Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2018-05-26 06:06 pm
videokilledme) wrote2018-05-26 06:06 pm
“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twelve
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twelve
[music]
Coming back to school, after spending time with his honestly kind of exhausting family, was always actually something of a relief to Alex.
That wasn’t to say that school wasn’t exhausting at times as well--it was almost December now, and finals were looming on the horizon, less than two weeks away. Alex wasn’t particularly worried: none of his classes were very hard, he’d done all the reading and the other homework, he hadn’t skipped any of his classes more than once or twice, and he had a fair amount of time to study and re-read parts of things at the music store. Even so, sometimes everything just felt a little overwhelming, like there had to be more, something he was missing or hadn’t looked over. When those feelings were at their most intense, Alex had found that the thing that soothed them away the most effectively was a study session at the ‘secret base’ in the school library.
Even when there wasn’t any sort of pressure, Alex tended to gravitate to that spot. It was peaceful, a special, private shared space that linked Bianca to himself, which made it the perfect place to spend any extra time he had between classes or before his work shifts. Perhaps less fortunately, it was also quiet enough that falling asleep there a real risk, particularly on grey days when raindrops or snow tapped against the window in a soft staccato rhythm, a gentle and irregular music that left yawning and heavy eyelids in its wake. That afternoon was just that kind of rainy day, and as exhausted as he still was from his Colorado visit, Alex didn’t stand a chance: he hadn’t been there half an hour before he fell asleep, his face pressed against his hefty World History textbook.
He was never certain what it was that pulled him out of murky, atypically dreamless sleep, but when Alex slowly drifted back into consciousness an hour or two later, he found that he wasn’t alone any longer:
Bianca was there in the chair next to his, her head resting on her folded arms and Alex’s General Psychology textbook, eyes closed and breathing slow and steady, obviously every bit as deeply asleep as Alex himself had been moments ago.
Grey eyes flew wide, and it was almost as if a switch had been flipped, Alex’s whole body instantly tensing and slamming completely awake at the unexpected proximity of her, their faces barely a foot apart, close enough that he could see each individual eyelash around those large, lovely eyes and feel the faint, regular warmth of her breath on his skin.
After that initial moment of shock had worn off, though, Alex relaxed again and just let himself look at her, studying her with a deliberate attentiveness that he couldn’t have allowed himself, had she been awake. And as he let his eyes drift over her jaw and across her cheekbones with the slow tenderness of a caress, he struggled to determine what it was he was feeling, and what it was he wanted.
School had been back in session for nearly a week now, and aside from sitting together in World History class and exchanging quick snatches of conversation before and after the lecture, he still hadn’t really had the chance to see or talk with Bianca. He hadn’t really expected otherwise--he knew that the volleyball team had their end-of-season Big Tournament coming up at the beginning of December--but that didn’t make it feel any better. Didn’t make him feel any better. Didn’t change the fact that it left him with the sensation of being hollow and half-lost, not being able to see her, to talk with her, to hear her laugh and say something clever or kind or just so damn smart that he couldn’t stop his mouth from curving, unbidden, in a smile as open and raw as a shrapnel wound.
Why?
That was the question, the same one that had plagued him from the day they’d met. Why did she have this effect on him? Why was it that everything seemed faded, less sharp, less real when she wasn’t around? He’d lived 19 and a half years of his life before knowing that she even existed, preferring to spend his time alone, without sharing it or himself with anyone else. He hadn’t been unhappy--but now he wondered if he had been content with a muted, black-and-white world simply because he hadn’t known anything different. Or was it just that Bianca was so much brighter and clearer than everything else that it made the rest of the world look dull by comparison?
I think she’s beautiful, he thought as he let himself continue to drink in the sight of her. That certainly wasn’t a new realization, but the meaning of it, the weight of it seemed different in that moment. It was less something he observed dispassionately and more something he felt, a longing to be closer to her in a variety of ways, not all of them metaphorical or particularly innocent. He tried to dismiss that as well, however--he was a guy who was attracted to girls, after all, so it only made sense that he’d feel some measure of desire when he looked at a particularly lovely one. What was more, just because he had that kind of physical reaction didn’t mean that it was love. Alex wasn’t experienced at all in such things, but even so, he still knew enough to know that oftentimes the two things had nothing to do with each other.
So yes, he did find Bianca attractive. Yes, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Yes, he wanted to be with her in just about every sense of the word, for as long as he could, maybe even for the rest of his life, if possible. And yes, she did things to both his literal and his metaphysical heart that no one else had ever done before—
—But no, no no, no, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t, he absolutely wouldn’t accept it as being anything more than his own usual difficulty with parsing his emotions. After all, if it was love then he’d want to tell her so badly that he couldn’t stand it, wouldn’t he, and the fact remained that he knew that he wanted her friendship more than anything. Telling Bianca how he felt--or might feel--wasn’t worth the risk of losing their current closeness. Especially since nothing good would come of it, because there’s no way that she’s ever seen me like that, and there will never be any reason for her to start, either. Maybe it was just a crush, a passing fancy that he’d suffer and endure for a while and then move on and fully recover from...not that he’d ever really felt anything like this before, or had anything to compare it to...
As his gaze skimmed across Bianca’s mouth, his mind gave a sudden, traitorous lunge back to the memory of that party Connor dragged him to just before break. The memory of the heady sensation of a soft, hungry mouth pressed against his own flooded his mind, the tingling thrill of shared heat and warm breath tickling his skin...and the temptation was immediately present to lean in and kiss those pursed, perfectly petal-pink lips. To see if this poignant whatever it was that he felt for her would respond.
But even as the temptation struck, he knew he couldn’t give in to it. It would be wrong for a lot of reasons, but most of all due to lack of consent and breaking Bianca’s trust. She had enough faith in him that she felt comfortable--no, she felt safe--falling asleep beside him like this, leaving herself completely defenseless, and Alex absolutely could not and would not do anything that might betray that trust.
Still, somehow he couldn’t help reaching out and, with the tip of his finger, lightly tracing a curl of blonde hair where it lay on the table between them, admiring the soft, sunny sleekness of it.
All right, enough of that.
For a moment, he ducked his head, burying his face in his arms and biting back a sighing hiss of exasperation, his emotions an even more indecipherable tangle than usual; then he pushed himself back into an upright position and reached out a hand again, this time to gently knock on the table between them to wake Bianca up. Shaking her awake would’ve felt too rough, and while she had never been the type to recoil from incidental contact between them, he didn’t want to get grabby, especially after the kind of thoughts he’d just been having.
Bianca gave a subdued hum, followed by a deeper exhale and a drowsy shift, blinking slowly before her still half-lidded eyes slid over to settle on Alex--and at that, her owlish lethargy melted away into a fervent, deeply affectionate smile.
There was nothing different about that smile. It was the same warm, natural expression that she’d turned on him countless times...and yet, as her eyes met his, as she beamed over at him with sleepy affection, he felt that curious, heavy tightness twist in his chest stronger, sharper than ever before, making his breath catch in his throat.
And in that moment, with those few brief seconds of eye contact, Alex Faulkner knew without a doubt what it was that he really felt for the girl beside him.
...And yet, instead of a rush of excitement or happiness or any sort of light, positive emotions, his heart just felt even heavier, sinking slowly, steadily downwards as he mentally grappled with what he now had no choice but to fully recognize as undeniable truth:
I’m in love with her. I’m in love with Bianca Jackson.
With a deep, lengthy sigh, Bianca eased up from the table, arching her back and stretching luxuriously, and Alex took that moment to study her with new eyes, wonder and despair mixing in his gaze as he took note yet again of just how beautiful she was.
...Goddamnit. I am SO fucking doomed...
Clearing his throat, he sat up a little straighter in his chair and made his best attempt at a smile. “Sooo...since we both fell asleep in the library, guess it’s time for some coffee, huh? My treat.”
Bianca perked up at that--enough so that Alex wondered if she actually needed the caffeine, and also questioned how she’d managed to fall asleep in the first place--but the shadows beneath her eyes were just dark enough that he wasn’t going to press the issue. As they both made their way down to the first-floor cafe, he asked her about volleyball--when she and the team would be leaving, where the tournament was being held this year, if there would be any way to watch it live online, how she thought the team would do. Bianca fielded the questions easily enough that Alex was pretty sure she’d answered them dozens of times by now, and so after a while, he let the topic drop. He wanted her to keep talking, desperate to do anything to keep his own focus away from his recent realization, but he was even more loathe to talk about something that she could potentially find boring or tiresome. As much as he hated it himself, he didn’t want to make anyone else engage in small talk, least of all this girl who was so devastatingly important to him. And so he let a quiet fall between them as they waited in line to get their coffee. For Alex, it was torture; for the first time in months, he didn’t know what to say or how he should act around her, and Bianca’s relaxed stance and casual body language as she stood beside him (close enough that it was clear they were there together, but not so close that people would automatically assume they were There Together) only made it worse. What did he usually talk to her about? Most of the time he had all sorts of things he wanted to say to her, to hear her opinion on, but now...now, his mind was drawing an unexpected, distressing blank. He’d hadn’t felt this nervous around her since the first week of school, and it felt like going backwards, like he was meeting her all over again somehow.
Just stay cool, said a voice in his head that sounded way too much like Connor. Stay cool, and don’t be weird.
It was all Alex could do to keep from snorting aloud at the thought. Right, thanks for the ‘advice,’ self. Now let’s not ever sound like that guy again, okay? Oooohhhh-kay...
Thankfully they reached the counter before he had to resort to pretending to look something up on his phone, and soon they were both headed back upstairs with their coffee. This time, though, since it looked like they had the floor almost entirely to themselves, they chose to make use of some of the more comfortable furniture, finding a set of those low, cushy chairs huddled close around an equally-low coffee table that were more out of the way than the rest. The blonde picked the chair closest to Alex’s, and when her knee bumped his in the process, he did his best not to flinch or react at all, with honestly commendable results.
“So, which side of the family did you spend the holiday with this time?” Bianca asked once they were both settled, taking a long, greedy pull from her coffee as she looked over at her blue-haired classmate.
Alex shot her a startled glance, his own coffee forgotten, the cup frozen halfway to his mouth. It had been nearly three months now since their first conversation, when he’d mentioned that he split the holidays between his parents. The fact that she’d clearly remembered that kind of detail about him when she had so many other friends left him feeling more than a little gratified.
“...I was at my mom’s this year,” he managed after a momentary pause. The coffee cup in his hand returned to the low table in front of them with a quiet plunk, and he had to force himself to keep looking over at Bianca instead of down, or away, or just elsewhere in general. “She lives up in the mountains out in Colorado. My dad went to visit his sister in Alabama, which was nice. That way I didn’t have to feel bad about leaving him here alone for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Bianca was quiet for a moment, absently toying with one of the unopened packets of sugar she’d brought along, not quite meeting his eyes. “...This is kind of...a personal question, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to...”
Alex just sat and waited, silent and expectant, and Bianca correctly took that for agreement to hear the question, at least.
“...Which side of your family do you like spending holidays with more? Or do you like them equally? Or...are they just different?”
For a moment, Alex simply stared at her, studying her, wondering what her angle was. Why was she asking this? Why did she even care? There was no way that she felt the same way about him as he did about her, so what business of hers was it—
“...Mostly...just different,” he said aloud, cutting himself off by forcing the answer out, and that was all he was planning on saying about the matter...until Bianca spoke again, more hesitant than he’d seen her in a long while, probably since the time she’d not-quite-asked him to come to her first volleyball game.
“It’s just...you never seem happy when you talk about your family. My family’s crazy, and they drive ME crazy sometimes too, but...I don’t know, I was just...” She searched for the right word, couldn’t seem to find it, then settled for, “Worried, I guess.”
Why do you even want to talk about this, Alex wanted to say, wanted to say it so badly that he had to bite his lip hard to stop himself, clamping down so hard that the ring there ached. But then again, he wasn’t certain that he wanted to hear her answer. Not yet, not so soon after he’d realized the truth of his own feelings. Please let me love her, at least for a little while, before she figures it out. Before I have to accept the other half of the truth...
Bianca suddenly gave him a sheepish, apologetic look, eyes lingering on how tight his mouth had gone. “Heh, sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry or anything. We can talk about something else. But...if you do ever wanna talk about it, or anything else like that, I’ll listen. I guess...I just wanted you to know that. Okay?”
She really does care about me. The thought was a strange one, difficult to comprehend, much less accept, even after months of gradually-growing friendship. It had been so long since he’d had anyone his own age ask him something so personal with such genuine interest.
It had been so long since he’d had...a real friend.
Of course, Joe had said something similar during Alex’s Colorado visit, but it wasn’t the same, and while Alex didn’t doubt that his stepfather had meant it, there had still been a patronizing feel to it, some level of oh look, a broken thing I can fix, which made it seem a little less altruistic.
“...Don’t apologize. I don’t...” He’d been about to say I don’t mind talking about it, but the truth was, he did mind. He minded a lot. And yet here he was doing it anyway, all because he couldn’t resist some magnetic aspect of this almost painfully bright and beautiful girl seated beside him. “I appreciate that you asked,” he finally settled on, choosing his words carefully. “It...means a lot, actually.”
At that Bianca relaxed and gave him a visibly relieved smile, though there was still a gleam of curiosity in her eyes, something that said, so, did you want to talk about this, or not?
Alex still didn’t want to talk about it, even with her...but the fact that she was so willing to listen, that she wanted to hear about it, about him, about his personal life, made it all but impossible to resist.
“...I just don’t feel like I really belong with either side of my family,” Alex found himself saying, and for once he simply let himself talk, let himself say what he’d felt for years but had never admitted to anyone else. “My dad and I fight all the time these days. We used to get along really well, but after my mom left...well, I can’t blame it on that completely, I guess, because I changed a lot too, but things just went downhill from there. My Aunt Bess, his sister, is well-intentioned but overbearing in a lot of ways, and two of her three kids are jackass dudebros who’ve made bullying me into a holiday hobby. Her other kid hero-worships me even though I haven’t done anything to deserve it, which just makes the two jackasses act up even worse. So that’s always fun.”
Bianca gave a soft sound of amusement at his wry tone, but stayed quiet--listening, just as she’d promised. Alex was quiet for a moment also, but for a different reason: the other half of his answer was deeply personal, and even harder to admit, enough so that his eyes felt hot and his throat constricted, closing up a little even as he tried to work the words past half-strangled vocal cords.
“...I told you before that my mom remarried.” Bianca nodded, and Alex went on, “She has a whole new family now. A picture-perfect one. They don’t...” Need me there. The words hung there, unspoken, and he had to swallow hard, though at least the threat of tears had receded by now. “...I just...I feel like I’m in the way. Like I’m a reminder of a past that she ran away from. Like...I’m only there because she feels guilty about leaving in the first place, and she’s just trying to make herself feel better about it all.”
For lack of anything else to do with his hands, Alex had been turning his coffee cup around and around, but his hands went still as he said, “...I know she loves me...at least in theory. She sure says it enough. Texts me just about every day. Tries to give me stuff all the time. But...” He shook his head, his disconsolate expression saying what his voice couldn’t. But words are empty when someone just isn’t there, and money and things are a poor substitute for something as valuable as time and attention.
He couldn’t hide the way he flinched, startled, when Bianca leaned over enough to rest a hand on his forearm, her expression soft and full of empathy, not pity. “...I know it doesn’t fix anything, or make any of that better,” the blonde girl murmured quietly, not breaking eye contact, and Alex felt his face starting to go hot under that steady gaze, “But...I gotta say that she’s really missing out, if she doesn’t want to spend time with you.”
Alex was sure that he was red enough now that his freckles were halfway to disappearing into that rush of sudden color, and he couldn’t bear up under those piercing sea-green eyes, letting his own drop to the sight of her hand on his arm...which only made the rest of him feel just about as hot as his face. He hesitated, then reached over and gently rested his hand atop hers for a brief moment, a silent acknowledgment of her attempt at comfort, since words had all but abandoned him for the time being.
After all, the girl he was totally in love with had just said that anyone who didn’t want to spend time with him--with him!--was missing out.
It didn’t take him long to find his feet again, however, clearing his throat and letting his hand drop from hers, though he didn’t attempt to pull away from her touch. He needed to get the conversation going instead of letting it settle there, needed to move on from that before he began to wonder if there was any sort of hidden meaning in what she’d said, before he made the mistake of hoping.
“Anyway...um, I guess, to actually answer your question from before... If I could choose, I’d choose to spend all my holidays at home, wherever that happens to be at the moment, not visiting either side of my family. Bill--my dad--can stay or go. Better if he goes, though. I think we fight even more over the holidays, if that’s possible...and when those are my choices, I’d much rather be left by myself.”
Bianca’s expression went a little troubled, though her smile didn’t really drop, and she kept her hand on his arm. “Alone over the holidays? That seems a little...”
Alex couldn’t hold back a small laugh, inwardly wincing at how nervous and shaky it sounded in his own ears. “It’s really not so bad. I mean, I’m a military brat, so I’ve gotten used to being alone since we've moved every three years or so, literally ever since I can remember.” He took a slow drink of his coffee to steady himself, then went on, “If you’re worried about me being left alone now, you’re gonna flip when you hear my best latchkey kid story.”
Bianca’s eyebrows went up just a little, but it was more due to interest than anything else, so Alex launched right into it:
“Bill had to go out of town for about two weeks. My mom had left about a year and a half before that, and she still wasn’t in contact with us much at that point, and Bill sure as hell wasn’t gonna try to send me off to stay with her. So, he tried to make me go stay with Aunt Bess for those two weeks. Thing was, I didn’t wanna go--the last time I’d been there for any length of time was right after my mom had left, and the shining memory of that visit was when one of my jerkoff cousins had gotten so over-the-top rough that I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm and a fractured collarbone.”
Bianca winced, though she didn’t seem outright horrified, which made sense when Alex recalled that she’d described her own upbringing as ‘pretty rough and tumble’. “Wow. Can’t blame you for not wanting to go back there again. I mean, even now it doesn’t sound like a good time, but especially back then... I mean, if your cousin did something like that once...”
Alex gave a nod. “Aunt Bess grounded his ass for three months, but it didn’t help, really. Just made him resent me more in the long run. But yeah, I decided that I wasn’t going to go back there, that I would just...stay at home alone. I was just 13, almost 14, so there was no way Bill or any of them would’ve agreed to that if I’d just asked straight-up. So...after my dad left, instead of waiting for Aunt Bess to come pick me up, I called and told her that my plans had changed and that I was staying with my mom. Then, when my mom did finally call later that week, I told her that I was going to be staying with Aunt Bess when Bill went out of town later that month. She didn’t know he was already gone, and they talked even less then than they do now, so she wasn’t gonna call and cross-check my story with him. But the real clincher, the reason that I figured I could probably get away with it, was: I knew that Bill wasn’t the type to check up on me.”
He dropped his eyes, and though he ducked his head a bit, there was a bitter curve to his smile that he knew he couldn’t hide. Not from someone as watchful and perceptive as Bianca. “...I mean...he hadn’t called me even once when he’d dropped me off out there before, right after my mom left us both...when I really could’ve used someone to talk to about that.”
Unwilling to glance up and risk seeing any kind of pity on Bianca’s face, Alex took another drink of coffee, giving himself time to regain a little more control of his voice, then soldiered on:
“Anyway, if he didn’t check in before, it was a pretty safe bet that he wouldn’t this time either. I knew he’d be too preoccupied with whatever he was doing for work, and anyway, he considered that kind of thing ‘mollycoddling’. Boys should be tough, not homesick or lonely or waiting for their parents to call and talk to them about their day. All that ‘touchy-feely crap’ was sissy stuff.”
Now he did chance a quick look sideways, and found the expression on Bianca’s face had shifted into a faint, dissatisfied frown, but she didn’t interrupt or otherwise comment, listening, listening, just as she’d promised, as Alex brought his story down the homestretch.
“There was enough food in the house to last me a while, bread and milk and cereal, some stuff that was easy to microwave. I knew where my dad kept his ‘secret’ cache of money, so when I ran out of food at the house, I just walked to the nearby supermarket and got more, and the school lunches helped out some, too--taking an apple here, an extra bag of chips or a sandwich there. There was always extra that just got thrown away a lot of times, so it wasn’t hurting anyone.” He couldn’t help smirking now, or hide the fine-edged note of pride in his words as he went on, “I went the whole two weeks without anyone figuring it out. In fact, it was only two months later, when Bill dragged me down to Alabama for Christmas, that the truth came out. And ohhh-hoho, there was hell to pay for that, but...” He gave a careless little one-shouldered shrug, his smirk shifting into a toothy grin. “I thought it was worth it then, and I feel the same way about it now. Wouldn’t do it any differently, even if I did get grounded and forced to do morning PT with Bill for three months afterwards.”
Bianca was smiling too, but it was a complicated smile somehow, full of conflicting emotions rather than simple and straightforward like usual; Alex wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
“That’s a pretty good story,” she chuckled, looking a little bemused. “I’m not gonna ‘flip’ though--you wouldn’t believe some of the stories I’ve heard about kids that age, or even younger, being left alone or asked to do crazy things...”
Alex raised an eyebrow at that, a nonverbal do tell, but Bianca just pressed her lips together and shook her head, her smile going more than a little mysterious. “Telling any of those stories would require a loooot of explaining that you would have a hard time believing...but I can tell you my best--or worst, depending on who you ask--‘preteen Bianca behaving badly’ story.”
He tilted his head at that, shifting in his chair to turn his body towards her, and due to that movement, she suddenly seemed to realize that her hand was still on his arm. Instead of blushing or apologizing or anything satisfying like that, though, she simply blinked down at that point of innocent contact with surprise, then pulled her hand away with an amused little bubble of laughter.
“Okay, so...what’d you do.”
“Took apart my dad’s car.”
“...You what?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “How old were you?!”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven. Hooooly shit...” Casting his mind back to that one away game where he’d known and noticed that Bianca’s family was in attendance, Alex recalled the tall, good-looking, but still somehow childishly mischievous man who had clearly been Bianca’s father, and gave a snort of amusement. “Bet he loved that.”
“Well, I put it back together again before he found me.”
“Then how did he even-”
“Becaaaause there were a looot of parts left over after I was done.” Alex clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle a loud PFFT! of laughter, as Bianca said, loudly and defensively, “IT STILL RAN BETTER THAN IT EVER HAD BEFORE! It was a piece of junk anyway, Mom had been after him to get a new car for literal years, so it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I had messed up somehow and it didn’t run any more. But I wasn’t trying to mess anything up--I was just curious, I guess. I just wanted to figure out how it worked and then put it back together better than before.”
“And it sounds like you succeeded. That’s...” Alex groped in vain for a fitting word that would encompass how incredible, how brilliant, and utterly cool it was that she’d done that when she was still a pretty young kid. He had to give up eventually, had to settle on a disappointingly normal word and hope that his openly awestruck expression and audible wonder would make up the difference. “...That’s just...amazing, really.”
Bianca just shrugged, though her smile, the way it crinkled the corners of her eyes, made it clear that she was pleased by the praise.
“My godfather was actually there too when my dad did finally find the...extra parts.” She grinned openly and leaned back in her chair, as if she were wallowing in the enjoyable memory. “When he saw the face my dad was making as he looked down at those parts, slowly realizing that he’d been driving a technically incomplete car for the past two weeks or so, my Zico snorted so hard, I’m surprised that he didn’t give himself a bloody nose.”
‘Zico’? That was a weird name--or was it some kind of nickname?--but somehow, it didn’t seem like the time to ask about it.
Rather, it didn’t seem like the time to ask about much of anything: the watch on Bianca’s wrist gave an insistent beep, and as she dutifully turned her attention to it, Alex dug out his phone to check the time.
“Wow, it’s definitely time for dinner,” he said as he gave his texts (three from Gemma, one from Joe, seven from his cousin Jess, and twelve from Connor--the last of which he tapped on, then immediately tapped away, not even bothering to actually read them) a cursory glance, just to be certain nothing important was being shared, then shoved his phone back into his pocket as he stood up. “Is...the whole group getting together tonight?” he asked, managing to sound completely laid-back and casual, other than that hesitant pause right at the beginning of his question.
Bianca turned a considering look up at him that slowly shifted into a shrewd, knowing smile. “Yeah, they are.” There was a hint of do you really want to do this? in the arch of her eyebrows, but Alex just shouldered his bag, scooping up his half-finished coffee and looking down at her expectantly.
“C’mon then, what are we waiting for?”
Dinner with the Popular Jock Kids was about the same as before...with one pretty major difference.
While Alex still felt really awkward when they first approached the table and sat down, once again he did his best to be more talkative and outspoken, to really join in the conversation. As it so happened, not only did he join in the conversation, but this time he practically ended up carrying it. It was far more entertaining than expected, and much like the last time, he was pulled into the debate strongly enough that for a while, he forgot that he was supposed to be a shy, withdrawn introvert. Most of the time, he was too busy outlining his points of view, or else explaining why someone else’s were shaky, but there were a few times when there was a lull in the conversation that he caught Bianca looking at him with approval and appreciation.
And while Alex couldn’t deny that it felt strangely good to be the center of the conversation, to have control over the ebb and flow of the whole exchange, Bianca’s happiness at his involvement was still the best part of the whole evening, and the thing that mattered to him the most.
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twelve
[music]
Coming back to school, after spending time with his honestly kind of exhausting family, was always actually something of a relief to Alex.
That wasn’t to say that school wasn’t exhausting at times as well--it was almost December now, and finals were looming on the horizon, less than two weeks away. Alex wasn’t particularly worried: none of his classes were very hard, he’d done all the reading and the other homework, he hadn’t skipped any of his classes more than once or twice, and he had a fair amount of time to study and re-read parts of things at the music store. Even so, sometimes everything just felt a little overwhelming, like there had to be more, something he was missing or hadn’t looked over. When those feelings were at their most intense, Alex had found that the thing that soothed them away the most effectively was a study session at the ‘secret base’ in the school library.
Even when there wasn’t any sort of pressure, Alex tended to gravitate to that spot. It was peaceful, a special, private shared space that linked Bianca to himself, which made it the perfect place to spend any extra time he had between classes or before his work shifts. Perhaps less fortunately, it was also quiet enough that falling asleep there a real risk, particularly on grey days when raindrops or snow tapped against the window in a soft staccato rhythm, a gentle and irregular music that left yawning and heavy eyelids in its wake. That afternoon was just that kind of rainy day, and as exhausted as he still was from his Colorado visit, Alex didn’t stand a chance: he hadn’t been there half an hour before he fell asleep, his face pressed against his hefty World History textbook.
He was never certain what it was that pulled him out of murky, atypically dreamless sleep, but when Alex slowly drifted back into consciousness an hour or two later, he found that he wasn’t alone any longer:
Bianca was there in the chair next to his, her head resting on her folded arms and Alex’s General Psychology textbook, eyes closed and breathing slow and steady, obviously every bit as deeply asleep as Alex himself had been moments ago.
Grey eyes flew wide, and it was almost as if a switch had been flipped, Alex’s whole body instantly tensing and slamming completely awake at the unexpected proximity of her, their faces barely a foot apart, close enough that he could see each individual eyelash around those large, lovely eyes and feel the faint, regular warmth of her breath on his skin.
After that initial moment of shock had worn off, though, Alex relaxed again and just let himself look at her, studying her with a deliberate attentiveness that he couldn’t have allowed himself, had she been awake. And as he let his eyes drift over her jaw and across her cheekbones with the slow tenderness of a caress, he struggled to determine what it was he was feeling, and what it was he wanted.
School had been back in session for nearly a week now, and aside from sitting together in World History class and exchanging quick snatches of conversation before and after the lecture, he still hadn’t really had the chance to see or talk with Bianca. He hadn’t really expected otherwise--he knew that the volleyball team had their end-of-season Big Tournament coming up at the beginning of December--but that didn’t make it feel any better. Didn’t make him feel any better. Didn’t change the fact that it left him with the sensation of being hollow and half-lost, not being able to see her, to talk with her, to hear her laugh and say something clever or kind or just so damn smart that he couldn’t stop his mouth from curving, unbidden, in a smile as open and raw as a shrapnel wound.
Why?
That was the question, the same one that had plagued him from the day they’d met. Why did she have this effect on him? Why was it that everything seemed faded, less sharp, less real when she wasn’t around? He’d lived 19 and a half years of his life before knowing that she even existed, preferring to spend his time alone, without sharing it or himself with anyone else. He hadn’t been unhappy--but now he wondered if he had been content with a muted, black-and-white world simply because he hadn’t known anything different. Or was it just that Bianca was so much brighter and clearer than everything else that it made the rest of the world look dull by comparison?
I think she’s beautiful, he thought as he let himself continue to drink in the sight of her. That certainly wasn’t a new realization, but the meaning of it, the weight of it seemed different in that moment. It was less something he observed dispassionately and more something he felt, a longing to be closer to her in a variety of ways, not all of them metaphorical or particularly innocent. He tried to dismiss that as well, however--he was a guy who was attracted to girls, after all, so it only made sense that he’d feel some measure of desire when he looked at a particularly lovely one. What was more, just because he had that kind of physical reaction didn’t mean that it was love. Alex wasn’t experienced at all in such things, but even so, he still knew enough to know that oftentimes the two things had nothing to do with each other.
So yes, he did find Bianca attractive. Yes, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Yes, he wanted to be with her in just about every sense of the word, for as long as he could, maybe even for the rest of his life, if possible. And yes, she did things to both his literal and his metaphysical heart that no one else had ever done before—
—But no, no no, no, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t, he absolutely wouldn’t accept it as being anything more than his own usual difficulty with parsing his emotions. After all, if it was love then he’d want to tell her so badly that he couldn’t stand it, wouldn’t he, and the fact remained that he knew that he wanted her friendship more than anything. Telling Bianca how he felt--or might feel--wasn’t worth the risk of losing their current closeness. Especially since nothing good would come of it, because there’s no way that she’s ever seen me like that, and there will never be any reason for her to start, either. Maybe it was just a crush, a passing fancy that he’d suffer and endure for a while and then move on and fully recover from...not that he’d ever really felt anything like this before, or had anything to compare it to...
As his gaze skimmed across Bianca’s mouth, his mind gave a sudden, traitorous lunge back to the memory of that party Connor dragged him to just before break. The memory of the heady sensation of a soft, hungry mouth pressed against his own flooded his mind, the tingling thrill of shared heat and warm breath tickling his skin...and the temptation was immediately present to lean in and kiss those pursed, perfectly petal-pink lips. To see if this poignant whatever it was that he felt for her would respond.
But even as the temptation struck, he knew he couldn’t give in to it. It would be wrong for a lot of reasons, but most of all due to lack of consent and breaking Bianca’s trust. She had enough faith in him that she felt comfortable--no, she felt safe--falling asleep beside him like this, leaving herself completely defenseless, and Alex absolutely could not and would not do anything that might betray that trust.
Still, somehow he couldn’t help reaching out and, with the tip of his finger, lightly tracing a curl of blonde hair where it lay on the table between them, admiring the soft, sunny sleekness of it.
All right, enough of that.
For a moment, he ducked his head, burying his face in his arms and biting back a sighing hiss of exasperation, his emotions an even more indecipherable tangle than usual; then he pushed himself back into an upright position and reached out a hand again, this time to gently knock on the table between them to wake Bianca up. Shaking her awake would’ve felt too rough, and while she had never been the type to recoil from incidental contact between them, he didn’t want to get grabby, especially after the kind of thoughts he’d just been having.
Bianca gave a subdued hum, followed by a deeper exhale and a drowsy shift, blinking slowly before her still half-lidded eyes slid over to settle on Alex--and at that, her owlish lethargy melted away into a fervent, deeply affectionate smile.
There was nothing different about that smile. It was the same warm, natural expression that she’d turned on him countless times...and yet, as her eyes met his, as she beamed over at him with sleepy affection, he felt that curious, heavy tightness twist in his chest stronger, sharper than ever before, making his breath catch in his throat.
And in that moment, with those few brief seconds of eye contact, Alex Faulkner knew without a doubt what it was that he really felt for the girl beside him.
...And yet, instead of a rush of excitement or happiness or any sort of light, positive emotions, his heart just felt even heavier, sinking slowly, steadily downwards as he mentally grappled with what he now had no choice but to fully recognize as undeniable truth:
I’m in love with her. I’m in love with Bianca Jackson.
With a deep, lengthy sigh, Bianca eased up from the table, arching her back and stretching luxuriously, and Alex took that moment to study her with new eyes, wonder and despair mixing in his gaze as he took note yet again of just how beautiful she was.
...Goddamnit. I am SO fucking doomed...
Clearing his throat, he sat up a little straighter in his chair and made his best attempt at a smile. “Sooo...since we both fell asleep in the library, guess it’s time for some coffee, huh? My treat.”
Bianca perked up at that--enough so that Alex wondered if she actually needed the caffeine, and also questioned how she’d managed to fall asleep in the first place--but the shadows beneath her eyes were just dark enough that he wasn’t going to press the issue. As they both made their way down to the first-floor cafe, he asked her about volleyball--when she and the team would be leaving, where the tournament was being held this year, if there would be any way to watch it live online, how she thought the team would do. Bianca fielded the questions easily enough that Alex was pretty sure she’d answered them dozens of times by now, and so after a while, he let the topic drop. He wanted her to keep talking, desperate to do anything to keep his own focus away from his recent realization, but he was even more loathe to talk about something that she could potentially find boring or tiresome. As much as he hated it himself, he didn’t want to make anyone else engage in small talk, least of all this girl who was so devastatingly important to him. And so he let a quiet fall between them as they waited in line to get their coffee. For Alex, it was torture; for the first time in months, he didn’t know what to say or how he should act around her, and Bianca’s relaxed stance and casual body language as she stood beside him (close enough that it was clear they were there together, but not so close that people would automatically assume they were There Together) only made it worse. What did he usually talk to her about? Most of the time he had all sorts of things he wanted to say to her, to hear her opinion on, but now...now, his mind was drawing an unexpected, distressing blank. He’d hadn’t felt this nervous around her since the first week of school, and it felt like going backwards, like he was meeting her all over again somehow.
Just stay cool, said a voice in his head that sounded way too much like Connor. Stay cool, and don’t be weird.
It was all Alex could do to keep from snorting aloud at the thought. Right, thanks for the ‘advice,’ self. Now let’s not ever sound like that guy again, okay? Oooohhhh-kay...
Thankfully they reached the counter before he had to resort to pretending to look something up on his phone, and soon they were both headed back upstairs with their coffee. This time, though, since it looked like they had the floor almost entirely to themselves, they chose to make use of some of the more comfortable furniture, finding a set of those low, cushy chairs huddled close around an equally-low coffee table that were more out of the way than the rest. The blonde picked the chair closest to Alex’s, and when her knee bumped his in the process, he did his best not to flinch or react at all, with honestly commendable results.
“So, which side of the family did you spend the holiday with this time?” Bianca asked once they were both settled, taking a long, greedy pull from her coffee as she looked over at her blue-haired classmate.
Alex shot her a startled glance, his own coffee forgotten, the cup frozen halfway to his mouth. It had been nearly three months now since their first conversation, when he’d mentioned that he split the holidays between his parents. The fact that she’d clearly remembered that kind of detail about him when she had so many other friends left him feeling more than a little gratified.
“...I was at my mom’s this year,” he managed after a momentary pause. The coffee cup in his hand returned to the low table in front of them with a quiet plunk, and he had to force himself to keep looking over at Bianca instead of down, or away, or just elsewhere in general. “She lives up in the mountains out in Colorado. My dad went to visit his sister in Alabama, which was nice. That way I didn’t have to feel bad about leaving him here alone for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Bianca was quiet for a moment, absently toying with one of the unopened packets of sugar she’d brought along, not quite meeting his eyes. “...This is kind of...a personal question, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to...”
Alex just sat and waited, silent and expectant, and Bianca correctly took that for agreement to hear the question, at least.
“...Which side of your family do you like spending holidays with more? Or do you like them equally? Or...are they just different?”
For a moment, Alex simply stared at her, studying her, wondering what her angle was. Why was she asking this? Why did she even care? There was no way that she felt the same way about him as he did about her, so what business of hers was it—
“...Mostly...just different,” he said aloud, cutting himself off by forcing the answer out, and that was all he was planning on saying about the matter...until Bianca spoke again, more hesitant than he’d seen her in a long while, probably since the time she’d not-quite-asked him to come to her first volleyball game.
“It’s just...you never seem happy when you talk about your family. My family’s crazy, and they drive ME crazy sometimes too, but...I don’t know, I was just...” She searched for the right word, couldn’t seem to find it, then settled for, “Worried, I guess.”
Why do you even want to talk about this, Alex wanted to say, wanted to say it so badly that he had to bite his lip hard to stop himself, clamping down so hard that the ring there ached. But then again, he wasn’t certain that he wanted to hear her answer. Not yet, not so soon after he’d realized the truth of his own feelings. Please let me love her, at least for a little while, before she figures it out. Before I have to accept the other half of the truth...
Bianca suddenly gave him a sheepish, apologetic look, eyes lingering on how tight his mouth had gone. “Heh, sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry or anything. We can talk about something else. But...if you do ever wanna talk about it, or anything else like that, I’ll listen. I guess...I just wanted you to know that. Okay?”
She really does care about me. The thought was a strange one, difficult to comprehend, much less accept, even after months of gradually-growing friendship. It had been so long since he’d had anyone his own age ask him something so personal with such genuine interest.
It had been so long since he’d had...a real friend.
Of course, Joe had said something similar during Alex’s Colorado visit, but it wasn’t the same, and while Alex didn’t doubt that his stepfather had meant it, there had still been a patronizing feel to it, some level of oh look, a broken thing I can fix, which made it seem a little less altruistic.
“...Don’t apologize. I don’t...” He’d been about to say I don’t mind talking about it, but the truth was, he did mind. He minded a lot. And yet here he was doing it anyway, all because he couldn’t resist some magnetic aspect of this almost painfully bright and beautiful girl seated beside him. “I appreciate that you asked,” he finally settled on, choosing his words carefully. “It...means a lot, actually.”
At that Bianca relaxed and gave him a visibly relieved smile, though there was still a gleam of curiosity in her eyes, something that said, so, did you want to talk about this, or not?
Alex still didn’t want to talk about it, even with her...but the fact that she was so willing to listen, that she wanted to hear about it, about him, about his personal life, made it all but impossible to resist.
“...I just don’t feel like I really belong with either side of my family,” Alex found himself saying, and for once he simply let himself talk, let himself say what he’d felt for years but had never admitted to anyone else. “My dad and I fight all the time these days. We used to get along really well, but after my mom left...well, I can’t blame it on that completely, I guess, because I changed a lot too, but things just went downhill from there. My Aunt Bess, his sister, is well-intentioned but overbearing in a lot of ways, and two of her three kids are jackass dudebros who’ve made bullying me into a holiday hobby. Her other kid hero-worships me even though I haven’t done anything to deserve it, which just makes the two jackasses act up even worse. So that’s always fun.”
Bianca gave a soft sound of amusement at his wry tone, but stayed quiet--listening, just as she’d promised. Alex was quiet for a moment also, but for a different reason: the other half of his answer was deeply personal, and even harder to admit, enough so that his eyes felt hot and his throat constricted, closing up a little even as he tried to work the words past half-strangled vocal cords.
“...I told you before that my mom remarried.” Bianca nodded, and Alex went on, “She has a whole new family now. A picture-perfect one. They don’t...” Need me there. The words hung there, unspoken, and he had to swallow hard, though at least the threat of tears had receded by now. “...I just...I feel like I’m in the way. Like I’m a reminder of a past that she ran away from. Like...I’m only there because she feels guilty about leaving in the first place, and she’s just trying to make herself feel better about it all.”
For lack of anything else to do with his hands, Alex had been turning his coffee cup around and around, but his hands went still as he said, “...I know she loves me...at least in theory. She sure says it enough. Texts me just about every day. Tries to give me stuff all the time. But...” He shook his head, his disconsolate expression saying what his voice couldn’t. But words are empty when someone just isn’t there, and money and things are a poor substitute for something as valuable as time and attention.
He couldn’t hide the way he flinched, startled, when Bianca leaned over enough to rest a hand on his forearm, her expression soft and full of empathy, not pity. “...I know it doesn’t fix anything, or make any of that better,” the blonde girl murmured quietly, not breaking eye contact, and Alex felt his face starting to go hot under that steady gaze, “But...I gotta say that she’s really missing out, if she doesn’t want to spend time with you.”
Alex was sure that he was red enough now that his freckles were halfway to disappearing into that rush of sudden color, and he couldn’t bear up under those piercing sea-green eyes, letting his own drop to the sight of her hand on his arm...which only made the rest of him feel just about as hot as his face. He hesitated, then reached over and gently rested his hand atop hers for a brief moment, a silent acknowledgment of her attempt at comfort, since words had all but abandoned him for the time being.
After all, the girl he was totally in love with had just said that anyone who didn’t want to spend time with him--with him!--was missing out.
It didn’t take him long to find his feet again, however, clearing his throat and letting his hand drop from hers, though he didn’t attempt to pull away from her touch. He needed to get the conversation going instead of letting it settle there, needed to move on from that before he began to wonder if there was any sort of hidden meaning in what she’d said, before he made the mistake of hoping.
“Anyway...um, I guess, to actually answer your question from before... If I could choose, I’d choose to spend all my holidays at home, wherever that happens to be at the moment, not visiting either side of my family. Bill--my dad--can stay or go. Better if he goes, though. I think we fight even more over the holidays, if that’s possible...and when those are my choices, I’d much rather be left by myself.”
Bianca’s expression went a little troubled, though her smile didn’t really drop, and she kept her hand on his arm. “Alone over the holidays? That seems a little...”
Alex couldn’t hold back a small laugh, inwardly wincing at how nervous and shaky it sounded in his own ears. “It’s really not so bad. I mean, I’m a military brat, so I’ve gotten used to being alone since we've moved every three years or so, literally ever since I can remember.” He took a slow drink of his coffee to steady himself, then went on, “If you’re worried about me being left alone now, you’re gonna flip when you hear my best latchkey kid story.”
Bianca’s eyebrows went up just a little, but it was more due to interest than anything else, so Alex launched right into it:
“Bill had to go out of town for about two weeks. My mom had left about a year and a half before that, and she still wasn’t in contact with us much at that point, and Bill sure as hell wasn’t gonna try to send me off to stay with her. So, he tried to make me go stay with Aunt Bess for those two weeks. Thing was, I didn’t wanna go--the last time I’d been there for any length of time was right after my mom had left, and the shining memory of that visit was when one of my jerkoff cousins had gotten so over-the-top rough that I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm and a fractured collarbone.”
Bianca winced, though she didn’t seem outright horrified, which made sense when Alex recalled that she’d described her own upbringing as ‘pretty rough and tumble’. “Wow. Can’t blame you for not wanting to go back there again. I mean, even now it doesn’t sound like a good time, but especially back then... I mean, if your cousin did something like that once...”
Alex gave a nod. “Aunt Bess grounded his ass for three months, but it didn’t help, really. Just made him resent me more in the long run. But yeah, I decided that I wasn’t going to go back there, that I would just...stay at home alone. I was just 13, almost 14, so there was no way Bill or any of them would’ve agreed to that if I’d just asked straight-up. So...after my dad left, instead of waiting for Aunt Bess to come pick me up, I called and told her that my plans had changed and that I was staying with my mom. Then, when my mom did finally call later that week, I told her that I was going to be staying with Aunt Bess when Bill went out of town later that month. She didn’t know he was already gone, and they talked even less then than they do now, so she wasn’t gonna call and cross-check my story with him. But the real clincher, the reason that I figured I could probably get away with it, was: I knew that Bill wasn’t the type to check up on me.”
He dropped his eyes, and though he ducked his head a bit, there was a bitter curve to his smile that he knew he couldn’t hide. Not from someone as watchful and perceptive as Bianca. “...I mean...he hadn’t called me even once when he’d dropped me off out there before, right after my mom left us both...when I really could’ve used someone to talk to about that.”
Unwilling to glance up and risk seeing any kind of pity on Bianca’s face, Alex took another drink of coffee, giving himself time to regain a little more control of his voice, then soldiered on:
“Anyway, if he didn’t check in before, it was a pretty safe bet that he wouldn’t this time either. I knew he’d be too preoccupied with whatever he was doing for work, and anyway, he considered that kind of thing ‘mollycoddling’. Boys should be tough, not homesick or lonely or waiting for their parents to call and talk to them about their day. All that ‘touchy-feely crap’ was sissy stuff.”
Now he did chance a quick look sideways, and found the expression on Bianca’s face had shifted into a faint, dissatisfied frown, but she didn’t interrupt or otherwise comment, listening, listening, just as she’d promised, as Alex brought his story down the homestretch.
“There was enough food in the house to last me a while, bread and milk and cereal, some stuff that was easy to microwave. I knew where my dad kept his ‘secret’ cache of money, so when I ran out of food at the house, I just walked to the nearby supermarket and got more, and the school lunches helped out some, too--taking an apple here, an extra bag of chips or a sandwich there. There was always extra that just got thrown away a lot of times, so it wasn’t hurting anyone.” He couldn’t help smirking now, or hide the fine-edged note of pride in his words as he went on, “I went the whole two weeks without anyone figuring it out. In fact, it was only two months later, when Bill dragged me down to Alabama for Christmas, that the truth came out. And ohhh-hoho, there was hell to pay for that, but...” He gave a careless little one-shouldered shrug, his smirk shifting into a toothy grin. “I thought it was worth it then, and I feel the same way about it now. Wouldn’t do it any differently, even if I did get grounded and forced to do morning PT with Bill for three months afterwards.”
Bianca was smiling too, but it was a complicated smile somehow, full of conflicting emotions rather than simple and straightforward like usual; Alex wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
“That’s a pretty good story,” she chuckled, looking a little bemused. “I’m not gonna ‘flip’ though--you wouldn’t believe some of the stories I’ve heard about kids that age, or even younger, being left alone or asked to do crazy things...”
Alex raised an eyebrow at that, a nonverbal do tell, but Bianca just pressed her lips together and shook her head, her smile going more than a little mysterious. “Telling any of those stories would require a loooot of explaining that you would have a hard time believing...but I can tell you my best--or worst, depending on who you ask--‘preteen Bianca behaving badly’ story.”
He tilted his head at that, shifting in his chair to turn his body towards her, and due to that movement, she suddenly seemed to realize that her hand was still on his arm. Instead of blushing or apologizing or anything satisfying like that, though, she simply blinked down at that point of innocent contact with surprise, then pulled her hand away with an amused little bubble of laughter.
“Okay, so...what’d you do.”
“Took apart my dad’s car.”
“...You what?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “How old were you?!”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven. Hooooly shit...” Casting his mind back to that one away game where he’d known and noticed that Bianca’s family was in attendance, Alex recalled the tall, good-looking, but still somehow childishly mischievous man who had clearly been Bianca’s father, and gave a snort of amusement. “Bet he loved that.”
“Well, I put it back together again before he found me.”
“Then how did he even-”
“Becaaaause there were a looot of parts left over after I was done.” Alex clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle a loud PFFT! of laughter, as Bianca said, loudly and defensively, “IT STILL RAN BETTER THAN IT EVER HAD BEFORE! It was a piece of junk anyway, Mom had been after him to get a new car for literal years, so it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I had messed up somehow and it didn’t run any more. But I wasn’t trying to mess anything up--I was just curious, I guess. I just wanted to figure out how it worked and then put it back together better than before.”
“And it sounds like you succeeded. That’s...” Alex groped in vain for a fitting word that would encompass how incredible, how brilliant, and utterly cool it was that she’d done that when she was still a pretty young kid. He had to give up eventually, had to settle on a disappointingly normal word and hope that his openly awestruck expression and audible wonder would make up the difference. “...That’s just...amazing, really.”
Bianca just shrugged, though her smile, the way it crinkled the corners of her eyes, made it clear that she was pleased by the praise.
“My godfather was actually there too when my dad did finally find the...extra parts.” She grinned openly and leaned back in her chair, as if she were wallowing in the enjoyable memory. “When he saw the face my dad was making as he looked down at those parts, slowly realizing that he’d been driving a technically incomplete car for the past two weeks or so, my Zico snorted so hard, I’m surprised that he didn’t give himself a bloody nose.”
‘Zico’? That was a weird name--or was it some kind of nickname?--but somehow, it didn’t seem like the time to ask about it.
Rather, it didn’t seem like the time to ask about much of anything: the watch on Bianca’s wrist gave an insistent beep, and as she dutifully turned her attention to it, Alex dug out his phone to check the time.
“Wow, it’s definitely time for dinner,” he said as he gave his texts (three from Gemma, one from Joe, seven from his cousin Jess, and twelve from Connor--the last of which he tapped on, then immediately tapped away, not even bothering to actually read them) a cursory glance, just to be certain nothing important was being shared, then shoved his phone back into his pocket as he stood up. “Is...the whole group getting together tonight?” he asked, managing to sound completely laid-back and casual, other than that hesitant pause right at the beginning of his question.
Bianca turned a considering look up at him that slowly shifted into a shrewd, knowing smile. “Yeah, they are.” There was a hint of do you really want to do this? in the arch of her eyebrows, but Alex just shouldered his bag, scooping up his half-finished coffee and looking down at her expectantly.
“C’mon then, what are we waiting for?”
Dinner with the Popular Jock Kids was about the same as before...with one pretty major difference.
While Alex still felt really awkward when they first approached the table and sat down, once again he did his best to be more talkative and outspoken, to really join in the conversation. As it so happened, not only did he join in the conversation, but this time he practically ended up carrying it. It was far more entertaining than expected, and much like the last time, he was pulled into the debate strongly enough that for a while, he forgot that he was supposed to be a shy, withdrawn introvert. Most of the time, he was too busy outlining his points of view, or else explaining why someone else’s were shaky, but there were a few times when there was a lull in the conversation that he caught Bianca looking at him with approval and appreciation.
And while Alex couldn’t deny that it felt strangely good to be the center of the conversation, to have control over the ebb and flow of the whole exchange, Bianca’s happiness at his involvement was still the best part of the whole evening, and the thing that mattered to him the most.
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