The Path To You

3. Destroy my hopes and dreams

I hadn't seen or talked to Connor since I left his place yesterday. I wasn't used to silence. I was used to him showing up trying to drag me out with him so he could get drunk. Or he'd just text me random shit. Like one time he texted me because he found out what bird ears looked like. A fact he not only needed to tell me about that second but send me multiple pictures of throughout the day.

That was the Connor I was used to. But it'd been over twenty four hours since we last talked and I missed him. I couldn't help but lie in bed last night worried about where he was and if he had gotten home from wherever he had went.

But I couldn't let myself get lost in him. I actually had things I needed to do. The first one was study for the exam I had in the morning. I wasn't going to let Connor cause me to fall behind in my classes. It was already hard enough and with being dragged out all the time I knew my grades could definitely be better. But I'd managed so far and I couldn't let a quiet day like this go to waste especially with only one semester left of this stupid shit.

My bedroom door swung open and I didn't even look up expecting one of my roommates to be trying to annoy me like usual. My bets were on Becca.

"We are going out."

I whipped my head up surprised to see Connor waltzing into my room.

One look at him and I wanted to cave. I wanted to do whatever he asked because that's how pathetic I was.

"I can't, I have an exam and it's fucking me in the ass right now." I just shook my head.

"You know I could be fucking-,"

"Shut up." I cut him off with a laugh.

"You got any alcohol in here?" He asked looking around my room.

"Bottom drawer." I gestured to my desk.

"You're a fucking saint." He grinned and then made his way over pulling the drawer open and pulling the bottle of vodka giving it a loud kiss.

"You're replacing that." I told him as he unscrewed the cap.

"Yeah yeah."

I didn't say anything as he took a large gulp straight from the bottle. I knew Connor was barely ever sober anymore. He had probably showed up a little drunk already.

I did my best to ignore him and go back to studying but the silence only lasted so long.

"You want me to help you study?" Connor walked over looking over my shoulder at my textbook.

"What?" I just gave him a look sort of surprised.

"Come on it will be fun. I'll take a swig every time you get something right." He smiled at me.

"Oh so I'll be studying and you'll be blacked out drunk, sounds like fun." I chuckled.

I didn't really expect anything else from Connor and I didn't want to do anything to push him. I knew his drinking and anything personal was off limits and if I tried to push him on that he'd bolt like the flash.

"Fine I'll only drink when you get something wrong." He caved grabbing my textbook out from in front of me.

"Which hopefully won't happen, I've been studying this stuff all day." I groaned knowing that it was probably a lie and I had no clue what was in that textbook.

"What is this for?" Connor flipped to the front of the text book. "Sociology? God why are you taking that?" He eyed me.

"I needed an elective. Are you going to help or not?" I reached to grab my textbook back.

"What even is propinquity? I didn't even know that was a word."

"It's when people partner with people that live close to them." I replied at least knowing that.

Connor looked at the text reading it and then frowned. His eyes went between me and the bottle in his hand and then he picked it up and took a swig.

"I'm going back to drinking when you get things right, I'm slightly worried you might be too smart." He joked.

I swallowed all my worries. I wouldn't say anything about it. I wouldn't make any comments or try to push to know what was wrong. I knew something was wrong, I always knew it. Connor tried to play up the whole party boy just having fun thing and maybe most people believed that. But if you just took a second look you could see that there was so much more there. He was in pain and all I wanted to do was reach over and end all his suffering. I'd fight every battle for him if I could.

"Can we take a break?" Connor sighed closing the textbook.

"We haven't even started." I complained.

"But sociology is boring." Connor whined taking another swig of the alcohol.

"Give me like thirty minutes, I'll study some on my own and then we can do whatever the hell you want." I compromised.

"Anything?" He asked wiggling his eyebrows.

"Not that." I smacked him with a laugh.

"Fine whatever destroy all my hopes and dreams I'll be over here doing nothing and being bored."

I ignored his dramatics and went back to studying. Was I actually focusing on anything in the text? Absolutely not but I was putting in the time for my studies and that's all that really mattered.

I didn't even last thirty minutes before I closed my textbook and went to lay next to Connor on my bed.

"You have me for the rest of the night but I still have an exam tomorrow so I can't go out drinking all night with you." I said.

"Tell me something about yourself." Connor turned on his side to look at me.

"Like what?"

"Anything." He shrugged.

I didn't know exactly why my mind went to this. Why when I opened my mouth the stupidest things came out of it but around Connor I didn't feel the need to hide anything.

"I've only slept with three people." I blurted out.

Connor didn't say anything he just looked at me with almost wonder in his eyes.

"I know it's kinda stupid," I felt myself kind of shrink into myself a bit.

It was only mildly embarrassing to admit this to Connor who I doubted even knew the number of people he'd slept with. Connor had been one of three people I'd ever been with. That night with him had felt ingrained into my head. But for Connor I couldn't help but feel like I was just another hookup he could barely distinguish from all the other bodies he'd laid with. Or the even worse idea that I had been so bad and inexperienced that all he could remember from it was how awful he thought it was or how unsatisfied he had been after.

I mean he didn't say that it was bad. He actually told me how good it was and I mean he did try to get into my pants a lot. It was a confusing argument I had with myself and it was one of the many reasons I tried not to think about Connor and that hookup we shared.

"It's not stupid, I think it's kinda amazing." And I knew his words were the truth, I could always tell when Connor was lying.

"Tell me something about you?" I tried to direct the conversation away from me.

"Freshman year I cried every time I had sex."

His words took me by surprise. I hadn't expected him to say that at all.

"Every time?" I questioned.

"Well after it was over but yeah. Luckily I grew out of that." He turned away from me sitting up.

I didn't know what to say. I had so many questions but as he reached out and grabbed at the alcohol bottle I knew I wouldn't get any answers from him. I'd just have to wait until he trusted me enough to open up to me.

"Can I sleep here?" He asked making it very clear he was done with the conversation.

"Yeah." I nodded and he didn't say anything back just shuffled into the covers and laid down, his back to me.