-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Looking for a really great read? Go and support and their book Out Loud.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=Jason=-
Alex was really starting to get on my nerves. He was just being rude, and I was starting to see that it was impacting Evan as well. Over the past few days he wasn't really...here. I mean, he was here, but not really. We were all sitting there on the couch, taking turns playing video games with each other. But one of us wasn't, and guess who, it was Alex. He instead was at one end of the couch, tilting his phone slightly away from everyone and doing what I can only assume was texting someone. Evan sat next to him, of course, but he didn't look all too happy to be ignored by his boyfriend, which pissed me off even further. I love Evan, he's like a little brother to me, so it only makes sense that I would be upset about something if he is also.
"Hey Evan, can I talk to you about something?" I requested, handing my controller over to Alyssa so she could finish my match for me. He looked away from the TV screen and over to me, his arms folded against his chest.
"Um yeah, sure." He replied, standing up to follow me down the infamous hallway. I led him over to the closet and pulled him inside, closing the door behind us. I then reached up and grabbed the drawstring to the light bulb and gave it a little tug, flooding the small closet with illumination.
"You aren't gonna rape me, are you?" Evan joked.
"Har har. No I wanted to talk to you about Alex." I said, whispering.
"Oh, him." He said, his ears drooping at the sound of his name.
"What's up with him?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I have no idea." Evan answered. "He's just been acting so distant lately and I have no idea why. All he does is sit on his phone now doing God knows what all of the time." He said, struggling to keep his voice at a whisper as to not draw anyone's attention.
"Okay then, I was hoping you'd know because I think everyone else has noticed his lack of...presence lately. I guess that we will just have to do a little more digging to see what's up." Because this is worrying me. I wanted to add, but I also didn't want to concern Evan any more than he needed to be so I didn't say it. "Well never mind then, let's head back out there before people start to think of stuff." I said. Evan laughed a bit, turned out the light, and we both headed back out of the hallway.
"I came out of the closet!!" Evan yelled into the apartment. I burst out laughing.
"I always knew you were gay!" Amy yelled from the living room, continuing the joke. Still laughing, we both walked back in, only to see...and hear the most amazing sight possible. At least it was by my eyes. Alyssa was leaning forward, staring intently at the television monitor. She was wearing Evan's headset and was screaming into the microphone at the other people.
"You know, it would be nice every once in a while to have a good fucking team! Stop running in there!! FUCK!!!" She yelled as she got shot. The match ended with their team losing by one kill. When the scoreboard came up though, I saw that Alyssa was running 57 kills and 3 deaths, while the rest of her team were going with scores such as 6 and 11.
"God damn, I never knew you knew how to play." I said in awe, sitting next to Alyssa and leaning into her to calm her down from her match.
"Well you never ask me to play with you, so why would I tell you." She retorted, smirking a bit.
"Well played." I acknowledged. "Literally. Hey where's Rob?" I asked, noticing his absence from the room.
"Rob? Oh he jumped ship while you and Evan were 'talking.'" I rolled my eyes at Summer's statement.
"Yeah, but where did he go?" I asked...again.
"I think he said something about getting some stuff from his apartment. I don't know what though, he kind of left in a bit of a hurry." She replied.
"Oh, well speaking of jumping ship, Jason and I need to go out and get a bottle of champagne." Alyssa said, hopping off of the couch and onto her paws.
"We do? What for?" I asked.
"It's New Years Eve silly, and you always need champagne on New Years. Vive le Français!" She said. New Years! Of course! How could I have forgotten?
"Oh yeah! Okay let's go." I said, also getting up. I slipped on the pair of shoes that I had left by the door and followed Alyssa outside.
It took us about ten minutes to reach the liquor store, then the thought struck me. Neither of us are legal. I knew that my sister was on holiday, so she wouldn't be able to help us, and no one in our little group was above 21 either [Jesus Christmas America, 21? Really? In Canada it's 18.]
"Umm, Alyssa?" I asked, shooting her a worried look. She seemed to know what was on my mind.
"Don't worry about it, I have it covered." She said, opening her door and stepping outside. I followed her example before asking a follow up question.
"You do?" I asked confusidly.
"Mhm, right after Christmas your sis gave me an idea, so I paid an old buddy of mine and he made me a fake ID. So I'm 22, got it?" She said. Dumbfounded I nodded my head in agreement.
"Psychopath..." I said quietly under my breath. But leave it to feline hearing to get me caught, because she heard me.
"Mhm, you knew what you signed up for." She said, pushing the glass door open, causing a little "Ding Dong" sound to chime through the package store. We scoured the isles of spirits, looking for the tell-tale gold foil cap signifying champagne. When we finally found it, we looked along the grouping of bottles and found the most expensive one, might as well. The name of it was completely written in French, something like "Fais Ta Fille." The name seemed to cause Alyssa to laugh.
"I forgot you know French, what does it say?" I asked, honestly curious. Still laughing she answered my question.
"It means 'Do Your Girl.'" She said, making me laugh.
"That's horrible!" I laughed, picking up the bottle and giving it to her. We walked over to the register, where an old, old tan snake was. Alyssa put the bottle up on the counter, also pulling out some cash and a very real looking Identification Card.
"$43.50." He croaked, flicking his y-shaped tongue while he spoke. Alyssa slid a $50 bill and her "ID" over to him. "I also need his." He said, pointing to me. You know that moment when all stages of inner panic hit at once, and you get that cold, weightless feeling in your core? Yeah, that was me, right then and there. I looked nervously over to Alyssa, who was remaining surprisingly calm despite the situation that we were currently in.
"I-I think I left my wallet at home." I lied. But Alyssa, smart and clever as always, came to the rescue.
"Oh don't worry hun, I grabbed your ID on our way out." She said, reaching back into her purse.
"You did...?" I asked, still not sure where she was going with this, I mean, she was the one with the fake ID. But nope, apparently I'm also three years older because she pulled out a license identical to the one she had presented earlier, the only difference was the picture and the information. I decided to play along, as that was the move that made the most sense. "Bless sweetheart." I said, giving out an audible sigh of relief. The cashier looked over both ID's, to ensure that they were "legit" and rung up our order, gave us our change, and sent us out on our merry way.
"How'd you manage to pull that one off!" I laughed as we climbed back into the car, liquor in tow.
"Well, I took the liberty of getting you a fake ID as well as myself, for situations like this." She said, starting up the car and beginning to drive out of the parking lot.
"But why did you not tell me?" I asked.
"Well," Oh Jeez, she gave me an evil smirk, "I wanted to see you squirm a bit." She snickered.
"Bitch." I replied.
"Dick." She imediately shot back. "Hey do you mind if we stop in here really quick?" She asked, pointing to a cornerstore down the street from the university. "We've used up all of Evan's milk and I'm not going home tonight, so I expect to be able to have a bowl of cereal tomorrow morning." She said.
"Of course we can, c'mon let's go." I responded, hopping out of the car for our second excursion of the night. We both headed inside, walking down an isle until we hit the back wall, which was a line of fridges. We walked down the line until we found the milk, grabbed a gallon, and started to walk down a different isle towards the checkout. We chose the card isle by random, and saw a familiar face by chance.
"Hey Rob." I said, walking up to him. At the sight of the two of us he quickly hid something behind his back.
"Oh, h-hey guys, what're you two doing here?" He asked, maintaining his guard of whatever he held behind his back.
"Just grabbing some milk, how about you? I thought you were going to get something from your apartment, not a CVS." I said, tilting my head to the side a bit. I guess today was just my day for asking questions, now wasn't it.
"Y-yeah, I just needed to buy something really quick." He answered.
"Whatcha getting?" I asked, nodding behind him.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." He said. But he didn't notice that Alyssa had slipped away from the conversation and walked around behind him.
"'Would you go out with me?'" She quoted, bending down behind Rob to read what must be a card in his hands. He whipped around to face Alyssa, startled by her sudden appearance behind him.
"Oh my God!" I practically shouted. "He's trying to get a girl!"
"Hey! Shut up! Don't tell anyone about this." He said.
"Nah don't worry about it, anyways, meet you back at Evan's."
"Bye..." He said quietly.
-<☆>-
The next few hours were filled with trivial activities to pass the time. Card games, video games, food, anything. We were all playing what was probably the longest game of Uno in my life, and lucky me possessed half of the deck.
"Skip." Called Alyssa.
"Skip." Called Brandon.
"Draw four Jason." Amy said, giving me an evil grin.
"Fuck off." I said, leaning over to draw from the ever decreasing drawing stack. Alex's phone buzzed and he instinctively looked at his phone to read his notification. I watched him as his face went from casual bored to excited, like, the kind of excited that if he wasn't sitting on his tail it would be going off like a propeller on an airplane. He looked up at Evan, not noticing the underlying upset attitude that he had.
"Hey Ev." He asked. At the sound of Alex talking to him, Evan instantly perked up, looking happy that he was being acknowledged. But that happiness was very short lived. "Would you be okay if I spent the rest of the night at a friend's house?" He asked. This pissed me off, but it wasn't my place to say anything. Evan, who was required to answer Alex's question, resumed his pose of droopiness and answered.
"Sure I guess." He said.
"Thanks!" Alex said, happily getting up and leaving the dorm without further discussion, not even giving Evan a hug goodbye...or saying so for that matter.
It wasn't until about fifteen minutes before midnight that we all started to pay attention to the time. Heck, Amy pulled out her phone and pulled up a timer that went to the millisecond and set it beside her.
"Hey Summer?" Rob asked, looking nervous. It was at this point that my brain finally shoved two and two together. Holy fuck! I mentally yelled. I looked over to Alyssa and she seemed to be having the same thoughts as me because she looked back at me with a surprised look on her face.
"Yes?" Summer responded.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Rob asked, twiddling his thumbs. Go get 'em tiger!...dragon! I don't know.
"Sure." She said, getting up from her place sitting on the floor around the coffee table. "Oh yeah, by the way, I win." She said, slapping down a blue three, ending the game.
"Shit!" Brandon cursed, throwing his two remaining cards onto the table as well. I couldn't help but give a wolf whistle quietly as Rob and Summer headed down the hallway, or as I think I might start calling it, the 'Tunnel of Love.' We couldn't hear anything at all from the hallway, deciding to not take the jackass route so we remained where we were instead of evesdropping. But soon after they both came walking out, looking a bit happier than usual.
"How did it go?" I silently mouthed to Rob, who was blushing like crazy. He replied with a wink and rested his head in his hands.
"Two minutes!" Amy shouted, looking down at her phone. But unlike Alex, she was here.
"Oh! Go get your girl Jason!" Alyssa choked out, stifling a laugh. I, however, have less control than Alyssa and broke out laughing. The others just looked at us in confusion, but that was fine. "My girl" and I understood the joke. I ran over to the refridgerator, grabbing the bottle and also a stack of solo cups left over from Christmas.
"Sorry guys, no fancy glasses so these will have to do." I said, lining up the needed amount of plastic cups in a line on the coffee table.
"Thirty seconds!" Amy warned, propping her phone up underneath the TV. We all started counting at ten.
"10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I reached over, grabbing Alyssa by her hips and swinging her towards me, planting a deep and passionate kiss on her lips.
"To 2018!" I shouted, raising the green glass bottle of champagne over my head and popping the cap with s very satisfying pop. I poured it all out into each of the cups and handed them out, taking a swig of "My Girl."
But in what should have been a completely happy and carefree moment, the sight of Evan sitting in the corner all alone, swirling his cup around with no one to share the moment with made me upset. Very upset.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=Evan=-
I know I should be haply right now, but I can't. Not when the person who should be by my side making life enjoyable is missing. Jason sat down next to me and rested an arm around my shoulder.
"Hey man, how are you holding up?" He asked, true concern showing in his voice and on his face.
"Meh." I replied. "My stomach is bothering me a ton right now." I added. Which, I mean, my stomach hurting wasn't a lie, it did hurt like hell, but there were also other reasons that Jason seemed to know about.
"No." He said.
"Hm?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nope, this isn't how this is going to work right now. You're boyfriend should be here and he's not, and I can clearly see that him vanishing, here physically or not, is bothering you. We're gonna go out and find him to confront him." He said.
"What? No, please Jason it isn't a really big deal. Plus my stomach really does hurt. A lot." I said, surprised by his desire to take action.
"Nope, c'mon we're going." He said, his mind made up. Seeing no clear way to change his mind, I gave up and followed him up. "Evan and I will be back soon, we just need to check up on something." Jason said to the others, then proceeding to lead me by my wrist out into the hallway.
"Ah not so fast Jason! I feel like I'm about to throw up!" I said, wincing in a wave of nausea as he pulled me down the endless flight of stairs and outside.
"So where do you think we'll find him?" Jason asked, finally letting go of my arm.
"If I had to guess any place in the world I would have to say his dorm room." I said.
"Yeah, but you heard him. He said that he would be going over a friend's house." Jason said.
"Yeah I know, but, I have a hunch, let's go see." I said, walking across the street. I felt like shit right now, and this stomachache wasn't letting up and it was unlike any other one I've ever had before, the pain was excruciating.
We both walked inside of the dorm complex next to mine, where Alex's dorm was. When we got to his dorm room door I pulled out the key he had given me and unlocked the door, swinging it open. I listened intently and could barely make out some noise coming from Alex's room. My heart got heavier and heavier as I neared the door, louder noises able to be heard now, nearly confirming my worst fears. Jason pulled up the rear, I couldn't see him but I could feel his presence, keeping me strong. But I was still holding out some faith, and I pushed open his door. Whatever faith I was holding out was shattered at that moment, when I saw an all-too-familiar cream colored wolf and an otter, Cate, his old girlfriend. Full blown too, like so deep that it took them a solid twenty seconds to notice the two new furs that had interrupted them. But when Alex did finally see me and Jason standing there, a tear rolling down my cheek, he gasped and jumped up.
"Evan!" He said in shock.
"What baby-Oh my God get out!!" Cate screamed, catching up to the fact that they were no longer alone.
"Evan this isn't what it looks like!" He desparately claimed, his face a pale white, drained from color.
"How the fuck is this not exactly what this looks like?!" I shouted at him.
"I-I..." He stuttered, clearly at a loss for words.
"Get the fuck out you perverts!!" Cate screamed, covering herself with Alex's bed's comforter.
"Shut the fuck up whore!" Jason yelled.
"Hey! Don't talk to my gi-" Alex was saying.
"Your girl? YOUR GIRL?!" I screamed. "Fuck off!" But before I could yell any more hatred to the two, my stomach chose to intervene. A sharp pain clawed at my gut, and I felt as if I had been impaled with a spear. I fell to the ground and coughed. But my cough turned into me throwing up. But here was the catch, it came out a dark red and a pitch black. That can't be right...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oof 3300 words for that 1k special. Um, btw, that ending, I'm sorry for? Idk. A bunch of theories came flooding in and I made it all worse, you're welcome!! :D
(Thanks for all of the love and suport guys, 1000 reads was my end goal for this story, and to have it it so soon I can not express the depth of my gratitude. Thank you all!!