❝I'm not sure this is a world I belong in anymore. I'm not sure that I want to wake up.❞ 

- Gayle Forman

[ H U N T E R   W I L L I A M S ]

I woke up to the horrible sound of my ring tone. My phone had been ringing for the last half an hour, but I did not have the courage nor the will in me to see who it was.

I opened my eyes only to be met by the blinding white colour of my room's ceiling. I felt and most probably looked like shit, but that's a given, knowing the fact that I drowned my sorrows in alcohol again. I knew my parents were going to lynch me when they found out I took their expensive alcohol, but that was the least of my worries right now.

I was an absolute mess, but you already knew that.

I swear, at this point my constant downfall is to be expected, whenever things are looking up, they end up plummetting straight into the ground, ever since that damn teacher came into my life. 

Fuck him.

And fuck my phone for not shutting the fuck up, I just wanted to sleep and not be bothered for a few days. I royally fucked up and now I had to pay the price. 

Seriously, what am I going to do? I fell in love with my English teacher and he knows. He knows.

I raised concerns about this ever since I figured out that my feelings were real, but I was never smart enough to keep my distance and stop neglecting the future. Now, I completely jeopardized a friendship with one of the only people in my life that were there for me.

I sighed and sat up in my bed. I didn't even bother getting out of my clothes before passing out, I smelled like death itself, the pungent smell of alcohol had already corrupted my sheets, guess I'll need to wash them again.

My head was ringing and my stomach wasn't sitting well with me, now that I look at the bottles on my bedroom floor, I know why. There was an awkward feeling in my throat that wouldn't go away and soon my stomach acted out on me. I hopped out of bed quickly and dashed straight to my bathroom, puking my guts out.

A lovely way to start the year, wasn't it?

During all of this mess, my stupid phone wouldn't stop ringing and I knew I had to make it stop somehow. I didn't dare to even look at who it was, if I did, I would've already put it on silent a long time ago.

After recovering from my little puking fiasco and quickly rinsing my mouth out with mouthwash, I went back into my room and headed straight for my phone resting on one of my pillows.

The lock screen was filled with missed calls and messages from him. However, he wasn't the one who had been calling me over the last hour, it was my best friend Evelyn Hale destroying my peace. Well, chaos.

I tried to shrug the messages off and put my phone on silent, but before I locked it and tossed it away, my best friend called again and I, surprisingly, picked it up.

"Hunter? Hey, Hunter are you alright?" Evelyn's cautious voice flooded from the speaker.

I rubbed my forehead and sighed. "Yeah, Evelyn. I'm fine, sorry, I was just sleeping, long night." I tried my best to keep it cool, I think this time I should just deal with my issues by myself. I didn't want to constantly involve Evelyn whenever something bad happened, she didn't deserve to deal with this shit.

"Alright, listen, can you let me in? I've been freezing my nipples off trying to reach you." She asked in a different tone. I blinked at her request as if I was slowly processing her words.

"What do you mean to let you in? Are you outside?" I shook my head out of confusion.

"Yes, now hurry, I need someone to talk to, something happened and I need someone right now," Evelyn said, her slightly off tone turned in to a sad one and I knew it had something to do with Troy.

I didn't need to hear anything else, as I dashed to down the stairs to my front door, ignoring the fact that I looked like titanic - wrecked. I turned the key, that was comfortably resting in the keyhole and heard a satisfying 'click'.

The door opened and there was Evelyn Hale, looking like the female counterpart of me. She shot me a confused look. "Did something happen to you as well? You look like you were hit by a car." My best friend stepped inside, rubbing her arms slightly to warm herself up.

"As I said. Long night." I answered briefly. 

"Did something happen between you and Blake?" She asked cautiously.

"Yeah, I think it's over. But, I don't want to think about that right now, what's up? What happened?" I asked her in a low tone. I was bitter about the Blake situation and it was eating me alive, but I wasn't going to let that pain take a hold of me like I usually did.

"What do you mean over? What happened? Tell me, maybe we can fix it-"

"I don't think we can, but it's not a big deal. Now come on, tell me what happened." I ushered her towards the couch in the living room. 

Evelyn followed me reluctantly. "Hunter, listen to yourself. You fell out with a man that you love and you're brushing it off, saying it's not a big deal? You reek of whiskey and you look like a mess. Tell me, what happened?"

Her question sounded more like a demand than anything else, but I ended up giving in, I always do. I plopped on the couch and let out yet another frustrated sigh. "I went over to Blake's to spend the evening with him, things were going great, we were having fun. But suddenly, he told me that he knew about my strong feelings for him and in a moment of panic I burst through the door and drank until I passed out." I stated, pausing to study the conflicted expression on her face. "I just, don't want to talk about it right now, okay? I don't know what I'm going to do but I'll deal with it later."

"Did you even hear what he had to say about it?" She questioned.

I shook my head in response. "I panicked and lost my composure, I mean you know how I deal with these things. I just didn't want to be rejected on the last day of the year. I wanted twenty-twenty to start well, but that's out the window now."

"You just can't get a rest from hardship, can you?" Evelyn asked rhetorically, her tone distant.

"You know, I'm beginning to believe that this is happening to me because of his presence." I half-joked. "I thought I had it all figured out... and then I met my new English teacher. Ever since that day, everything went downhill and it finally boiled down to this. What should I do, Evelyn?" I asked in a constricted tone.

"I know this is going to hurt, Hunter, but I have to let you know that, you're the one who brought this particular struggle onto yourself. I know you can't control who you fall in love with, but at least when you get caught red-handed you stand there like a man and listen to what that person has to say. You ran out like an absolute fool, jumping to conclusions before having the answer. I'm not going to let you get depressed over this nonsense without confirmation. I can't." Evelyn's tone was cold and her words stung.

Throughout all the ruckus I never stopped to think about what Blake was going to say, I jumped to the conclusion that everything was over like I usually did. I am an absolute dumbass.

"Fuck."

Evelyn stood up with a newfound determination and reached her hand out to me. "Come on. You wanted twenty-twenty to start well? Then do something about it, get up, clean up and let's go see what Blake has to say. I'm done seeing you drown in your misery and not finding a resolution. We're no longer children, Hunter, we're about to go out into the real world, maybe it's time we stopped running from our issues and faced them head-on like adults."

"Evelyn, I understand, this is my fault, but I'm not going to see Blake like this, look at me, I'm an absolute mess, what is he going to think?" I pleaded her out of desperation.

She scoffed in response. "We both know that if you don't go now, you're going to lock yourself up in your room and ignore everyone until you're finally ready to keep your pain concealed and pretend that it's okay. I'm neither stupid nor blind, Hunter. Right now, you're the only guarantee in my life, my dad finally kicked me out when I got home this morning and all I did was wanted to see my best friend and figure something out. You told me that we deserved to be happy, so why don't you listen to your own words?" Evelyn choked out. "Now, get up, before I drag you out."

This time, I listened.