Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the last day of the trip and we were getting ready to pack up my car. We let Clay and Nick do all the heavy lifting while George and I laid down next to each other on the bed and filmed silly TikTok videos together that probably wouldn't be seen. He showed me all of his drafts too which were completely ridiculous but I loved them anyway. The ones that made us crack up he sent me over iMessage so I had something to look at when I'm down.
"No it's okay, we'll do all the work, it's fine," Clay deadpanned when the two got ready for a second trip down to the car.
"Oh thank you for offering!" I exclaimed. He rolled his eyes and chuckled.
"You're such a simp Dream," George giggled.
"And I'm fine admitting that. Only for her."
"Hehe, I'm special," I boasted, shoving George's shoulders lightly.
"So you'll proudly admit that you simp for Cali, but the second a fan points out that you're simping for me, you run over and try to kill me?"
I burst out laughing and buried my head in George's shoulder, "It's okay George, I simp for you," I told him.
"Thank you, Caelum."
Clay scoffed and walked out of the room with my bags in his arms. I smiled and continued talking with George about TikTok. I ended up showing him my profile next and all the drafts I have saved. There were also multiple videos I have saved of me attempting to do a face reveal. After thirty different videos, I realized that doing my face reveal on TikTok wasn't the move. Nick tried to give me advice since he did a proper face reveal pretty early. I wasn't sure if a twitch stream was where I wanted to do it the first time either.
That's the thing with hiding your face for so long; the fans create unrealistic expectations about you. They start thinking of you as this drop dead gorgeous human being that's perfect and it shows in the fan art they create. Clay has discussed this with me as well. His fans believe that he's the hottest human ever, but in reality, he's just average. And there's nothing wrong with that, but he feels like he'd be letting them down. Which is something you shouldn't feel when it comes to being vulnerable.
"I think you should just do it," George said.
"It's not that easy, George," I sighed.
"I know I'm not one to talk, but you seemed fine meeting Sapnap and I."
"It's more complicated than that George. Ask Clay. I had a panic attack in his arms the first time we met. It was so bad. But he had a positive reaction to seeing me, so it made revealing what I look like to you two a lot easier the second go-around. Plus, we've been friends for almost a year. We talk everyday. Doing a face reveal to the fans is like going on a stage in front of millions of strangers. They don't know me personally like you lot do."
"I just don't understand," he huffed.
"I know, George. It's okay."
Clay and Nick came back into the room while George and I were in the middle of this heated discussion. I think they could sense that George was getting frustrated about something, and I'm pretty sure Clay sensed that I was getting equally frustrated.
"Everything okay?" He asked hesitantly as he approached the bed.
"Uh," I glanced at George and grinned, "Everything's fine."
He raised his eyebrows in questioning at me, "Okay," he drawled, "If you say so."
"The car's all packed for you guys, so whenever you're ready to head out."
I sighed from beside George. It was sad. I feel like we didn't spend enough time with Nick. Him and I clicked well and I hated the fact that we lived so far from each other and couldn't hang out more than once a year. When the other two were passed out cold and we were the only two awake, we had some deep conversations and really got to know each other on a deeper level. Whenever Nick and I talked in the past, it was usually only ever with Clay present. I swear that they're all different around other people.
"Next time you're visiting me, Nicholas," I asserted, standing up and approaching him.
"Okay, fine. I'll come visit soon."
I smiled, "Thank you."
I opened my arms and gave him the biggest, coziest hug I could muster. We rocked back and forth for a couple minutes and the other two just let it happen. When we finally decided the hug was going on for too long, Sapnap moved on to the other two. He gave them quicker hugs, but nonetheless, hugs.
We all stood around in a circle staring at each other, waiting for the first person to initiate leaving. I raised my eyebrows, Sapnap shrugged, George awkwardly looked towards the window, and Clay turned around and started for the door. Of course he's the first one to leave. I honestly expected that from him.
"He leaves, I follow," I said, spinning around and jogging up to him, "C'mon lil ducklings," I smiled, waving for them to follow. George eagerly met up with us and Nick rolled his eyes and tailed along.
When we got down to the cars, we played the standing in a circle game before Clay got frustrated and yelled that we were not going to do this again.
"I don't like long goodbyes," he said, hopping into the drivers seat of the car.
"I don't like goodbyes," I pouted.
"I'll come visit in the next few months, I promise. Before school starts up again."
"Pinky promise?"
"You can't break her pinky promises man," Clay said from the car.
Nick held out his pinky and we solemnly swore that we'd see each other before the summer ends. I hugged him one more time, then stood with George on the passenger side of the car as we had a stare off for who would get passenger. Him and Nick have been stuck in the backseat every time we drove somewhere this past week as Clay and I switched off between driving and passenger.
"I quite enjoy the backseat actually; I can lay down."
I shrugged, "Okay, I won't complain."
We got into our appropriate seats and waved goodbye to Nick one last time before driving off. I played a soft playlist that I could sing along to for the beginning of the road trip as I'd been listening to too much rap type music this week with Sapnap. Within an hour of being on the road, George had already grabbed his pillow from the floor and fell asleep. He's one of those people that sleeps as soon as his body's in the car. It must be the ambience and the rockiness of driving on the road. I'm the complete opposite. Unless I can't keep my eyes open any longer, I won't fall asleep in the car.
I stared at Clay as he focused on the road and the sound of the music. I saw his eyes glance through the rearview mirror to look at what George was doing, then he sensed me looking and finally met my eyes.
"Why're you staring at me?"
"I'm admiring. You're very pretty."
He smiled and looked back to the road. His cheeks got very pink and it made me happy to see him so smiley, "Thank you. You are very pretty too."
"Dream," George mumbled in the back. I glanced back and saw him shaking his head in his sleep and hugging his pillow.
"He's sleep talking again," I whispered over the quiet hum of the music, "You remember that time the four of us fell asleep over discord after watching a scary movie together and George started mumbling in his sleep about Wilbur chasing him and trying to drown him in the tub?"
Clay started wheezing, "I remember that! I also remember you getting so scared from the movie and you jumped so hard at one of the scares that you threw your phone off the couch and cracked the screen protector."
"And Nick had actually fallen asleep at that point but the loud noise woke him up."
"And we were all laughing at the fact that the bloody murder scream from the movie didn't wake him, but rather the bang of the phone on the floor."
"I miss those times," I pouted, "We should've had a movie night when we were all together. We used to have movie nights every Friday for like six weeks straight and then we just stopped."
"We can start that back up if you'd like."
I shrugged my shoulders, "Maybe."
He poked my hand that was resting on the middle console, "May I?"
"We're dating now. You don't need to ask permission to do something so little like holding my hand," I giggled. He grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together, then rested our intertwined hands on the middle console.
"I don't want to do something you're not okay with. I know sometimes you may not be in the mood for hand holding or any of that, or maybe you're not comfortable doing it in front of people, I don't know. We haven't really spoken about that."
"I don't mind hand holding in front of people, but that's about it because I'm not the biggest fan of PDA, you know?"
"Thank god, I hate PDA too."
"I really appreciate you asking though. I think it's very sweet and considerate. It's not annoying and if you feel better continuing to ask, I'm okay with that."
"If you don't mind, I might continue to do it. Just for a little bit until we get used to this, us, you know?" I nodded my head, "I don't want to screw this up."
We spent the next two hours—as George slept talked and lightly snored in the back seat—discussing our past relationships, the issues we had with them, why they didn't work out, what we didn't like our ex partners doing, etc. It really helped us get an insight into what we each were comfortable with, connect dots on the flaws we have and need to be aware of and work on, how slow we needed to take this relationship, and so much more. I feel like this was a really good start to our relationship. It was a respectable start. Not only that, but Clay is the most respectful person I've ever met. The only way I can see this going awry is if I fuck up, and that's what terrifies me. I don't want to hurt him.