Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2019-03-23 03:56 pm
videokilledme) wrote2019-03-23 03:56 pm
“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twenty
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twenty
[music]
The last few weeks of Alex’s sophomore year passed quickly. It took a while to physically recover from the assault, but by the time he’d finished his last final, the bruises had faded, though his ribs would still take another week or two to completely mend. The football players in question had all been punished, and Chaz had actually been expelled, and Alex had continued to offer his own personal brand of tough-love advice on the college radio station without letting up even slightly. He did well enough on his exams--he didn’t wind up with a 4.0 GPA or anything, but his 3.5 wasn’t bad by any means--and he was already registered for the classes he’d be taking during the summer sessions. Still, he expected that those few months would seem like years, for one reason:
Bianca was going home for the summer.
Of course she was, most college students did, and Alex knew that she was looking forward to spending time with her family and friends back home. But while part of him was happy for her, especially after seeing how excited she was about all her summer vacation plans, another part of him was undeniably pained by the idea of having to spend so much time without her bright, near-constant presence at his side.
He was reluctant to admit as much, of course, but Bianca could read him easily by now, and got it out of him without any trouble, the fact that he was going to really miss her over the summer. A flicker of some emotion that he couldn’t quite read crossed her face, impenetrable and fleeting, and then she was grinning and slinging an arm around his shoulders to pull him in close for a sideways hug. “Well,” she stated with a smiling matter-of-factness, “I don’t think it’ll work out this summer, because that’s already pretty much booked solid for me, but...maybe next summer you should come out to San Fran and visit for a week or two.”
Alex gave a startled double-blink, and tried to ignore the way his cheeks were already going pink. “...Are you actually inviting me to...come stay at your house?”
Now it was Bianca’s turn to give a mystified blink, though hers was coupled with a smile and her usual warm, playful tone of voice. “Um, yes? That’s a thing that friends do sometimes.”
Alex was caught between the urge to pull away from her too-close, smiling face and the desire to lean in closer and let his shoulder press up against her a little more firmly; in the end, he did neither, and simply stayed where he was, though he couldn’t help looking away as he made a quiet admission: “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’d know.”
Bianca’s smile went somehow softer at that, and her grip on his shoulders tightened, squeezing him against her before rubbing at the side of his arm in a comforting, thoroughly friendly manner. “Well then, we’ll just have to change that, won’t we.”
Ever since the assault, Bianca had been a little more protective, a little more gentle with Alex, less inclined to teasingly punch and prod and more disposed towards companionable, affectionate touching. While Alex’s ribs certainly appreciated the change, it was a struggle for his heart to have her slip her arm through his as they walked across campus, or to casually drape herself across him in various ways as they sat on the couches in the library or the bed in her dorm room. She’d also insisted on meeting him after his late-night Bio lab to walk him to the radio station, or back to her dorm, or to the nearest subway station, wherever he was going that evening before his show. While he’d still been visibly bruised and limping, she’d even carried his bag for him as much as possible. Alex had growled and protested about that sort of coddling, but it hadn’t done any good: Bianca was determined, and honestly, he liked being around her enough that any excuse to see her was a welcome one, even if it was a pretty severe blow to his pride, in this case.
“Is she your girlfriend or your bodyguard?” his lab partner had asked jokingly the third time Bianca had showed up like that, and Alex had felt his mouth tighten before he forced it into a small, crooked smirk instead.
“Neither. Just an overprotective best friend.”
“Huh. Interesting,” was all his partner, an almost too personable redhead named Colette DuBois (who was apparently some sort of cousin of Zoey, the exceedingly badass, soon-to-be-Olympian wing-spiker on Bianca’s volleyball team), had said, then turned her attention back to writing up the results of their gel electrophoresis lab experiment. Alex had given the other student a sidelong stare, but while he was curious as to what, exactly, was so ‘interesting’ about the situation, the amount that he didn’t want to discuss it with a near-stranger easily exceeded the level of his curiosity. Instead of taking the bait and engaging, he just silently packed up his things and went over to meet Bianca, who was hanging around in the doorway and chatting easily with the TA--they shared a major and had apparently been classmates on two occasions, so there was plenty for them to talk about. The blue-haired student could feel the judgmental weight of Colette’s eyes on him as Bianca linked her arm through his and half-pulled him towards the doorway, but he didn’t look back or acknowledge that stare in any way.
It’s none of her business, Alex thought to himself as he clamped his arm against his side more firmly, pulling Bianca in just a little bit closer. His best friend didn’t comment on the action, just looked over at him, angling a bright smile his way and asking him about the specifics of the experiment he’d been doing that day as they made their unhurried way back to her dorm room to put in some more study-time before their finals.
And then before he knew it, the tests were over, and the whole campus was a mad flurry of rushing about and packing and cheerful or teary-eyed goodbyes, followed by a hasty mass exodus, of which Bianca was part. Connor was leaving, too--he was a senior, after all--and was headed up to NYC to try to make it on Broadway, or at least somewhere remotely similar. Alex couldn’t find it in himself to lie and say he’d miss the older student, but he did promise to come visit at some point (a comfortably vague agreement) and he still responded to Connor’s texts every so often.
And then it was summer, and Carrington University was a ghost town, its student body a shade of its former self. Alex had signed up for classes during both summer sessions, and was still working at the radio station most nights too, though the call-in live shows were temporarily reduced to once a week for the summer, due to the much lower number of listeners. As such, he didn’t feel any compunction about occasionally choosing to take a DJ job some nights rather than sitting silently behind a sound board and robotically answering song requests for hours on end.
Alex filled his summer with work and classes, taking a logic course to get the rest of his gen ed math requirements taken care of, as well as a few courses focused on music, its history and such. He’d already all but decided that he was going to try to pick up a psychology minor, and he might as well pick up a music minor too, since it was a subject he was pretty passionate about. He didn’t take any courses that were akin to music lessons, and especially didn’t take any that would require him to play an instrument for (or worse, with) anyone else; it was a mix of shyness, insecurity, and also simply not wanting to be judged over something that he’d taught himself, something that he used as an escape from the tension in his house and the pressures of the world in general.
Aside from attending school and working his two jobs, Alex didn’t do much else that summer, other than read some books, go to a couple movies alone, tool around on his keyboard and sound equipment, and visit his mother and her family for the week between summer sessions. He kept himself busy, but if he was honest, he knew that he was checking his phone way too often, hoping for the rare text or even rarer email from the golden-haired, green-eyed girl who’d taken over far more of both his heart and his mind than he’d ever wanted, or even thought possible.
Honestly, it sometimes made him a little angry, and very frustrated. He’d been alone like this for most of his life, and it had never really bothered him before. He’d let himself get spoiled, had become too accustomed to having someone else at his side; and yet, he couldn’t hold on to that anger and frustration for very long, or see any of it as a weakness. It was too warm and pleasant when Bianca was there for him to want anything else, to want to be the way he’d been before, cold and stiff and closed off to everyone and everything, and even the ache of her absence held a sort of comfort to it, a reminder that he’d changed, that he’d grown enough to allow someone else into his little world.
And anyway, Bianca would be back. She would be back before he knew it. Until then, he just had to work hard, let the time pass, and do his best not to dwell on the temporary void she’d left behind.
Alex didn’t hate school, but he didn’t particularly love it either; so when August finally crawled toward its end, it was strange to feel excited about college being back in session.
Of course, it wasn’t really college that he was excited about.
I’ll be back late Friday night! C:
That single, simple text was all it took to make him smile wider than he had all summer, until his face hurt, and also distracted him enough that he pretty much burned one of the pancakes he was making for dinner. After removing the pan (and a pancake with one very dark side) from the stove, Alex sent her a reply:
> Cool. Let me know when you want to hang out.
He’d only just started to set his phone down again when it buzzed again, another few messages from Bianca popping into existence even as he read the first one:
Uhhhh Friday night of course! C:
You could go out to eat with me and my family before they take off again \o/
But it IS gonna be really late and you probably have the radio show to worry about
So let’s get breakfast Saturday morning instead C:
I’ll pick you up at your house if that’s okay?
Alex shook his head, giving a low snort of laughter at the rapid-fire texting. She wasn’t normally like this, so she must be really excited. Excited about seeing me? Or...is she just excited about having someone to tell all her summer break stories to, he couldn’t help but wonder. Bianca hadn’t texted much over the summer: she’d explained that the cell phone reception where she lived was really awful, and that due to their house’s “kinda weird location,” her family couldn’t have an internet connection either. So for the most part, he’d had to be satisfied with a few emails she’d sent him from a public-use computer at the San Fran--and New York City!--public libraries, and the half dozen hand-written letters she’d mailed to him every couple of weeks.
He’d learned from those letters that she’d spent a small part of her vacation relaxing at home in California, and the rest of it working at some kind of camp on Long Island Sound in New York.
It’s a really special place, she’d written in one letter, a camp for troubled kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. My parents both ended up there when they were young, and it changed their lives. So, now that they’re adults, they want to ‘give back’ and help other kids who are in the same kind of situation that they were. Also, the camp is a strawberry farm, too! C:
Alex hadn’t known what to make of that, and there was no return address on any of the letters, and Bianca had sidestepped his request for the camp’s mailing address when he’d asked her for it in an email, so he hadn’t been able to write back. Honestly, some part of him was a little relieved, shameful as that felt to admit. Despite several months of experience offering advice and dealing with all sorts of personal problems, he wasn’t sure what he should say in response to that sort of heavy information when it came from someone he knew personally, and cared about deeply.
I’ll let her bring it up, if she wants to, he decided as he texted back his acceptance of her offer of Saturday morning breakfast, as well as what time would be best for him. And if she doesn’t, I won’t ask or push her about it.
He was actually kind of nervous about seeing her again, he was surprised (and a little annoyed) to discover. But, well, it had been a little more than three whole months since he’d seen her, and a lot could change in that amount of time, so Alex couldn’t help feeling anxious.
It had turned out that he was worried for nothing: Bianca was herself, bright and energetic and beautiful, utterly unchanged other than her noticeable tan, some extra muscle, and a new scar on the underside of her left arm. (“Got it falling off a tractor at the farm,” she’d explained with a smile, her words a glib chirp, but although Alex hadn’t missed the way her gaze had slid away from his, how she wouldn’t look him in the eye for a few seconds afterwards, he didn’t call her out on that lie.) She’d put him at ease immediately, and before long they had been trading stories about their summers. Alex had a fair number of amusing radio anecdotes and music store-related incidents to share, though Bianca’s camp stories were fascinating and seemingly endless.
The one time his heart had clenched and his stomach had dropped unpleasantly had been when she’d mentioned in passing, casual and unbothered, “Oh yeah, I also saw my ex, and it was kinda weird. But anyway-”
“Your ex?” he’d found himself asking, wincing even as he said it. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear about this, so why had he said that?
“Yeah...” An expression crossed Bianca’s face that Alex had never seen before, and that he couldn’t really read, some inextricable meld of sadness, sheepishness and warm, long-held affection. “I guess that couldn’t really be avoided though, since he’s Avery’s older brother and I go camping with their family every summer.”
That was a lot of information, and it took Alex a second to process it, by which time Bianca was already talking about something else entirely, telling a story about the prank war that had apparently descended upon the whole camp.
Breakfast alone hadn’t been nearly enough time for them to catch up, as it turned out, and so they’d headed back to Bianca’s dorm afterwards. She had managed to snag the same room she’d had last year, and Alex had helped her unpack while they swapped more stories and generally just enjoyed being around each other again after months of separation. It was late afternoon by the time they had finished, and they both semi-crashed on her floor, tired and a little sweaty and definitely ready to order a pizza and watch some Nextfliks. Alex was pleasantly surprised to find that she had gotten him a bag of the caramel popcorn that he had often brought along last year whenever he had come over to hang out, and they’d spent the rest of the evening watching the brand-new second season of Lockelave together. When they’d finally cut themselves off, it was almost half an hour after the subway stopped running, so Bianca had given Alex a ride home--she’d borrowed her godfather’s car to take them out for breakfast anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal--and despite the fact that they’d spent nearly the whole day together, it still hadn’t really been enough time for Alex. Bianca seemed to feel the same way; as she’d pulled over to the curb a block away from his house, they’d both gone quiet, and she’d been the one to finally break the silence, saying, “You should come over tomorrow after class. I’d invite you to just crash there, too, but morning practices are a thing for me again, which is part of the reason I have a single room in the first place, so I don’t have to worry about waking anyone else up when I get up at stupid o’clock to go run suicides.”
Alex agreed, of course, and from that point on, they’d more or less fallen back into their usual hangout routine without missing a beat. Because it was volleyball season, Alex still didn’t get to see as much of her as he liked, though she was so busy that once again he really couldn’t hold it against her. But, after how pathetically lonely he’d felt last year, he’d planned ahead for that: back towards the end of spring semester, when the time had come for them to pre-register for their fall semester classes, he’d asked if there was any way they could take another class together. Bianca had immediately agreed, and they’d compared schedules and talked it over, and in the end, they’d settled on Astronomy 101. It had sounded interesting to both of them, and the Tuesday/Thursday sessions and later class time had worked well for both of their busy schedules.
Essentially, things had returned to normal, and everything was right in the universe, so far as Alex was concerned.
It didn’t matter that the months apart hadn’t lessened his attraction to the bright, energetic blonde in the slightest. It didn’t matter that he was still completely and undeniably in love with her. It didn’t matter that she clearly had no idea that he felt that way--and if Alex had anything to say about it, that’s how it would stay. He was satisfied with sitting beside her in class while they studied the solar system, the history of astronomy, and the basic properties of stars, and being her partner when they did all the related stargazing labs. It was enough to just be with her when he could, and to know that she considered him an important, if not integral, part of her life.
The moments when he wasn’t satisfied, when it didn’t feel like enough at all, were easy to push aside or ignore, especially when he reminded himself of everything that he could potentially lose by being selfish. It was obvious to him that Bianca was content with their relationship being the way that it was: comfortable and platonic. She clearly didn’t want to take things any farther, so pushing for more could only make her feel uncomfortable and even guilty, and Alex didn’t ever want to cause her to feel either of those two things. If he’d learned anything over the past year, it was that a healthy friendship was give and take, and he didn’t want to try to take more than she was willing to give; the simple fact that she wanted to give him anything at all was enough of a miracle.
And so the first few months of their junior year passed in a busy but largely enjoyable blur of classes, volleyball games, and studying together, as well as twice-a-day practices for Bianca and late-night DJing gigs and radio shows for Alex. As before, once volleyball season was in full-swing, they saw a lot less of each other than either of them really liked; but Alex made sure to make it to every home game, and even one or two of the away games, and Bianca went out of her way to make sure that they at least got a cup of coffee together at the library nearly every day.
Life could be hectic at times, but it was still good. And for the first time in a long time, Alex could catch sight of his reflection in a mirror or pane of glass, and find that the face staring back at him was softened by a small and inadvertent but real smile.
He was happy. He was happy, and he never wanted his friendship with the person who had made him that way to end.
READ MORE
"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Twenty
[music]
The last few weeks of Alex’s sophomore year passed quickly. It took a while to physically recover from the assault, but by the time he’d finished his last final, the bruises had faded, though his ribs would still take another week or two to completely mend. The football players in question had all been punished, and Chaz had actually been expelled, and Alex had continued to offer his own personal brand of tough-love advice on the college radio station without letting up even slightly. He did well enough on his exams--he didn’t wind up with a 4.0 GPA or anything, but his 3.5 wasn’t bad by any means--and he was already registered for the classes he’d be taking during the summer sessions. Still, he expected that those few months would seem like years, for one reason:
Bianca was going home for the summer.
Of course she was, most college students did, and Alex knew that she was looking forward to spending time with her family and friends back home. But while part of him was happy for her, especially after seeing how excited she was about all her summer vacation plans, another part of him was undeniably pained by the idea of having to spend so much time without her bright, near-constant presence at his side.
He was reluctant to admit as much, of course, but Bianca could read him easily by now, and got it out of him without any trouble, the fact that he was going to really miss her over the summer. A flicker of some emotion that he couldn’t quite read crossed her face, impenetrable and fleeting, and then she was grinning and slinging an arm around his shoulders to pull him in close for a sideways hug. “Well,” she stated with a smiling matter-of-factness, “I don’t think it’ll work out this summer, because that’s already pretty much booked solid for me, but...maybe next summer you should come out to San Fran and visit for a week or two.”
Alex gave a startled double-blink, and tried to ignore the way his cheeks were already going pink. “...Are you actually inviting me to...come stay at your house?”
Now it was Bianca’s turn to give a mystified blink, though hers was coupled with a smile and her usual warm, playful tone of voice. “Um, yes? That’s a thing that friends do sometimes.”
Alex was caught between the urge to pull away from her too-close, smiling face and the desire to lean in closer and let his shoulder press up against her a little more firmly; in the end, he did neither, and simply stayed where he was, though he couldn’t help looking away as he made a quiet admission: “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’d know.”
Bianca’s smile went somehow softer at that, and her grip on his shoulders tightened, squeezing him against her before rubbing at the side of his arm in a comforting, thoroughly friendly manner. “Well then, we’ll just have to change that, won’t we.”
Ever since the assault, Bianca had been a little more protective, a little more gentle with Alex, less inclined to teasingly punch and prod and more disposed towards companionable, affectionate touching. While Alex’s ribs certainly appreciated the change, it was a struggle for his heart to have her slip her arm through his as they walked across campus, or to casually drape herself across him in various ways as they sat on the couches in the library or the bed in her dorm room. She’d also insisted on meeting him after his late-night Bio lab to walk him to the radio station, or back to her dorm, or to the nearest subway station, wherever he was going that evening before his show. While he’d still been visibly bruised and limping, she’d even carried his bag for him as much as possible. Alex had growled and protested about that sort of coddling, but it hadn’t done any good: Bianca was determined, and honestly, he liked being around her enough that any excuse to see her was a welcome one, even if it was a pretty severe blow to his pride, in this case.
“Is she your girlfriend or your bodyguard?” his lab partner had asked jokingly the third time Bianca had showed up like that, and Alex had felt his mouth tighten before he forced it into a small, crooked smirk instead.
“Neither. Just an overprotective best friend.”
“Huh. Interesting,” was all his partner, an almost too personable redhead named Colette DuBois (who was apparently some sort of cousin of Zoey, the exceedingly badass, soon-to-be-Olympian wing-spiker on Bianca’s volleyball team), had said, then turned her attention back to writing up the results of their gel electrophoresis lab experiment. Alex had given the other student a sidelong stare, but while he was curious as to what, exactly, was so ‘interesting’ about the situation, the amount that he didn’t want to discuss it with a near-stranger easily exceeded the level of his curiosity. Instead of taking the bait and engaging, he just silently packed up his things and went over to meet Bianca, who was hanging around in the doorway and chatting easily with the TA--they shared a major and had apparently been classmates on two occasions, so there was plenty for them to talk about. The blue-haired student could feel the judgmental weight of Colette’s eyes on him as Bianca linked her arm through his and half-pulled him towards the doorway, but he didn’t look back or acknowledge that stare in any way.
It’s none of her business, Alex thought to himself as he clamped his arm against his side more firmly, pulling Bianca in just a little bit closer. His best friend didn’t comment on the action, just looked over at him, angling a bright smile his way and asking him about the specifics of the experiment he’d been doing that day as they made their unhurried way back to her dorm room to put in some more study-time before their finals.
And then before he knew it, the tests were over, and the whole campus was a mad flurry of rushing about and packing and cheerful or teary-eyed goodbyes, followed by a hasty mass exodus, of which Bianca was part. Connor was leaving, too--he was a senior, after all--and was headed up to NYC to try to make it on Broadway, or at least somewhere remotely similar. Alex couldn’t find it in himself to lie and say he’d miss the older student, but he did promise to come visit at some point (a comfortably vague agreement) and he still responded to Connor’s texts every so often.
And then it was summer, and Carrington University was a ghost town, its student body a shade of its former self. Alex had signed up for classes during both summer sessions, and was still working at the radio station most nights too, though the call-in live shows were temporarily reduced to once a week for the summer, due to the much lower number of listeners. As such, he didn’t feel any compunction about occasionally choosing to take a DJ job some nights rather than sitting silently behind a sound board and robotically answering song requests for hours on end.
Alex filled his summer with work and classes, taking a logic course to get the rest of his gen ed math requirements taken care of, as well as a few courses focused on music, its history and such. He’d already all but decided that he was going to try to pick up a psychology minor, and he might as well pick up a music minor too, since it was a subject he was pretty passionate about. He didn’t take any courses that were akin to music lessons, and especially didn’t take any that would require him to play an instrument for (or worse, with) anyone else; it was a mix of shyness, insecurity, and also simply not wanting to be judged over something that he’d taught himself, something that he used as an escape from the tension in his house and the pressures of the world in general.
Aside from attending school and working his two jobs, Alex didn’t do much else that summer, other than read some books, go to a couple movies alone, tool around on his keyboard and sound equipment, and visit his mother and her family for the week between summer sessions. He kept himself busy, but if he was honest, he knew that he was checking his phone way too often, hoping for the rare text or even rarer email from the golden-haired, green-eyed girl who’d taken over far more of both his heart and his mind than he’d ever wanted, or even thought possible.
Honestly, it sometimes made him a little angry, and very frustrated. He’d been alone like this for most of his life, and it had never really bothered him before. He’d let himself get spoiled, had become too accustomed to having someone else at his side; and yet, he couldn’t hold on to that anger and frustration for very long, or see any of it as a weakness. It was too warm and pleasant when Bianca was there for him to want anything else, to want to be the way he’d been before, cold and stiff and closed off to everyone and everything, and even the ache of her absence held a sort of comfort to it, a reminder that he’d changed, that he’d grown enough to allow someone else into his little world.
And anyway, Bianca would be back. She would be back before he knew it. Until then, he just had to work hard, let the time pass, and do his best not to dwell on the temporary void she’d left behind.
Alex didn’t hate school, but he didn’t particularly love it either; so when August finally crawled toward its end, it was strange to feel excited about college being back in session.
Of course, it wasn’t really college that he was excited about.
I’ll be back late Friday night! C:
That single, simple text was all it took to make him smile wider than he had all summer, until his face hurt, and also distracted him enough that he pretty much burned one of the pancakes he was making for dinner. After removing the pan (and a pancake with one very dark side) from the stove, Alex sent her a reply:
> Cool. Let me know when you want to hang out.
He’d only just started to set his phone down again when it buzzed again, another few messages from Bianca popping into existence even as he read the first one:
Uhhhh Friday night of course! C:
You could go out to eat with me and my family before they take off again \o/
But it IS gonna be really late and you probably have the radio show to worry about
So let’s get breakfast Saturday morning instead C:
I’ll pick you up at your house if that’s okay?
Alex shook his head, giving a low snort of laughter at the rapid-fire texting. She wasn’t normally like this, so she must be really excited. Excited about seeing me? Or...is she just excited about having someone to tell all her summer break stories to, he couldn’t help but wonder. Bianca hadn’t texted much over the summer: she’d explained that the cell phone reception where she lived was really awful, and that due to their house’s “kinda weird location,” her family couldn’t have an internet connection either. So for the most part, he’d had to be satisfied with a few emails she’d sent him from a public-use computer at the San Fran--and New York City!--public libraries, and the half dozen hand-written letters she’d mailed to him every couple of weeks.
He’d learned from those letters that she’d spent a small part of her vacation relaxing at home in California, and the rest of it working at some kind of camp on Long Island Sound in New York.
It’s a really special place, she’d written in one letter, a camp for troubled kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. My parents both ended up there when they were young, and it changed their lives. So, now that they’re adults, they want to ‘give back’ and help other kids who are in the same kind of situation that they were. Also, the camp is a strawberry farm, too! C:
Alex hadn’t known what to make of that, and there was no return address on any of the letters, and Bianca had sidestepped his request for the camp’s mailing address when he’d asked her for it in an email, so he hadn’t been able to write back. Honestly, some part of him was a little relieved, shameful as that felt to admit. Despite several months of experience offering advice and dealing with all sorts of personal problems, he wasn’t sure what he should say in response to that sort of heavy information when it came from someone he knew personally, and cared about deeply.
I’ll let her bring it up, if she wants to, he decided as he texted back his acceptance of her offer of Saturday morning breakfast, as well as what time would be best for him. And if she doesn’t, I won’t ask or push her about it.
He was actually kind of nervous about seeing her again, he was surprised (and a little annoyed) to discover. But, well, it had been a little more than three whole months since he’d seen her, and a lot could change in that amount of time, so Alex couldn’t help feeling anxious.
It had turned out that he was worried for nothing: Bianca was herself, bright and energetic and beautiful, utterly unchanged other than her noticeable tan, some extra muscle, and a new scar on the underside of her left arm. (“Got it falling off a tractor at the farm,” she’d explained with a smile, her words a glib chirp, but although Alex hadn’t missed the way her gaze had slid away from his, how she wouldn’t look him in the eye for a few seconds afterwards, he didn’t call her out on that lie.) She’d put him at ease immediately, and before long they had been trading stories about their summers. Alex had a fair number of amusing radio anecdotes and music store-related incidents to share, though Bianca’s camp stories were fascinating and seemingly endless.
The one time his heart had clenched and his stomach had dropped unpleasantly had been when she’d mentioned in passing, casual and unbothered, “Oh yeah, I also saw my ex, and it was kinda weird. But anyway-”
“Your ex?” he’d found himself asking, wincing even as he said it. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear about this, so why had he said that?
“Yeah...” An expression crossed Bianca’s face that Alex had never seen before, and that he couldn’t really read, some inextricable meld of sadness, sheepishness and warm, long-held affection. “I guess that couldn’t really be avoided though, since he’s Avery’s older brother and I go camping with their family every summer.”
That was a lot of information, and it took Alex a second to process it, by which time Bianca was already talking about something else entirely, telling a story about the prank war that had apparently descended upon the whole camp.
Breakfast alone hadn’t been nearly enough time for them to catch up, as it turned out, and so they’d headed back to Bianca’s dorm afterwards. She had managed to snag the same room she’d had last year, and Alex had helped her unpack while they swapped more stories and generally just enjoyed being around each other again after months of separation. It was late afternoon by the time they had finished, and they both semi-crashed on her floor, tired and a little sweaty and definitely ready to order a pizza and watch some Nextfliks. Alex was pleasantly surprised to find that she had gotten him a bag of the caramel popcorn that he had often brought along last year whenever he had come over to hang out, and they’d spent the rest of the evening watching the brand-new second season of Lockelave together. When they’d finally cut themselves off, it was almost half an hour after the subway stopped running, so Bianca had given Alex a ride home--she’d borrowed her godfather’s car to take them out for breakfast anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal--and despite the fact that they’d spent nearly the whole day together, it still hadn’t really been enough time for Alex. Bianca seemed to feel the same way; as she’d pulled over to the curb a block away from his house, they’d both gone quiet, and she’d been the one to finally break the silence, saying, “You should come over tomorrow after class. I’d invite you to just crash there, too, but morning practices are a thing for me again, which is part of the reason I have a single room in the first place, so I don’t have to worry about waking anyone else up when I get up at stupid o’clock to go run suicides.”
Alex agreed, of course, and from that point on, they’d more or less fallen back into their usual hangout routine without missing a beat. Because it was volleyball season, Alex still didn’t get to see as much of her as he liked, though she was so busy that once again he really couldn’t hold it against her. But, after how pathetically lonely he’d felt last year, he’d planned ahead for that: back towards the end of spring semester, when the time had come for them to pre-register for their fall semester classes, he’d asked if there was any way they could take another class together. Bianca had immediately agreed, and they’d compared schedules and talked it over, and in the end, they’d settled on Astronomy 101. It had sounded interesting to both of them, and the Tuesday/Thursday sessions and later class time had worked well for both of their busy schedules.
Essentially, things had returned to normal, and everything was right in the universe, so far as Alex was concerned.
It didn’t matter that the months apart hadn’t lessened his attraction to the bright, energetic blonde in the slightest. It didn’t matter that he was still completely and undeniably in love with her. It didn’t matter that she clearly had no idea that he felt that way--and if Alex had anything to say about it, that’s how it would stay. He was satisfied with sitting beside her in class while they studied the solar system, the history of astronomy, and the basic properties of stars, and being her partner when they did all the related stargazing labs. It was enough to just be with her when he could, and to know that she considered him an important, if not integral, part of her life.
The moments when he wasn’t satisfied, when it didn’t feel like enough at all, were easy to push aside or ignore, especially when he reminded himself of everything that he could potentially lose by being selfish. It was obvious to him that Bianca was content with their relationship being the way that it was: comfortable and platonic. She clearly didn’t want to take things any farther, so pushing for more could only make her feel uncomfortable and even guilty, and Alex didn’t ever want to cause her to feel either of those two things. If he’d learned anything over the past year, it was that a healthy friendship was give and take, and he didn’t want to try to take more than she was willing to give; the simple fact that she wanted to give him anything at all was enough of a miracle.
And so the first few months of their junior year passed in a busy but largely enjoyable blur of classes, volleyball games, and studying together, as well as twice-a-day practices for Bianca and late-night DJing gigs and radio shows for Alex. As before, once volleyball season was in full-swing, they saw a lot less of each other than either of them really liked; but Alex made sure to make it to every home game, and even one or two of the away games, and Bianca went out of her way to make sure that they at least got a cup of coffee together at the library nearly every day.
Life could be hectic at times, but it was still good. And for the first time in a long time, Alex could catch sight of his reflection in a mirror or pane of glass, and find that the face staring back at him was softened by a small and inadvertent but real smile.
He was happy. He was happy, and he never wanted his friendship with the person who had made him that way to end.
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