None of us know how to fix ourselves, at least not entirely, not well enough.
—Catherine Lacey
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Chapter 11
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"So the velocity must be seven meters per second?" Carlos looked at Evie hopefully, tapping his pencil on his circled answer.
"Wait," Mal reached for his paper, "How'd you get seven? I got thirty-four."
Carlos frowned and they compared their calculations. Evie smiled at the scene before her. After the start to the morning, Evie was convinced that nothing would go right today. However, Mal had joined her and Carlos to work on physics homework. Mal and Carlos were comfortable around each other, with no lingering awkwardness from waking up that morning twelve years older. Perhaps it was because each was the only one who could understand what the other was experiencing. It seemed that neither needed, or even wanted, to speak of what happened, at least not right now.
Evie slid her own fully worked problem toward them and said, "The answer is nineteen meters per second."
"What?" They chorused, nearly bumping heads as they looked up at Evie.
"I started with the—" Evie's phone chirped, cutting her explanation short. "Oh, it's Ben." Evie looked up at Mal, a clear question in her eyes.
"You can answer your phone without my permission," Mal allowed, feigning an air of indifference. Both Carlos and Evie knew she felt otherwise, but they wisely refrained from commenting.
Evie answered the call and greeted him. "Hey Ben!"
"Evie, are you guys alright?"
"Yeah, we're fine. Why?" Evie asked, quirking her head slightly at the oddness of his sudden and frantic inquiry.
"You didn't show up to lunch," he explained, less frantic now that he'd made contact but still with obvious tension in his voice. "You said that you'd meet us for lunch and then you didn't show, and Lonnie said Jay wasn't answering his phone." He paused for a breath. "I'm sorry, I was concerned."
Evie pulled her phone away from her ear to check the time and the screen showed her that they'd worked through the morning and long into the afternoon. "Oh Ben, I'm so sorry!" Evie apologized. Her free hand fluttered up to her chest. "We totally lost track of time. We're in the library working on homework and I—" Evie paused when she saw Mal gesturing at her to stop. She mouthed a sorry to Mal and bit her lip nervously as she waited for Ben to reply.
His voice returned, more hesitant this time. "Can I—I mean, well, would it be alright for me to see Mal now?" He sounded bashful and Evie knew that he desperately wanted to see Mal, but didn't want to overwhelm her. She covered her phone and whispered his request at Mal, gauging her response. Mal refused to meet Evie's eyes, even when Carlos prodded her with his eraser.
Evie frowned, then decided, "Yes. Meet us in the library. We're by the encyclopedias."
Mal's head snapped toward Evie and she combatted Mal's glare with a shake of her head. She finished the phone call and steeled herself for a berating. Carlos flicked his eyes back and forth between the two, unsure of which side to take.
"Evie, how could you?"
"Mal, the more you put this off, the worse it is going to get." Mal twitched slightly, clenching her pencil in her fist. Evie continued, "Look, just try. Carlos and I can go get something for us to eat. We'll be gone for a half hour tops. Ben is really concerned about you, please."
Mal exhaled noisily, lips scrunched in disapproval. "Fine," she huffed. "Not like you really gave me any choice."
Carlos reached out and gave Mal's hand a squeeze. "Susan would want you to be strong."
Mal gave him a sideways glance and then to Evie's surprise, laughed. "I guess for Susan, I can make an effort."
Evie ogled at Carlos, then Mal. She'd spent a better part of the morning trying to convince Mal to see Ben and then with one reference to a stuffed toy, Carlos had gotten her to smile and agree. "Right." She spoke slowly. "Come on Carlos, let's get some food."
He nodded and gave Mal one last smile before standing up and following Evie through the bookshelves.
Ben paused in front of the library door. He took a moment to catch his breath and smooth down his hair. His journey across campus had been more hurried than he'd like to admit. He was finally going to see Mal again. He entered and headed toward the section Evie had mentioned. He stopped in his tracks as he rounded a shelf and saw her purple hair. She was bent over a notebook, pencil scratching across the page to reveal something that only Mal knew.
"Mal," he choked, then cleared his throat. She looked up, fearfully, and Ben felt a stab of pain. "Mal," he whispered, this time a plea.
She stood, chair scraping noisily against the floor in her haste. "Ben?" Her voice warbled and she rushed across the room toward Ben. He enveloped her in a hug and they held each other closely. It took Ben a moment to realize that Mal was speaking, rambling an apology out to him.
Ben stepped back. "Mal, why are you apologizing?"
Her eyes flicked toward the ground and she shrugged. "Dunno, seemed necessary I guess."
Ben offered a half smile as he let his eyes drink her in. "I'm so happy to see you," he spoke. "Don't get me wrong, I loved little Mal, but I missed my girlfriend."
Mal's eyes flew from the floor to Ben's face, widening slightly. "Girlfriend?"
"Yes?" Ben quirked in response, not understanding her question.
"I just thought that you might not still, you know." She cleared her throat and shifted her weight.
"No, I don't know."
"That you might not want to date me," she finished her statement with a faint blush rising to her cheeks.
Ben lifted a hand and tenderly tucked a purple strand of hair behind her ear. He cupped her face, lifting it slightly so that they were peering into each other's eyes. "Mal, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I'm unequivocally in love with you. I have been for some time now. Why on earth would you think that this past month would change that?"
Mal pouted slightly, stopping when she realized what she was doing, then spoke. "My memories of being younger are mortifying. I don't know how you didn't just start laughing at me when you entered, I know I would have." She muttered, trailing off. Her eyes flicked to the side and then back, as if the eye contact was too much for her to bear.
Ben leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her lips. "I've been waiting a long time to do that." He sighed, then said, "Mal, if it had been reversed and I had been turned four, would you have laughed at me?"
She pursed her lips and answered, "No."
"I'm not going to laugh at you either, okay?"
She nodded slowly and her mouth formed a tentative smile. "Ben?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you more than strawberries." She laughed after her confession, relieved, and Ben couldn't help but to smile. He leaned down to kiss her again, but wasn't very effective because neither of them could stop smiling. It was the first time Mal had said that she'd loved him and Ben felt like he was floating. He had said it many times before, always making sure that Mal knew that there was no pressure for her to say it back. But now, hearing her say those words, Ben felt like nothing could bring him down.
Ben's heart fluttered as Mal gave him a rare but genuine toothy smile. She grabbed his hand, a form of her equally rare displays of affection and Ben knew that they would be okay. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but together they would be okay.
The rest of the weekend passed by in a blur as Mal and Carlos balanced catching up on classes with all of their friends who wanted to hang out with them again, now that they were returned to their proper age. Carlos was surprised at how friendly so many people were with them now and he wasn't entirely sure how that change happened.
Classes were not fun. He and Mal had tried their best, but no matter how much effort was applied, they discovered that it's simply impossible to learn five weeks of material in two days. Thankfully, their teachers were sympathetic to their plight and allowed extensions on every missed assignment. In every free moment, Carlos had his face pressed to a book. He'd been doing rather well in his classes before the whole incident and he didn't want to lose what he'd worked so hard to achieve.
As a result, avoiding people came very naturally. He spent late nights in the library, and often times Mal would join him in a comfortable silence, sans the turn of a page or the scratch of a pencil. Mal had never been very studious but even she admitted that she need to put in effort as to not be left behind their fellow classmates, at least academically. Also, she, like Carlos, had a quiet desire to recluse herself away from people. Mal had not been excited about this newfound attention and Carlos had invited her to study with him, giving her an opportunity to withdraw herself from social environments.
Occasionally they were joined by Evie or Ben, rarely Doug or Kevin, but never Jay. Carlos couldn't help but feel slightly hurt by that. After Saturday, Mal and Ben had slowly worked to grow comfortable with each other again. Carlos and Jay had taken the opposite route and Carlos only really saw him when they returned to their room at night to sleep, soundlessly preparing for bed.
They didn't even have Tourney anymore after Carlos quit the team. Logically, it was the right thing to do. He hadn't practiced in over a month and he was swamped with late assignments, but he still couldn't forget the look of betrayal that crossed Jay's face when Carlos showed up to practice to formally notify the coach that he was leaving the team.
Now they were nearing the end of the week and Carlos hadn't been more stressed in his life. Between depriving himself of sleep so he could work on school work, and the palpable tension between himself and Jay, Carlos felt like a frayed hair tie that was about to snap.
"You should go to bed." Mal's voice broke him out of his thoughts and he slowly moved his gaze from his paper to her face.
"So should you, it's nearly two in the morning," he replied, blinking heavily. Mal frowned at him, strands of purple hair falling loose of the messy ponytail she'd tied them back in. He made to respond again, but as he opened his mouth a loud yawn escaped instead of his prepared argument.
Mal looked smug and Carlos closed his book, trapping loose sheets of paper inside. He looked at Mal and saw that the bags under her eyes were a pretty close match for his own. When Mal wasn't studying, she was practicing magic. Carlos was the only was aware of this because she only practiced during their late night study sessions when she'd decided she was done with homework, while he had continued to work. Evie had told Mal about the accidental magic that she'd done as a kid and now Mal was working to recreate that wordless magic but with more control. So far all she'd been able to accomplish was making the pages of Carlos's book rustle slightly.
It didn't matter that she hadn't had much success yet. What was more important to her, at least how Carlos viewed it, was that she had a goal that she could work towards that didn't involve school or messy emotions.
"Come on," Carlos said, standing and gesturing for her to join him. They passed by the empty librarian bullpen and through the corridors. Carlos and Mal parted, whispering good byes in the still night air, as if speaking could possibly disturb the quality of the night.
Carlos snuck into their room, only opening the door as far as absolutely necessary for him to skirt by, not wanting the light intruding from the hallway to wake Jay. He quietly made his way around the room, preparing for bed and freezing whenever Jay shifted. He relaxed when he finally slipped under the covers, comforted by the familiar feeling of his sheets on his body and Susan in his arms. Carlos snuggled up to the stuffed dog and thanked his lucky stars that Jay hadn't mentioned that he still slept with the toy. Though it was possible that his omission was because they weren't speaking to each other, but that was a thought for another day.
Carlos shut his eyes and suddenly felt heavy, as if he was sinking into his bed from the weight of his exhaustion. He let sleep overcome him, greeting the darkness like an old friend.
Jay opened his eyes wide, suddenly awake, though he didn't know why. He heard a whimper from beside him and turned. Carlos was experiencing a nightmare, he realized, and had awoken Jay with his noises. Jay pushed the covers back and crossed the short distance to Carlos's bed. Carlos was curled around Susan, brows drawn tight and body tense. Jay placed a hand on Carlos's shoulder, gently shaking him until the whimpers stopped and their eyes met in the dim moonlight.
"Wha—?" Carlos croaked, leaning on his elbow as he moved to a more upright position.
"Nightmare," Jay said. He stepped away, fully intending on returning to his own bed. This was how Jay and Carlos functioned, this was how they coped with nightmares, and Jay had no intention of changing what they had already proved worked.
"Wait!"
Jay froze at Carlos's sudden and strange plea. Intrigued, he remained where he stood and angled his body so he was facing Carlos, tangled in the sheets.
"I don't want you to leave me." Carlos had streams of tears on his face that Jay assumed were remnants of his nightmare.
"I'm not leaving," Jay countered. Out of all of the possible conversations that they could've had to break their silence, he hadn't imagined that it'd be a delirious three a.m. conversation. "I'll be right over here in my bed."
"No, you're not!" Carlos blurted, almost hysterically. "You can't leave me, please!"
Jay moved over towards Carlos's bed. Intuition told him that Carlos was distraught from his dream and that he hadn't quite separated those events from real life yet. Part of Jay felt smug that Carlos was dreaming about him, but another part felt guilty. It was Jay's fault that Carlos had a nightmare. Jay sat on Carlos's bed up at the headboard so that he was sitting parallel to Carlos and lifted his arms to give Carlos a hug. Carlos melted into Jay and allowed himself to be held. "I'm not leaving you." Jay spoke with finality and confidence, more than he realized he possessed. "I promise."
Jay rubbed Carlos's back, waiting for him to calm down and then jerk away in repulsion. After Jay had made that scene on Saturday, he'd deserve Carlos' ill-will. He was very aware that Carlos had been avoiding him all week and every time he'd found himself missing the smaller boy, he told himself to suck it up. All of his suffering was his own fault.
When Carlos seemed to calm down, contrary to Jay's expectations, he did not fling himself away from Jay. Instead he remained where he was, tucked into Jay's arms.
"Do you hate me?"
Jay felt the vibrations of Carlos's words from the hand he had laid on Carlos's back. Jay paused his motion and Carlos tensed, only relaxing when Jay began to trace shapes into Carlos's arm with his thumb.
"I don't think I could hate you if I tried," Jay admitted. Every word was charged with the weight of its emotional significance.
Carlos pushed far enough away from Jay that they were facing each other, but remained close enough so that their legs made contact at several points. Jay let his right arm drop to the pillow, encircling Carlos without touching him.
Carlos peered into Jay's eyes and said, "I'm sorry about that, earlier I mean. You don't have to stay, I was just upset and—"
Carlos stopped when Jay lifted a hand and gently cupped Carlos's face. "I messed up," Jay confessed, in lieu of an apology. Jay could've stopped there. He knew by the look in Carlos's eyes that the boy knew what he was trying to say, but he kept going. Carlos deserved better. "I panicked when I woke up in bed with you because I wanted it so badly. I was afraid that for you it was just lingering emotions from being four so I, well…"
"Chastised me?"
Jay cringed, but nodded. He wished that they'd turned on a light so he could see every change in Carlos's expressions as he talked but it was too late. They were so close and if either of them moved to flick on the light switch, they'd shatter the mood. "I'm sorry, Carlos." He finished his apology lamely, not wanting to seem as if he'd made excuses, but still wanting to justify his actions.
Carlos bit his lip and Jay stretched his thumb out, running it over Carlos's lip to make him release his lip. Every time Carlos bit his lip, Jay had the intense urge to kiss his worries away, but that hardly seemed appropriate at the moment.
"I thought I had crossed a line that couldn't be fixed." Carlos's eyes darted across Jay's face, briefly stopping at his lips. "I was afraid that I'd broken us."
"I'm not letting you go that easily," Jay breathed. They were close enough that he could feel Carlos's breaths on his skin. "Carlos, I—Can I?"
"Please," Carlos insisted, closing the distance himself. Carlos's lips were warm as they shared a tentative but gentle kiss. The kiss was over much too soon for Jay but he moved back when he felt Carlos pull away.
"Is that okay?" Jay asked. He felt as if every nerve ending was on fire and his lips were tingly. All he wanted to do was kiss Carlos again and again until they melted into oblivion, but he didn't want to scare Carlos away.
"Yes," Carlos responded breathily. "Kiss me," he requested and honestly, who was Jay to refuse such a mutually beneficial invitation?
Their lips met again, lazily moving against each other, not for lack of desire but rather because it was still three in the morning. Jay felt more awake than ever but he knew how exhausted Carlos must be and matched the pace set by the smaller boy. They traded kisses, each one growing shorter and shorter until Jay pulled back and said, "You need to sleep."
"I don't wanna," Carlos protested half-heartedly, yawning widely in the middle of his sentence. "Stay?" He pleaded with his sinfully brown eyes.
Jay nodded and they crawled under the covers, laying on their sides, facing each other. Jay moved and gave Carlos another soft kiss. "Goodnight," he whispered. Carlos smiled in return before his eyelids fluttered shut.
Jay took in Carlos's smell—his wonderful smell—and only succumbed to sleep when his eyelids demanded him to, no longer allowing him to admire every freckle that graced Carlos's cheeks. Jay had refused to admit his feelings for his best friend for too long and now that he had entertained them and even acted on them, he knew he was a goner. He was in love with his best friend and he was so happy.
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Hello friends, I have returned. This semester has been intense so far, but I apologize for the wait. There's only one chapter left! I plan to have the epilogue up sometime within the next two(ish) weeks.
Thank you for bearing with me during this long emotional journey. Also I want to thank you again for all of your reviews. I try to reply to all of them (I know I'm not always successful I'm sorry!) because I love you guys and I love hearing what you guys think! It's kind of mindboggling to think that there's only one chapter left, I don't know what I'm going to do once I'm done with this. :/
Anyway, enough rambling. Question of the chapter! If you were in the Pokemon world, which Pokemon would be your main? (ie: the Pikachu to your Ash).
Mine would definitely be Umbreon. Umbreon has been my favorite since I was a kid and while my favorites have evolved to also include Ralts and Riolu, Umbreon was my original fav so he'd probably be my main.
~Love you guys!
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