[TAC] THREE'S A CROWD

Chapter 13*

{New}

New's pretty sure it's his horrid headache that wakes him up and causes him to involuntarily slide out of bed before 9 am. He drags his feet across the floor in order to make his way into the bathroom and release all of his bodily fluids, but not before he catches himself in the mirror.

His eyes are red and only a little puffy from crying the night before, which is something he's gotten more used to doing these days. He hates it. Not only is crying the worst and most vulnerable occurrence in the world, it makes its own case even worse by making sure it can be known by all that you cried the night before, by leaving all the signs on your face.

New sighs as he looks in the mirror for a few more seconds.

"Why is crying a thing? Why does it even exist?" he asks his reflection before walking over to the toilet.

He finishes his business and washes his hands in the sink, before deciding he definitely wouldn't want Alice nor his mother to see him this way and worry about him. He splashes cold water on his face repeatedly in order to get rid of the redness, because it's something he thinks he's read online before. He uses the pads of his fingers to rub it against his eyes and wipe it off as best he can.

The water helps only a little bit, and New decides that if his mother questions him about anything, he'll just become a brilliant actor and claim he's fallen ill.

He almost trips only once on his way towards his bedroom door, and his head continues to pound as he walks down the stairs and winces at the sunlight coming from the window over the front door.

The smell of eggs and sausages causes a faint grin to form on his lips, but it's immediately wiped off when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and realizes Alice's only made it for herself.

New's lips part in betrayal as he approaches Alice at the kitchen table. "You didn't make me any?"

Alice shrugs as she continues to move her fork around her scrambled eggs. "I was gonna, but then I got lazy."

"Best sister award definitely goes to you," New mumbles sarcastically as he goes over to open up the fridge.

"Um, yeah it does, because I covered your ass every time you came home high as hell," Alice says pointedly, her mouth full of food.

New huffs as he pours himself a bowl of cereal. "Whatever. Where's mom?"

"Left to run some errands."

"You know you wouldn't have gotten away with being this selfish if she was here," New says.

Alice lets out an exasperated sigh. "Are you still bitching about me not making you breakfast? God, if you want it that bad, call Tay over to cook it for you. Isn't he a good cook?"

New's cheeks turn a slight shade of red as he grabs his bowl in order to take it upstairs with him. "And give you the satisfaction of ogling at him? Yeah right."

He ignores her shy giggles as he makes his way back up the stairs.

New spends his Saturday the only way he can, alone and working on bullshit he's been putting off for far too long, like cleaning up his messy room, writing his college application essays, remembering to drink enough water, stuff like that.

It's almost twelve at midnight when New gets a text from Off out of the blue. It's sort of odd, considering how long it's been since they've texted, and that's because New hadn't reached out to him and Off probably hadn't reached out because of the fact that New hadn't reached out. New keeps telling himself that he isn't doing it on purpose, and that they just don't have much they need to talk about, but as he reads Off's text in the dark of his bedroom, he knows that's utter bullshit.