TW// MENTIONS OF DRUG ABUSE
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, Sebastian and I clock in at the same time as the other six days, a devious grin on both of our faces. We were dressed the same as we'd been dressing for the entire week: sweatpants and hoodies. The one difference? Flip flops.
"You're sure this is a good idea?" I whisper to Sebastian as he reads over our list of tasks for the day.
He skims over the paper and then a bright grin crosses his face. "I think this is a perfect idea." Sebastian hands me the paper and I see the words CLEAN UP MAIN OFFICE front and center. "I mean, come on. This is the universe telling us that our plan is solid."
I scrunch my nose. "I only took Tech my sophomore year, Seb. This is advanced stuff."
Sebastian puts down the paper and turns back to me. He reaches forward and grabs my shoulders, peering down at me. "Listen to me. Windsor has tormented us for years. We finally have the chance to get back at him. How can you not want to take it?"
"It's risky," I mumble, frowning up at him.
"Life is meant for risks, Braylen. Now come on." Sebastian grabs my arm and tugs me down the hall and into the main office. It was a pretty big room, filled with desks and tables and strewn with papers. Our task was to sort through those papers, though I was sure it'd go mostly undone tonight. There were far more pressing matters.
For the first thirty minutes, Sebastian and I rifle through the papers silently. I tap my foot anxiously as we do, trying very hard not to make any sudden movements that'd be noticeable on the tape. Sebastian and I agreed we needed to be as boring and generic as possible.
At about a quarter to nine, Sebastian stands up slowly and walks behind the counter, away from the cameras. I wait for a few beats and then do the same until I'm right next to him.
Sebastian glances behind him as he leads me into the tiny tech room. It's used for the video footage and intercom. I glance at the equipment and bite my lip. Sebastian stands behind me and I can practically feel his nervous energy. "Well?" he presses.
"I can do it," I mumble. "But you owe me big time."
Sebastian wraps an arm around me with a hearty laugh. "This is the big leagues, baby. Do your thing."
I roll my eyes and shrug away from him, quickly pressing the buttons on the camera footage system. I find the footage of us going through the papers earlier and loop it. "Here," I say, and show Sebastian the new and improved recording. "I set the loop for two hours. We need to be back by then so we can pretend like we're clocking out."
"You're a genius, Braylen Adams. A genius."
I fight back a blush and continue typing, shutting down the cameras everywhere else. "Hopefully, he won't check the tapes from other rooms, but if he does it could just be a power shortage. He'll have all this footage of us in here; that's our alibi," I explain. "Okay. Good to go?"
Sebastian flashes me a toothy grin. "Let's make a grown man cry."
I laugh as I follow him back out of the tech room and down the hall to Windsor's office. I go to open the door but it doesn't budge. With a sigh, I turn back to him. "It's locked. We didn't think this through."
"Didn't we?" Sebastian muses, his pink lips turned up in a grin. I raise an eyebrow as he pulls out a tiny brown key and presses it against the lock. The door opens easily.
"When did you have time to snag the dean's keys?" I ask as I turn the light on in the office.
Sebastian rubs his chin, looking around the room. "Ages ago. Freshman year, I think. Had it reproduced. It's come in handy quite a few times. Grab a chair."
I do as he says, lifting the precious mahogany chair and walking it out the door. We do the same with the loveseat and a bunch of random items, like his name encrusted stapler, pencil sharpener, and calendar. Sebastian and I hoist the desk up together and bring it out in the hall as well and by the time we're done we're both panting.
"Come on," Sebastian grunts as he picks up a chair. I follow suit and we begin the long walk down to the pool room. When we make it, Sebastian and I carefully lower the furniture into the pool. We do this with every piece of furniture until each and everyone is sinking at the bottom of the pool.
I grin wickedly as I drop the last chair in, standing back up and stepping next to Sebastian. We share a wide grin and then turn back to the water. "This was it. Our last prank," I mumble, feeling that slightly sad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Doesn't have to be," Sebastian argues softly. I could tell even he didn't believe it.
I shake my head slightly as we both still look at the water. "Yeah. Yeah, it does," I murmur. I look up at Sebastian, the blue of the pool making his practically electric. "I'm glad we did it together."
Sebastian looks down at me, a small grin etched on his face. "Who would've thought? Braylen and Sebastian. Friends at last."
I smile ruefully as I take back in the underwater office. "Yeah. Friends. We should probably go back and clock out now."
Sebastian sighs once before nodding in agreement. We lock back up Windsor's office and return to our previous positions with two minutes to spare. As soon as we sit back down we're up again, looking as if we're leaving for the night.
"Let me show you something," Sebastian whispers to me as we're walking out of the main office, fingers brushing against mine. Heat spreads throughout my entire body. I can only nod.
I follow Sebastian out the door into the chilly night air and across the school's stone slabbed floors until we reach the outside wall of the room. I recognized the room to be Dr. Hayden's Chemistry classroom. I was sure I only remembered the place because Sebastian jump scared me so badly I singed the ends of my hair on the Bunsen burner. I smile fondly at the room.
Sebastian didn't take me here to reminisce, though; he pulls me back closer to the shrubbery and leads me to an old, rusty ladder. "Come on."
He climbs up first and I try not to be afraid by the sound of the ladder rattling. Sebastian had at least 40 pounds on me, but the ladder looked like it would snap at the weight of a feather. "Today, Brayls," Sebastian echoes from the top of the ladder.
I heave a huge sigh and begin climbing up behind him, locking onto the thing for dear life. "Where exactly are we going?"
"The roof. Isn't it obvious?"
And it suddenly was as we reached the top, the dark grey cobblestone even darker in the night sky. Sebastian mounted it easily, reaching down and taking my hands to pull me all the way up. We positioned ourselves in different parts of the roof: where I was against the edge of another part of the roof and as far from the ledge as possible, Sebastian had his legs dangling off the end of it.
"Look," Sebastian murmurs, pointing out at the city lights before us, twinkling and shining as if they were doing their own little dance. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
I couldn't disagree. "Are you scared? Of the future, I mean. The fact that all of this is over in a few months?"
"Scared. Sad. Relieved," he mumbles. He turns back to me and smiles sadly. "Tell me something."
I raise an eyebrow and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "What do you wanna know?"
Sebastian closes his eyes for a moment and I feel my heart flutter as the wind sweeps his hair to the side. As quickly as the moment happens, it passes. His eyes are back on me in no time. "I don't know. Something interesting. Something I don't know."
I swallow hard and inch closer to him, reluctantly getting closer to the ledge. "Um...I'm taking an Astronomy class this year." I look away from Sebastian's face and up at the sky instead. "Uh, right there? The one on the left a little? That's Deneb. It's a star in the constellation of Cygnus or the swan. It's the head of the Northern Cross."
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean," Sebastian says with a soft chuckle. He looks over at me and I force my voice to remain steady.
"Right. Sorry. Um, it's the 19th brightest star in the sky. That's pretty cool, yeah?"
Sebastian nods, looking back up at it. "What's the brightest star, then?"
"That'd be Sirius A. The dog star," I respond and lift my hand. "It's up over there, see?"
Sebastian follows my finger up to the sky and we spend the next thirty minutes talking about all the different stars and constellations that make up the universe. I can tell he's starting to get tired when his words become farther apart and his head is practically laying on my shoulder. I smile contentedly and stop explaining Cassiopeia to him.
"Brayls?" Sebastian murmurs.
"Hmm?"
"I'm sorry I've been such a douche our entire lives," he whispers, voice deep with tiredness in it.
I chuckle softly. "Water under the bridge, Sebastian. Besides, I wasn't exactly kind either." He laughs too, eyes twinkling despite his fatigue. I stare at him for a moment and feel the need to tell this boy everything about me, everything that I tried to forget.
"B? You okay?" he asks.
I take a deep breath and turn my head out towards the city knowing there's no way I'd be able to speak and look at him at the same time. "My mom...look, I lived in Maine before I came to California. I transferred here in fourth grade and went to live with Oba and the twins but before that, I lived with my mom. S-she's really messed up, Sebastian. She has bipolar disorder or manic depression. I prefer saying that over 'bipolar.' Makes her sound like a nut case. But it wasn't just her condition, Sebastian. She got addicted to drugs and alcohol and really, really bad things. She just...I don't think she ever really even cared about me."
I take a shaky breath, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
"The nightmare I had that night of your party? It was when she had two guys over and was smoking blunts with them in the living room. It was one of those really small apartments, though, and the walls were thin. So I eavesdropped and then I watched. And then I got caught and one of the guys gave me the blunt. I-I only did it because I thought it'd make my mom proud. Messed up, huh? Most mothers are proud of their kids getting good grades, learning how to read. I thought the only way to get her to love me was to be like her."
Sebastian takes in a deep and long breath before speaking. "How old were you?" he murmurs.
I swallow hard. "I was eight."
"That's abuse, Brayls. You could've been seriously hurt," he says and the severity of his tone flatters me. It meant he cared, just a little bit at least.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know that now. I didn't understand it when CPS came and took me away. I would've been stuck in foster care or something if it weren't for my aunt taking me in. Anyway, I moved out here and they moved her into a psych ward. At least, that's what I call it. It's really just a facility to help her and other people with addiction and stuff."
I look at him, wondering if I'd said enough to make him run away, screaming. I hadn't, apparently. His feet stay planted on the roof. "We...we've all got crap, Braylen. I do, you do, everyone we know does."
"I don't think everyone has a psychotic mother," I scoff.
"Look, I've never met her, but she's not a psycho. She's sick," he murmurs. "Lots of people are. It's not uncommon, she's just got it worse than a lot of people."
I shrug. "Whatever. That doesn't excuse what she's done to me, what she's let other people do to me. She's dead to me, Sebastian, and I mean that."
I sigh deeply, tucking my hair behind my ear. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "It's not my place."
"No, it isn't," I agree, but I'm smiling.
We spend about a half an hour or so more just talking and laughing. I never exactly realized how much I loved talking to Sebastian, how happy he mad me. It wasn't until I glanced at my phone and saw the time that I sighed. "We should probably head home."
"Yeah," he says, lips curling into a smirk. "I'll go down first?"
I nod once as he stands, beginning to head back down the ladder again. I wait until I can't see the top of his head before I let the blush rush through my entire body, smiling softly into my hands as I think of the past week we'd spent together. I didn't think I'd ever been happier and it was easy to know why.
My happiness was cut short by the sound of Sebastian's pain-stricken voice.
"Braylen!" Sebastian shouts, fear evident in every word. "Braylen, help!"
I jump to my feet quickly, sheer panic washing over me. There's the sound of a loud thud and my heart beats rapidly. It'd broken; the ladder finally snapped. And Sebastian—
My feet were rushing to him without my brain even thinking it through. I didn't care about the shifty cobblestone under my feet or the fact that I was running along a roof. I just needed to get to him.
I reach the top of the ladder but Sebastian is nowhere in sight. The ladder still stands tall and shows no sign of breakage. He must've fallen. I swallow a huge gulp of oxygen as my heart jumps in fear. "Sebastian! Sebastian, I'm coming, okay? Just hang on!"
I begin to climb down the ladder as quickly as possible. I'm nearing the end when my foot misses one of the rungs and I'm sent falling. It wasn't too far, five feet and some change, but strong arms catch me before my body even registers the fall. I look up into Sebastian's bright blue eyes, twinkling in humor and fear.
"You're okay?" I whisper, relieved. Then, it turns incredulous. "You're okay? I thought you died!"
"I told you the pool thing wouldn't be my last prank. One last show for the road," he says with a huge laugh. I push his arms away from where they'd caught me—my waist and hips—and cross my arms instead. "Wait, are you actually mad?"
I furrow my eyebrows in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? I just ran across the freaking roof like I'm in the Matrix or something because I thought you were hurt! And it was just some practical joke?"
"Brayls, I've gone down that ladder a thousand times. You knew I was fine." His bright blue eyes were fully awake now—awake and staring at me quizzically.
"I didn't know, Sebastian!" I hiss at him, angry tears forming in my eyes. I blink them away, willing myself to breathe normally again. "You were so tired up there, I thought...I thought. Ugh!" I push his chest and he staggers back a bit before reaching back and grabbing my hand.
"Braylen," he murmurs. My cheeks heat up in anger and I swipe my free hand through my hair, staring at the wall of the Chemistry room. "Look at me."
I hesitate before bringing my eyes slowly up to his. He looks down at me with an unrecognizable expression, eyes as soft and tender as I'd ever seen him be. My heart begins to beat quickly in my chest again, but I know I wasn't fearing him getting hurt this time.
Sebastian's eyes flicker down to my lips imperceptibly. My breathing hitches as his face inches closer to mine. Is he moving? Am I moving? I couldn't even tell.
Whoever initiated it, Sebastian's the one that pulls away. He lets go of my hand, too, but still stares at me. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again. Let's go home," he gets out.
He's already said goodnight and dropped me off back home before I can ask him exactly what he was apologizing for.
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these two make my head hurt lol
thank you for reading
see you next week
xoxo
jo