Chapter 26 - Nobody said it was easy (Part I)

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Hello Lovely Readers,

I've been waiting a long time for this chapter! I'm so ready for this! This is going to be a 2 parts chapter, as it's quite long!

To set the mood for this chapter, I suggest you to listen to The Scientist (Coldplay cover) by Beth. It will make sense.

I hope you enjoy it (freaking out here!!)

.........................

"Are you mad at me?" Bennett sits beside me on my bed and eyes me carefully.

"Why would I be mad at you?" He asks, not really answering my question, so I know he's kind of avoiding it.

I've also been avoiding talking about this for the past two days, but I feel the air is too heavy, so instead of letting it go, I'm finally bringing up the topic.

Maybe it's not very smart of me. What if he's too mad?

"I don't know, I just feel that you're angry with me and I'm walking on a thin line here."

"Well, it's not like I'm super happy that you're not taking your medicines, but what can I do? I'm angry that you let yourself get to the point of getting hurt and having an episode." I fit the floor.

I deserve being scolded.

"I'm sorry." I say as he stands up to get one of the pills the doctor prescribed from my study table.

"It's not me you should say you're sorry to, you should be sorry for yourself, Alex."

I take the pill from his hand and he goes to my desk once again to get my books.

Here is the thing, since I had the migraine episode earlier this week, Bennett has been by my side practically all the time that he's not at school.

It's been two days since I'm missing classes because my doctor said I should rest to fully recover. Until last night I still had some headache, so staying home was really good.

It has been a while since I've had such a bad migraine and I must say, I didn't miss the feeling. It was irresponsible of me to forget to take my medicine for a few days, I can see that now.

Bennett brought my homework and has been taking care of me like a true friend, which is kind of ironic. I know he said we shouldn't be friends anymore, but that's the exact opposite of what we're doing and I confess it's a bit confusing. And nice...

I thought he didn't want to be close to me and here he is, sitting on my bed, taking care of me practically all the time. I can't complain though, it does feel good.

Lilly has been visiting as well, but she said I'm well taken care of, so she doesn't want to be the third wheel, which I tell her that she is not, because Bennett is just my friend.

Her reaction is to wink at me and leave, to give us some space, in her own words. I thought we were over this idea of hers that he likes me, because you know, there's Kate...

Suddenly, I'm thinking about her. I mean, he's spending a lot of time taking care of me and it's crystal clear that even when he's mad because of my stupid decisions, he still cares about me.

Not to mention that although I noticed he's been more on his phone smiling while he texts, he doesn't check it when he's with me, just like when we were studying together. Regardless of the amount of time it buzzes, he simply doesn't look at it.

It's like his full attention is on me and I like it. A lot!

Funny enough, this is another thing he's so opposite from Dylan. His brother is always on his phone, taking selfies, texting his friends, checking instagram, and so on.

With all of that, I can't help but wonder what Bennett's girlfriend would think of this whole situation? Does Kate even know about us spending all this time together?

If it was the opposite, I'd be pretty pissed that my boyfriend is giving another girl so much attention, regardless if they've known each other their whole lives.

I don't even know what he told Kate about us. She knows I exist because we met at Rockefeller Center, but does she really know me? Or am I just a regular friend?

What am I saying, of course I'm just a regular friend.

Maybe they have such a strong relationship that she's not bothered by it at all. She knows Bennett can be trusted.

These thoughts don't seem very pleasant. Any of this seems very pleasant.

Bennett having a girlfriend is weird and less than pleasant.

I was thinking about asking him if he's actually dating Kate, but he's the first one to break the silence on a completely different topic.

"You got a C on last week's test."

"Really?" I sigh heavily.

Although it's not good news, at least it gets my mind away from his relationship with Kate.

Well, and lack of relationship with me. Which is fine, totally fine. It's not like I want to be in a relationship with him, so I don't care who he dates. It's just friendly jealousy.

I guess the C I got didn't really get my mind off the topic...

"You should tutor me again." I say, without giving it much thought.

It sounded more like a plea, because let's be real, I can't deny the correlation. Since he stopped tutoring me, my grades stopped being great. Asking him to tutor me again is like me trying to save what's left of high school.

I'm not sure he wants to do this again and I shouldn't depend on him to improve my grades, but I can't fail. I still need to get into a college.

"I mean, if you want to be my friend again, because you said--"

"I know what I said." He cuts me off. "I think the fact that I'm bringing your homework and I'm more worried about you than I've ever been nullifies that entirely."

I can't help but smile. Who even says nullifies?

"So are we good? I mean, can we be friends again?" I wait expectantly for his answer.

"As long as you take your medicine, yes we can be friends. It's not like I can stay away from you anyway." He says and I blush. What does that mean? I guess he notices it, because next thing, he's clarifying it. "I worry about you Alex, that's all."

I nod again, feeling stupid. I need to stop overthinking things. We had a moment - or moments, plural - a while ago and well, I went to his house and slept on his bed on New Year's eve. It felt good as hell, but still, he's just a friend.

I have a boyfriend, for fuck's sake, so I really shouldn't be thinking about this, I should focus on his brother instead.

It's like Bennett is reading my mind, because guess what he asks next...

"Is Dylan coming to visit you?"

"He will come on the weekend. He's busy with practice." I know things are more intense because of Dylan's football practices, he finally has the chance to play and he's so dedicated that I couldn't ask him to come.

He sent me a bunch of messages asking how I'm feeling and I said that Lilly is taking care of me. I didn't have it in me to text him that his brother is actually the one by my side when he should be.

I'm trying to be an understanding girlfriend, that's all.

"Right, of course he is busy." I would probably argue back with him for being sarcastic and would defend Dylan, but I don't know what to say at this point. Maybe he's right to be sarcastic, it's not nice of Dylan not to be here and I do feel somehow embarrassed to talk about it with Bennett.

"Are you coming back to school tomorrow?" He asks in a much softer tone.

"Yeah, two days stuck on this bed is enough as it is."

"Good, that way we can start studying again." He smirks, lightening the mood entirely.

I know I just asked for him to tutor me and I desperately need it if I want to get my GPA back on track, but right now, all that comes to my mind are images of him being a pain in the ass and making me want to hit my head on a wall due to all the questions he asks.

"Great, I can't wait." Is all I say.

Guess who's being sarcastic now.

........................

Bennett wasn't joking when he said he was going to tutor me again. I mean, I know he takes his studies too seriously and I know his methods already, but sometimes I think it's just too much.

Ok, not sometimes, it's more like most of the time. I think his love for studying is always exaggerated, period. However, maybe he's the one who's right, considering his methodes do work.

What do I know? I'm not good at anything, so I guess I should just be more like him.

It's the second day we're studying and he already took it to another level. Instead of the regular places, like his house or mine, we are in our school's lab.

At night.

On a Friday.

You got the picture. We should be enjoying our youth, going to parties, watching movies, but no. He dragged me to our school's lab.

He said he needed to show me "in real life" the concepts he's trying to explain to me, so here we are doing a bunch of experiments.

The school is obviously closed, but he is so into this place that he knows where the spare keys are and apparently he's done this before, way too many times.

I'm reconsidering defending him when people call him weird, because you know, I might have to agree with them after this.

Just kidding, Bennett is not weird. Not that much, at least.

Have you ever been to a high school building at night? It's dark, it's silent, it's creepy.

Who the hell enjoys studying in an empty school? Seriously.

To be fair, even if the light is low outside the lab, I feel somehow protected. I don't think someone will break into our school to chase and murder us.

Maybe I thought it could happen at first, but not now. I'm confident that we can escape. I know where the emergency exits are by now and we have some acids from the experiments to use as weapons, so...

''Are you paying attention?'' He asks, adjusting his goggles.

''Right, sorry. Got distracted.'' He focus back on the experiment, after giving me a weird look.

Ok, focus, Alex.

I look at him sitting in front of me and he's concentrating on taking notes of a formula that I'm sure he will later explain to me. He mixed two things - no idea what they are called - that turned the green liquid into a bright shade of purple.

He's frowning deeply, something I learned he does when he's too focused. I can't help but smile at the sight of him, because look at him. He's so adorable.

It's nice to spend time with him again and I have to say, we had such a good time the last couple of days whenever he was tutoring me.

He's still driving me insane with his methods, but it's great to do this again.

Actually, it's not just about studying. We've been having a great time since the migraine stroke, as weird as that sounds, considering I was feeling sick. It's true though, I'm glad it happened, as it brought us closer again.

It felt like forever we had talked for the last time, but when he helped and carried me to the nurse's office, it was like... us again. Like we never had a fight or whatsoever.

Not to mention that it felt so good to be taken cared of by someone.

I just felt important.

"I missed this, you know." I say with a low voice, as if anyone could hear us.

His eyes, that were focused on the graduated cylinder, meet mine and I smile again.

"Missed what exactly?"

"Us, studying, spending time together, you getting pissed because I have no clue what you're asking me. It's nice." He takes the goggles off and looks at me.

"It's not nice that you don't put effort in understanding what I'm asking." I throw my pen at him and he snorts a small laugh, but I know he was serious. "I like spending time with you too, you know that."

We stay in a comfortable silence for a while, that until yesterday I'd think it's awkward, but now I think that Bennett is the only person I could reach this level of comfort with. Well, and Lilly, but Lilly never shuts up, so there's no such thing as silence with her.

Not even with Dylan I feel this comfortable. I guess it's because I still feel sort of nervous when I'm with him, so I usually ramble like an idiot.

I look at Bennett once again and I can't help comparing him with Dylan for a moment. How can they be so different? Dylan is always busy with his hundreds of friends, even if he says he's not making many friends at college, which is hard to believe. He is too outgoing and Bennett is the complete opposite.

I didn't use to like Bennett's personality and I thought Dylan had the perfect one, but now I kind of think Bennett's way is special. I think I just didn't know him for real before.

He didn't ask me about Dylan again and I'm glad he didn't, but I can't help but think that he should be here with me. He's my boyfriend, so I guess I want him to be here with me, don't I?

I thought he would come home today to see me for the weekend like he said he would, but I received a couple texts from him earlier today saying otherwise.

Sorry babe, we have a last minute practice for tomorrow's game.

You're coming tomorrow, right? Miss you. Dylan

I was frustrated that he had to stay for another practice, but I know that tomorrow is a big day for him as it's the first game he'll have some playing time, so I understand and I'll be there for him. As I always do...

It must be nice to be into something to this point, you know, where you dedicate yourself so much, like he does with football. Something you love to a point that makes you forget about everything else.

I used to have that, but I let it go a long time ago.

"Are you ok?" Bennett asks as I'm looking nowhere, lost in my own thoughts. "It looks like you're about to cry."

"It does?" Damn, was I that deep in thought? I take a deep breath and recollect my thoughts, getting back to my normal self. "I'm ok, I was just thinking."

"About what?" Should I tell him what's on my mind? Would he understand?

"Do you ever miss doing something you used to do, but you don't do anymore?" He blinks a couple of times and I can see he's trying to make sense of my question.

"Are we talking about something in particular?" He inquires.

"Well, no. I mean, yeah. I just... I was thinking that it would be good to like something so much and be good at it." I shrug.

He nods, I guess he understands, even if I'm not even sure what I mean myself.

"You mean, like playing piano?" My eyes dart to him, completely surprised.



..........TO BE CONTINUED..........


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