I was back to avoiding Alex, and this time, with much greater expertise. Of all the ways I imagined a confession of affection and all the people I imagined them from, even from Alex, I certainly did not expect it to unfold the way that it did, and I certainly did not tell him that two years ago, lying in his bed, I started to wonder what it would be like to admit to him the strange, stirring feelings I harbored for him. For years I worked in overdrive to convince myself that the intensity of my feelings for Alex was fashioned out of obligation to who we once were and what we once shared, only to find out that I wasn’t alone. Was it me or was it Alex who worked harder to keep the truth concealed? And why?
When Alex exited his first final of the day, I leapt behind the opened door of a closet where Mr. Walling, lead custodian, was retrieving a mop and a bucket. Thankfully, Alex turned the other way, moving away from where I hid.
“Hi, Mr. Walling,” I greeted him warmly when he backed out of the closet and saw me clinging to the wall. “I,” I started, hoping comprehensible words would come to me, “am distressed about finals.” Nope.
“You’ll be fine, Reagan,” laughed Mr. Walling, pushing the mop in the bucket to the side of him and shutting the closet door beside him. “You’re a fantastic student.”
I smiled and wished him a beautiful spring break before taking off after Alex.
Fortunately for me, I finished finals the day before, which afforded me time to stalk Alex in order to avoid running into him. Logical, right? Or, maybe, just maybe, I was lying to myself once again.
Alex had two finals left to take that day and one paper to submit the following day before spring break could officially start for him. I figured Samantha was just as busy as him, since I hadn’t seen them together all week. The last time I saw her, she was across the courtyard with her best friend’s arm wrapped around her at the fountain with Elliot.
“Umph.” In my attempt to keep my eyes fixed on Alex, using the bodies between us to duck and cover, I clumsily fell against one of those bodies. “Hi, Elliot.”
“Running into people as your pastime today?” he laughed.
I joined him in nervous laughter, knowing full well that was the exact opposite of my goal. It wasn’t long, though, before Elliot figured out what I was actually trying to achieve that day. A smile appeared on his face when his eyes wandered over my head, students moving all around us, and I hoped he didn’t see who I knew he saw and prayed he wasn’t thinking what I knew he thought.
He smiled at the obvious look on my face, and because I couldn’t think of anything slick to say to divert his train of thought, crashing furiously into mine, I just stood there in anticipation of the impact.
“It’s,” said Elliot, “complicated when you have history.”
I gulped at Elliot’s assertion.
“Is it?” I asked him innocently.
“Is it?” Elliot laughed, mocking my question. “It is, William.”
My eyes grew wide before they began blinking in quick succession at him.
“That’s—” I attempted a defense for myself, “different.”
“That’s the same, Reagan,” he continued laughing. “Have you seen the two of you bickering? Do you know how often he watches you? I don’t even want to know the number of times he comes to your mind in a given day.”
I swallowed at his observations and the words he seemed to borrow from Alex’s confession to me on that fateful night.
“I… he… we…” I said, struggling to find words, but as always, Elliot filled in the blanks.
“Complicated, right?” said Elliot, smiling sympathetically at me.
Was it that obvious to the world that what Alex and I were was something beyond neighbors? Beyond long time acquaintances? Beyond friends? And if it was, why were we so unwilling to admit it?
Elliot only chuckled.
“How,” I started to pose a question to Elliot, my eyes moving away from his to settle absentmindedly at a spot right through his chest, “often does he watch?”
Elliot paused in thought, searching for the right words, and when he thought he had found them, he answered.
“Every,” he said quietly, “chance that he gets,” he finished. My stunned eyes shifted to meet his. “When you’re a mile away or a yard, or he’s at the top of a building looking down, or down,” he continued, “looking up.” I gulped. “When multiple bodies stand between you and him,” he went on, “he waits patiently for a clearing, content to catch glimpses of you as bodies move in and out of the frame, until,” he paused, “it’s just you and just him.”
I stared at Elliot, my mouth agape.
“You’re,” I said quietly, “exaggerating.”
Elliot smiled at my denial.
“I’m glad he finally ended things with Sam.”
“What?” I couldn’t help screeching.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Elliot continued. I only looked at him, dazed. “I’ve never seen anyone long for someone the way Everett longs for you,” he clarified.
I looked away slowly, my eyes settling on my feet.
If Elliot’s witness of Alex was true, Alex’s heated exchanges with me were actually words of affection, the encounters I once thought were random were actually deliberate to ensure interactions, the forced visit to his favorite diner was actually an early confession of his true feelings for me.
“What’d you do?”
“I,” I began an attempt to answer Elliot’s question, “don’t know, honestly,” I finished. “We spent our entire childhood together,” I continued, “and as we grew up, he never noticed me in high school because he had a certain physical type,” I explained, “and then he went off to college and came back after his overdose—” I caught myself as the word slipped from my lips, but it was too late by then. Elliot only smiled, though, his assumption finally confirmed, and the secret safe with him. “I helped nurse him through that wild time in life, but he was asleep for all of it.”
“Asleep?” Elliot asked. “Was he in a coma?”
“No,” I answered. “Whenever I was on duty to care for him, he was asleep.” Elliot’s brows furrowed in response. “I took the night shift to help relieve his mother when he was put on watch,” I explained. “Alex slept for the entire two weeks I was in recovery with him.”
“So he has no idea what you did for him?”
I shook my head to answer.
Never once was I presented an opportunity to talk to Alex about his overdoses. It was a real frustration to be present for him—to help him through his recovery—and yet, never get the chance to ask him about his struggles.
“Dad,” I asked my doctor father at the kitchen table, “is it normal for someone to sleep for that long? It’s been a week!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t seen him up once since I started covering for Camila.”
“He’s awake the rest of the day,” Dad responded, finishing his bowl of cereal, which was technically dinner but actually his breakfast before his shift at the hospital. “That’s what Camila tells me.”
“Yeah, that’s what she told me too.”
“Maybe his body has regulated that way,” Dad suggested.
“Well, it’s annoying,” I responded.
“Is it now?” said Dad.
“Yes, it is,” I answered him. “I just want to ask him why he’s such an idiot.”
“You might want to take it easy on him,” Dad laughed.
“Take it easy on him?” an exasperated cry left me. “Dad, that’s all anyone ever does with Alexander the Great.” I became wildly animated after that. “Oh, he’s so smart. He’s so tall. He’s so good looking. He’s so perfect.”
“I’m not sure people see him that way, Rae,” Dad countered my insanity. “Least of all Mike and Camila, his own parents.”
I paused to think of Pastor Mike and Camila and how they were processing the poor decisions of their only child.
“Do you think of him that way?” Dad asked me.
My face crinkled at the surprising question.
“No,” I sputtered in disgust. “Ew, Dad. That infuriating creature is a long list of other adjectives.”
“Like?” Dad pressed on.
Confused by his continued questioning, because successful surgeon, Dr. Lee, never poked and prodded, dissecting the mind of his teenage daughter before, I peered peculiarly at him.
“Like,” I started, “dumb, and severely deficient of good choices, and irritating, and,” I paused to think, “weird.”
Dad nodded slowly in response before glancing at his watch.
“Be that as it may,” said Dad, “it’s time for you to clock in. Night shift for the both of us.”
I left Dad so he could finish readying for work, and made my way over to the Everett’s so Pastor Mike and his lovely wife could step out for a much deserved night out. By that time, Alex was already sleeping soundly in bed, like always.
Grateful for the Friday evening, I plopped myself into the chair at Alex’s desk, relieved that my norm of sitting there, tapping my way through homework, my eyes glossing over because of the bright light from my laptop, was different that night. I twirled myself around once in the chair and stopped to look out the window of Alex’s room to the window of my room in the neighboring house. Alex and I used to do shadow shows for each other when we were younger. Those days seemed so long ago. I turned to look at him on the other side of me, and rolled myself over in his chair to where he slept peacefully in his bed.
Leaning down, I rested my elbows on his bed and my chin in my hands, peering intently at Alex’s pretty sleeping face, only inches away from mine and freshly shaved.
“Glad you finally shaved off that bird’s nest starting to form on your face,” I said to the sleeping beauty. “Can I touch it?” I reached out to touch his cheek, but stopped just short of it. “I’m,” I said to him, “touching it, since you wouldn’t know anyway.”
I ran the side of my hand lightly down his smooth face and repositioned my arms on his bed to overlap.
“Guess what?” I asked his closed eyes and steady breathing. “I’m cramping so badly today,” I answered for him, sitting up to grab at my stomach.
Alex stirred suddenly and shifted his position in bed, turning away from me. He moved around a lot while he slept, so I never feared he would actually wake. He never did.
I stood from my seat and moved around the room to tidy what he had moved out of place throughout the day.
“The Great Cycle of Life is relentless this time around,” I continued. “I had to change into my gym shorts at school today.” Alex stirred again to lie on his stomach as I picked up one of his fallen track trophies on the opposite side of the room, standing it up neatly among the others, lined in a row on a shelf along the wall. “I feel like people noticed, but I didn’t really care since I was dying anyway.”
I walked back to Alex’s bed and turned to sit at the edge of it, facing Alex’s wall of trophies, as he slept to the back of me.
“I wonder if you knew what cramps felt like,” I spoke to the room, “you would know that pain is only temporary.” I turned my head to the right of my shoulder to listen to Alex’s breathing, glad to hear the soft inhales and exhales behind me. “It comes and it goes.” I cleared my throat before turning around and crawling across the bed to settle myself next to him, our faces right next to each other’s. “Let it come and it go, weirdo,” I continued. “And yes, I know this is a disgusting analogy, but Alex,” I said to him, “you can’t die, like,” I paused, “ever.” I stared his sleeping face on. “Okay, fine,” I interrupted myself, “long after you’ve played your part, done your duties, married one or three of those girls you waste your time on, and had lots of kids, then you can die. Just,” I swallowed, “not now.”
I repositioned myself onto my back to stare at the ceiling.
“I forgot to tell you,” I spoke to the ceiling. “Pierce Thompson threw up on the track yesterday, and all his little friends and Cassie Locke just bailed on him!” I exclaimed. “How does your girlfriend just leave you when you need them the most?” I cried. “Girls are terrible, and boys are so stupid,” I continued, shaking my head. “I helped Pierce hold his hair back though,” I laughed. “He might be in love with me now, but we’ll see.”
Alex stirred the other way in bed again, so I laid there for a moment in silence, both hands rested on the middle of my chest and my eyes fixed so intently on the ceiling it was as if I was looking straight through it to the night sky.
“Between all these lines, the stars they align,” I recited the ending lines of the poem Alex had once dedicated to me years ago in our middle school commons to preserve what little was left of my dignity after my embarrassing poetic confession to Pierce Thompson. Between you and I, I let my mind finish the poem.
“He didn’t know any of that?” Elliot’s unconvinced tone asked me.
“Besides his parents telling him I was there to cover the night watch?” I answered. “No, and if he did,” I continued, “I said a lot of things to him while he was sleeping,” I paused to think of the many insanities I whispered to Alex during his recovery, “and if he didn’t crack once, he deserves an award for outstanding performance,” I laughed. “There’s no way.”
Elliot seemed a little more convinced that time.
“Maybe knowing your devotion was enough.”
A quiet overtook my demeanor at his insight.
“And where,” I asked him, “do your devotions lie?”
Confusion washed Elliot’s his face.
“She seems amazing,” I answered his look. “Samantha’s best friend,” I further elaborated when the confusion remained.
Elliot smiled as his mind wandered over to his lovely ex-girlfriend.
“She is,” he confirmed. “It’s just—” he continued, but stalled at a loss for words.
“William?” I suggested.
Elliot laughed.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s crazy how time and distance changes the way you see someone and challenges what you feel for them.”
“It works the same when there’s no limit on time and proximity is close,” I tried to offer him some perspective about how it would be different if his ex was still on campus.
His eyes locked with mine, only a few steps separating us, and I couldn’t help but swallow at the intensity of his gaze as he took one step forward.
“Yes,” he agreed once again, his eyes unwavering, “it does work the same when there’s no limit on time and proximity is close.”
My cheeks flamed at what I believed to be yet another confession.
“Listen,” he said, a grin softening the seriousness on his face, “hear me out.” My body relaxed at the tone of quiet thrill on his voice. “Let’s, you and I, figure ourselves out by the end of the school year,” he started, “and if we find that we can’t, we figure ourselves out together.”
I couldn’t suppress my laughter at the end of his proposition, his confession glaring.
“Together?” I asked, flattered and entertained all at once. “You and me?”
Elliot beamed a flirtatious smile at me.
“If by the summer we haven’t figured ourselves out,” he clarified, “we stay who we are and become what we want.”
An annoying giggle escaped me as I found myself nervously biting the inside of my bottom lip at Elliot’s proposal.
“What if you figure yourself out?” I asked him.
“Then I tell you,” he answered. “And if you figure yourself out?”
I smiled at the charming man in front of me with two adorable dimples sinking his cheeks.
“I tell you.”
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