In Love With A Warbler

Chapter 21 : Needing support

Chapter 21

Alex POV

"My mom's dying from cancer."

Mine and Nick's eyes locked. And I watched as his eyes filled with tears.

"Nick, I'm so sorry. I didn't know," I said, hugging him.

"Neither did we, and now it doesn't look good for her," Nick cried into my shoulder.

I sighed, and kept my arms around him.

"Nick, we all have our problems. Your's is your mom. Jeff's is his dad. And mine is my uncle. But we can all help each other. Talking helps. A lot. We're all going to make it through this."

Nick continued crying into my shoulder.

"Nick, how about I'll go grab us a snack. You can go back to our dorm room, ok?"

"Ok..."

I tried to grab our snacks as fast as I could. I was really concerned about Nick. I never knew he was going through something like this...

I opened the door to find Nick and Jeff in a hug on mine and Jeff's conjoined beds. I shut the door, and walked over to them. Jeff grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the hug too.

"We can get through this, guys," I said, softly.

We all pulled away. Nick wiped his tears, and went to go shower. Jeff crawled into our conjoined bed, and curled up next to me, which I was fine with. I eventually need to... ask him out... 

I was honestly pretty scared to do that. And that's weird because I don't usually get scared of doing things. But I really didn't want to end up breaking him more than he already is. What if I screw something up, and I break his heart!? I already don't want to do this because I don't really feel that was about him. And eventually, I'm going to have to tell him. Unless I actually end up falling for him. Who even knows?

Maybe I should just get this over now while Nick's in the shower...

"Jeff?"

"Hmmm?"

"I was wondering..."

"What?"

"If um... maybe you'd want to go out with me?"

I looked at Jeff, and his cheeks turned bright pink. Ha! He likes me! Funny...

"L-like d-dating!?"

"Yeah."

"Yes!"

I laughed, and rolled my eyes. He's so excited. Sort of like a 5 year old that's getting candy or something.

"Are you really serious?" Jeff asked.

"Yes, I'm serious."

"This is the best day of my life!"

What have I gotten myself into?

Jeff wrapped his arms around me, and I did the same. I need to relax a little. He's never had a girlfriend before. And it's not like anything has changed. We're still friends and everything. Just maybe a little more than friends now.

Hopefully I will be in control of this whole relationship thing. And I think there's a good chance of it because Jeff is pretty passive about everything. So hopefully we'll move at my speed. Which will be slow because I don't even like him like that...

"Alex?"

"What?"

"Um... I've liked you for a while now... I just thought you should know... I didn't really know at first, but then I had a dream."