at him suspiciously, that voice couldn't mean anything good for me. "Mmh?"
"When we were in the laboratory and you spilled the acid over yourself..." he starts but gets quiet after a while.
"Yeah...?" I ask, wondering what the problem was.
"Livia, I saw your hands." Fox explains softly and his forest green eyes are now staring directly into my blue ones. He looks warmhearted, probably because he is warmhearted. He isn't judging. Not one bit. Shit, how could I not notice when he pulled my sleeve up...? But that didn't really matter anymore, because he knows.
My eyes start to water so I have to turn away. I don't want to cry but after all these years my tears were aching to be let out. A tear escapes my eye and I quickly wipe it away. I can't let Fox see me like this.
"Liv..." he starts and takes my hand, turning me to face him.
"What?" I try to ask angrily but out comes only a sob.
My sobs start to slowly fill the room until Fox finally pulls me into a gentle hug. I couldn't hold it back anymore. He starts to stroke my hair as I cry into his shoulder. I try to hold it back, but I can't. Everything; my weight problems, self harming, purging today, Leo's comments... everything came out now. I wanted to do nothing but be in Fox's arms for an eternity, never letting go. His gentle voice telling me that it's alright and everything will be okay, calms me down a bit. I wrap my arms around his neck, still full on crying.
I cry for a long time. But Fox stays there, there for me. Even tho I was hurting, more than ever, he calmed me down. Stroked my hair and whispered gentle words. I could never thank him enough for that. Before him I didn't even know how much I just needed someone. Anyone, who would tell me it's going to be alright and hug me.
I finally pull away from him as my sobs start to come to an end. Fox looks at me concerned, his green eyes looking more heavenly than ever.
"I'm okay." I whisper, hoping to make him less concerned.
"You don't have to lie to me." He just whispers and strokes my hair gently. I hate feeling vulnerable, but in his arms I somehow didn't. I just felt cared, loved, seen. He never made me feel vulnerable or unworthy.
"Thank you." I whisper back and give him a slight smile. "Really thank you." I say again, hoping he would see how much I meant it. But I don't think he could ever get it how thankful I was, since there was never enough words to describe it. He didn't know that this was the first time anyone had really seen me cry. No one was there for me before him.
"You can talk to me about it. I don't want you to deal with that alone okay?" Fox says to me in a serious tone.
"I don't do it anymore. I haven't in a while." I say, and this time I'm not lying. I did stop, but it was mainly tho because my mind was on calories all days and nights.
Fox looks into my eyes, probably trying to figure out if I'm lying or not. I stare back, hoping he'd believe me.
"Just know that I'm always here for you. You can trust me, call me anytime you want if you need to talk." He says.
"Even in the middle of the night?" I smirk.
"Anytime Livia, anytime." He says with a slight smile.
"I will." I say and then add: "And I'll be here for you too. What if you have something you want to talk about?"
"Of course." He smiles and even his dimples are now appearing.
I grab a post-it note from their kitchen table quickly and write down 'call me anytime you want' and after it my phone number. Now he'd always remember who to talk to.
He laughs as I show him my work.
"Hey are you sure you don't want anything to eat?" Fox then asks.
"I'm sure." I say truthfully, but he doesn't care. Instead he grabs a protein bar from the counter and hands it to me. "Fox-" I already start but he cuts me off.
"Just in case you become hungry." He says and for even my own surprise I take it.
"Thanks." I mutter and shove it to my backpack. "Should we go do our project done now?" I ask him. We had wasted an hour already, how wasteful.
"Sure, let's go to my room." He says and then leads me upstairs where his and his brother's room is. Apparently he had an older brother who is here only at weekends.
He opens the door to his room and the first thing that catches my eye is a huge bed. It's in the corner of his room, right above it is a big window. There's also a guitar, a table and a tv. Pretty basic room, but I liked it.
"What do you think?" He asks after a while.
"Looks comfy." I say and sit down to his huge bed. "Why do you need such a big bed?" I ask out of pure curiosity.
"When I was little I used to fall out of my bed so much that my parents finally got tired of it, so they got me a huge bed instead of normal one. I also get a lot of nightmares so I kinda just roll around anytime I get them." He says and sits down next to me.
"You get a lot of nightmares?" I ask curious.
"That's a story for another time." He smiles at me and I get the hint to let it go.
"So do you play guitar?" I ask pointing the guitar.
"Just a bit. I'm terrible at it." Fox laughs.
"You have to play for me someday, I really want to hear." I say while pulling our biology material out of my backpack.
"Someday." He promises and takes out pens and the human biology textbook.
I turn around so that I'm laying in his bed, facing the window and putting the all kinds of papers in front of me. My tiredness hadn't gone away yet, so I made sure to take sips from my coke.
"Should we go with this?" Fox asks pointing at some course material, laying next to me.
"Yeah, great idea."
We start working hard on the project, the sun is setting at some point but I hardly even notice it since I was so concentrated to our work. Hours went by as we did our assignment, finally getting it done. My coke had ended and tiredness started to almost put me down. It was overwhelming, now that the stress about the assignment's first part was gone and my energy booster cola ended, I couldn't stop myself from feeling tired.
"Is it okay if I sleep just five minutes?" I ask yawning.
"Sure, but there's gonna get dark soon." Fox says and points out of the window. Maybe it was a hint for me to leave, or maybe he was just worrying. However, my brain shuts down as soon as my eyes closed so I didn't even bother to answer.
***
My sleep was peaceful, I wanted to no nothing but sleep anymore, I was too tired. But someone kept annoying me.
"Livia, wake upp." Fox says gently shaking me.
"Please just five minutes more." I beg.
"You've been saying that for two hours already. And your mom called." He says making me groan as I try to wake myself up. What'd he mean two hours? I had barely slept for like five minutes..?
I take my phone that was laying next to me, but for my surprise the clock was far more than it should've been. "I slept for two and half hours?!" I yell to Fox.
"You kept saying that 'not yet' for every time that I tried to wake you up." Fox says and then I notice the soft white blanket around me.
"When did this get here?" I ask.
"You said you were cold." He answers with shrug.
"Oh." I mutter and open my phone. Mom had called two times already.
It doesn't take many beeps before my mom answers. "Where the hell are you Livia?" She almost yells.
"I had to finish my biology assignment. Fox and I-" I start to explain but mom cuts me off mid sentence.
"Fox? Who's Fox? Is it a boy?" She asks.
"Yes mom, Fox is a boy. We had assignment to finish, and we got it done." I reply.
"You coul've told me you were going to do it after school. Next time text me where you're going." Mom scolds me.
"I know, I'm sorry." I sigh.
"Right. Well, dinner's ready here so you should come home." Mom says and makes me seriously panic. I don't want to eat...
"I already ate here." I say before thinking. I quickly glance at Fox who frowns at me, shit.
"You did? Oh well, just come home at some point then." Mom says and we hang up.
"You already ate here huh?" Fox asks frowning.
"I'm sorry, mom just got worried so I had to make a white lie." I try to explain.
"At least eat your protein bar, you still have that right?" He questions. "It's been almost seven hours since you ate."
I stay quiet for a while. I can't say I'm not hungry, he would never believe it, and I can't excuse myself to go home since then my mom would make me eat then but I don't want to eat the high calorie food. I just can't.
"I'm just kinda feeling a bit sick right now." I lie to him and for my surprise he buys it.
"Is that why you were so sleepy?" He asks and looks understanding.
"Yeah, I guess." I mutter looking into his forest green eyes.
"Are you cold?" He asks, but even without an answer he pulls the blanket around me tighter.
"Thank you." I say and smile slightly. The clock points at almost seven, that means I should be here for at least thirty minutes so mom wouldn't make me eat. "Can we watch tv?" I ask.
"Sure." Fox says and turns Netflix on. "What do you wanna watch?"
"I don't know, Gilmore girls?" I shrug.
"Okay. I've never watched that." He admits.
"Really? Never?" I ask shocked.
"Never." He says and we scroll down to the first episode. I had watched it over three times now, but that didn't stop me from watching it for the fourth time.
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Words: 1997