Chapters On A Page

I had been able to tell that my friends had been shocked into silence by Dominic's dramatic exit, but it wasn't because the sound had been leeched from the room. There had been an intense ringing in my ears, preventing me from actually hearing that no one was speaking. It had been the expressions on the faces I saw, the way they had turned to one another to exchange looks that asked what they should do to make things better again and no longer be awkward. I had been the cause of those stunned expressions seeking something they may never find and I had hated it. I still hated it. The only thing I'd been able to think to do in the moment though was to push myself to my feet and follow in my boyfriend's footsteps, carefully pacing the inches to the door. When I had made my way back to the others, they had all found their voices again, albeit slightly hushed and cautious versions of them. They didn't cut off abruptly though when I stepped into the living room, which I was thankful for. At least they weren't talking about it behind my back, or even if they were, at least they weren't scared to let me know they had been. Every pair of eyes slid to me expectantly, but I only shrugged and informed them that Dominic had gone out the door before I could get to him. I kept a cheerful demeanor somehow even though I was going somewhat catatonic inside.

I had no right to be so upset. I knew this more than I knew anything else in the moment. I had had intentions of breaking it off with Dominic, had even hoped that maybe he would do it himself before I got the chance. But I hadn't wanted it to happen so soon, not while we were with everyone, not when I was still happy to spend the time with him to some extent. It hadn't been the alcohol that had me cuddling up to him during the beginning of Truth or Dare, it had been the months we'd spent together before I could admit I didn't love him. I hadn't wanted it to end so abruptly and without explanation of any kind or with him hating me because I had blurted out that I didn't love him right there in front of ten of my friends. It was all of this that had me so dismayed about the whole thing, and why sleep was the greatest escape it ever had been that night.

The sun woke me up in the morning, though it was only because it had decided to make a brief appearance from its hiding place behind the clouds. In the second of unhindered light shining through the window and hitting my face, it blared bright enough to cause me to stir. I rolled over in hopes of blocking out the light even though it had already disappeared and been replaced by the grim, gray illumination that the clouds were causing. But that only caused me to knock into someone, someone I had presumably been sharing a pillow with even though I was certain I'd had my own when I fell asleep. Heaving a deep sigh that fully woke me up, I opened my eyes just like I hadn't wanted to when the sun had touched my face. They found dark brown shaggy hair in disarray across the pillow, a mouth open ever so slightly, and lids that hid the chocolate eyes behind them. It was only for a split second though. My body connecting with his led to Alex jumping awake, his mouth closing before drool could escape, and his eyes popping open. The messy hair was a different story.

He blinked a few times, slowly, trying to deny the fact that sleep was actually getting away from him. When it was apparent to him that he wasn't going to fall back into a slumber, he grudgingly forced his eyes to stay open. He stretched then, removing his arm from where it had been resting over Lisa. He didn't seem to care that he was lying on his stomach still as he stretched, or even that he and I were so close to each other. "Morning," he smiled after a moment, his arms far above his head and the pillow with one shoulder partially obscuring his mouth. His words were loud enough though and I could still see one corner of his lips upturned.

My mind wasn't on morning greetings though, instead flashing to something from last night that was surprisingly not about Dominic walking out. "How… many times did I see Jack's dick last night?" I asked very seriously, gazing at the ceiling as I formed the words and turning my face back to Alex's for his answer.

He guffawed loudly, pressing his face into the pillow when his volume earned him an irritated shove from his girlfriend on his other side. "More than you ever have, but less than you ever will," he promised with an amused grin when he lifted his head again. He snorted a few more times as he tried to stifle boisterous chortles, but they were just as noisy. Sleepily, Lisa lifted her head and turned to him with a glare that really could have just been her still mostly asleep, and she smacked him in the ribs. That only made him laugh harder.

As Lisa fell back to her own pillow, already asleep again, I sat up, pushing my blanket off of me. I took hold of Alex's hand, now pulled close to him and pressed between the pillow and his chin, and tugged on his arm until he stood up with me. He came somewhat reluctantly but came nonetheless, stepping over sleeping bodies and shuffling down the hall beside me. "Sorry for uh… taking over your pillow, by the way," I apologized softly as we made our way toward the door. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed about it because of what I had thought about last night but playing it off as if I was bracing myself for the cold that was going to sweep over us in a moment.

He lifted one of his hands to ruffle the back of his already disheveled hair and he ran his fingers through it in a halfhearted attempt to work some of the tangles out as he shook his head. "It's cool. I didn't even notice until I woke up," he claimed, letting me know that it was no big deal. He pulled the door open for the two of us then, bringing a gust of chilly autumn wind with it. He let me go out first after I had slipped my shoes on and he came after, barefoot. Once he'd reached the edge of the concrete slab that acted as a porch to the pool house, he sank down onto it, his knees level with his chest.

He didn't have to pat the spot next to him to tell me to sit but he did it anyway and I obeyed. Instead of letting my feet sit flat on the feigned bricks below that extended out into the patio, I left them on the porch and pulled my knees up to my chest, burying my arms behind them to stay warm. I yawned then, pressing my forehead to my knees to make sure the chill didn't find its way into my lungs. When I looked up again, I took notice of the morning. It was gloomy, just as it had looked from inside, but I could tell that the clouds didn't threaten rain for the day. Orange and brown leaves littered the ground, covering the patio in a thick layer and floating along in the uncovered pool. The bottom of the water was solid brown due to all of the dead leaves that had drifted to the floor, soggy and drowned. The temperature was too low for my liking, but it was crisp and helped in waking me up. I heaved a sigh, simply to accept the air into my lungs as I had been afraid of just a moment ago.

"You're all right… right?" Alex questioned hesitantly when the sound escaped me. His expression was one of concern but I tried hard not to even glimpse at it. I didn't want him seeing that the sigh had nothing to do with what he thought it did. "Dominic… he shouldn't have just walked out on you like that. It was stupid of him. If I was him, I would have stuck around to hear your side of the story," he claimed, staring out toward the pool and the fence beyond it.

"He did hear my side of the story. What more is there to find out when he knows I don't love him like he thought I had all this time?" I countered, more acid in my tone than I had intended. I didn't want to be angry about the situation, I didn't want to care. But part of me couldn't stop from filling me with heartache because I had ruined the relationship I hadn't wanted to be in any longer.

"Val," Alex started, but he had to pause briefly to clear his throat. "It's not your fault that you don't love him anymore. You did and then you got to know him better. That happens in more relationships than you think," he assured me, cracking a smile and nudging my shoulder with his own to get a grin out of me as well. "Especially in my relationships. I'm a bastard when you get to know me," he joked when I didn't respond the way he had hoped.

I giggled lightly, but I was still submerged in the train of thought his original statement had started me on. I hadn't even imagined that my admission last night would be interpreted that way, as if I had loved Dominic over the summer before things had become serious between us. After the truth had been told, when I wasn't busying myself with not thinking about it, I was only thinking about how I had said it with Alex on my mind. That brought me up short. I still wasn't sure how I felt about everything that had run through my hazy mind last night. "Yeah, you're right," I replied to him, attempting to steer my thoughts in a different direction. It had most likely been a longer pause than necessary since he'd spoken but I didn't have the strength to care. "But I tried. I really tried," I revealed honestly. "It just got more and more impossible."

"Well, he is kind of a douche, so I'm not surprised," Alex snorted, trying his best to lighten the mood. He reached out, his hand finding my knee to give it a reassuring pat. He left it there though just as he let the conversation fall into a comfortable silence. We both kept our eyes gazing across Gwen's backyard, listening to dried leaves scratching the concrete as they skidded across it and watching courageous birds pecking at the near frozen ground for worms. His thumb slid gently back and forth over my knee absentmindedly as I chewed nervously on my lip trying not to think about it. "I can't believe you slept in your jeans," he blurted suddenly, changing the subject completely as he took his hand back and turned toward me.

I couldn't hold back a snort after a glance at him. "Says the boy who also fell asleep in his jeans," I pointed out.

"That is because I was drunk!" he argued loudly like it would do a better job of reminding me of his inebriation. "You were at least sober enough to steal something non-denim from Gwen," he stated, making it sound much more obvious than I knew it to be last night.

"Gwen had dragged Jack to her room long before I was ready to crash. There was no way I was going to barge in on that," I explained with a smirk. Something happening between those two had been a long time coming and I wasn't going to interrupt the something they'd finally done.

"Take this how you will, but nothing but underwear is always an option." In his defense, Alex attempted to keep himself from looking too pleased. "Lisa and Kara did it. Hell, even Nic did," he listed, ticking each girl off on his fingers.

I laughed loudly, my eyes turning up to the cloudy sky for a moment. "Lisa and Kara were both with their boyfriends, and a little intoxicated to boot. Nic just doesn't care because she has no interest in you boys," I replied smartly, not daring to look at him. Laughing it off was the easiest way to give him a satisfying answer, but my stomach was twisted in a knot and I was picking at the frayed strings of the hole in the knee of my jeans. This was just to keep my fingers busy to prevent myself from reaching to my right wrist and running my thumb across my tattoo. That would be a dead giveaway for him to know something was bothering me. "I think this is just another ruse to see me without pants on," I speculated sarcastically, knowing this more than likely wasn't the case. I was hoping for him to simply chuckle and let it go. But that's not the type of person Alex was.

"Another?" he prompted, feigning shock. "I refuse to believe that I ever tried to convince you before to let me see you half naked!" he tried to yell in defense but only ended up lost in chuckles. "Besides, I've seen you in your bra," he recalled, his mind clearly going back to the time at the swimming hole. That had been the first time this conundrum had risen with him -him not knowing it of course- and I was still fearful of telling him. "What's the difference, really? And with Zack around, no one's going to fuck with you." I wasn't quite sure how this had gotten so serious. He was still smiling and had a joking air to his words, but he really did want to know my reasoning. "And please don't give me an I'm fat excuse because you're not. You're beautiful," he affirmed boldly before I could answer.

I could feel my shoulders stiffen at his confident assessment of me and I had to mentally shake away the blush that had taken over my cheeks. I was violently pulling on the strings of my ragged jeans now, too nervous to stop. "My weight or how self-conscious I am has nothing to do with it," I threw at him, getting overly defensive. The latter was also a partial lie; I was self-conscious about this. I had told Alex so much in the time we had been friends, more than I'd ever revealed to Dominic even though I had been in a relationship with him. But I had had a few problems the year after my sister had died and I was never comfortable with discussing them with anyone but the three friends that had been with me for most of my life. "I don't want to talk about it," I declared, adamant about dropping it. With effort, I stilled the fingers of my left hand and spread them out over the bare skin of my knee.

It was quiet again for a short minute, wind blowing through naked branches the only sound between Alex and I. "That's fine. We don't have to," he said then, completely unaffected by my flare of rage. "But you know, Valerie," he continued, both comforting and sincere. His fingers found my chin, gently turning my head so I was facing him for the first time since we had come to sit outside. "You can tell me anything, however cheesy it might sound," he told me, bumping his forehead against mine in a show of affection.

This was probably the only thing that could have put a smile back on my face, though it was a small one. I had to try though to keep my eyes on his since his were so focused on my own. All I could think about though were his lips and remember how they had felt against mine all those months ago. This was definitely something that shouldn't have been on my mind this morning. Technically, I was still in a relationship, and I had already told myself that I would crawl to Dominic to possibly fix it though I wasn't going to be happy to still be with him. Even if it didn't work -which I was sure it wouldn't- I couldn't think about Alex like that, and not just because he had a girlfriend. I had sworn that I didn't and wouldn't feel this way about him, both to my friends and to myself. I knew it was stupid to want to stick by that. But after an entire summer of insisting that there was nothing between us, I couldn't see it actually working out to admit it.

"Some of your right eye is brown," he whispered, breaking my reverie in to pieces. This was good though because it also meant that I could stop struggling with the urge to close the small gap of space between us.

I jumped back, hoping it appeared natural to him instead of jerky and stunned back to reality. I cleared my throat, nonchalantly scratching the back of my head as I turned away. "Uh… yeah. Mutations are awesome sometimes," I responded, sounding more breathless than I should have.

Thankfully, I was saved from him noticing this by the front door of the pool house flying open. The doorframe was filled with Lisa in just a second, one eye squinted in reaction to the sudden light and the other hidden behind the hand rubbing sleep away. She stepped outside when she lowered her hand, closing the door behind her, and then grinned down at her boyfriend and I. "What are you guys doing out here?" she questioned, not at all suspicious. It occurred to me immediately that she shouldn't be, because Alex wasn't thinking the same things I had been.

He frowned up at her, his lips turning into an over-exaggerated pout that was meant only to look cute. "You hit me when we were talking inside. Twice. I had to come out here to cry about it," he teased in a childish, hurt voice in hopes of making her feel guilty.

Knowing that she was going to want to sit down and comfort him, no matter how sarcastic and artificial it was on either side to make them laugh in the end, I pushed myself to my feet. "I should probably get going," I announced, keeping my eyes off of them by staring around the yard engulfed by autumn. "I've got a pie to throw in the oven before I get ready for dinner." It didn't exactly need to be stated; they didn't care. But I couldn't stop myself from rambling.

Now distracted, Alex stood along with me just as Lisa was about to lower herself into the spot I had just abandoned. "Do you need a ride?" he wondered, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. It was easy to tell that he was now remembering that he hadn't worn shoes when we had come out because he continued to shift his weight from foot to foot, placing the other atop the one he stood on to keep it warm.

I smirked to myself over this but shook my head to answer his question. "No, I'll just go wake Murph up. We're going over to his place anyway," I informed them, and then swiftly paced to open the door and slip through it. I didn't waste any time in finding Murph, identifying him in the sea of sleeping friends by his mess of black hair sticking up above the blanket he had pulled over his face. After shaking him awake and reminding him of what day it was, I led him back down the hall where we both gathered our coats before heading back outside. Hasty goodbyes to Lisa and Alex rolled off our tongues, but we didn't even look back as we made our way to his car.