A wonderful kind of misery

Chapter 41

Her mind raced between thoughts. Eyes stabbing the grass as she waited for Ophelia to finish her classes.

Alex had a free period which meant she could have gone home an hour ago but going home meant sulking in her room, procrastinating and then proceed to feeling bad about said sulking, so she wanted to wait for her friend to get a distraction from the war inside her head.

In the meantime, her mind wandered from her mum's job and her stress, to everything she had sacrificed for her. From the heavy feeling of guilt festering in her gut, for not trying hard enough yet not knowing where to start, to Travis and his sudden, inevitable intrusion in her life.

She couldn't stop thinking about him. Wonder what he was feeling, what he was thinking and found herself terrified of that feeling that had started blooming inside her. Like a venomous flower, an unexpected fondness towards that guy who poisoned her, pulling her closer to him and that night that came close to scarring her for life.

The sound of her ringtone wrenched her from her thoughts. Lost in her worries, she had not heard the bell ring.

"Where are you?" said the familiar voice.

"Sorry, I got carried away. I had a free period and I'm in the backyard. Where are you?" Alex replied coming back to reality.

"Yep, already here."

It was funny how Ophelia knew exactly where to come. The bench by the trees in one side of the school yard had become their spot. They knew they could find each other there, either sitting and reading or even lying on the grass under the shade of the trees... Their spot.

...theirs...

"Oh, Oliver is here too!" Alex exclaimed seeing the boy walk towards her direction. She did not however, mention who followed him.

With a bitter feeling, she hung up after hearing her friend's confirmation, right before Oliver collapsed on the bench right next to her. She stiffened in her corner while Travis took out a packet of cigarettes, offering some to his friend.

"You know I don't smoke in school." Oliver declined and took his sunglasses off squinting towards him.

"Your loss." Travis leaned his head back to face the sun while searching for a lighter in his pocket.

Alex was tiptoeing between feeling blessed and offended he didn't offer any to her. She was shocked to admit that she would have wanted him to at least give her the option to decline. He surely thought she was not cool enough to smoke. And after all Alex didn't want to smoke especially coming from his pack of cigarettes. In fact she didn't even want to have anything to do with the guy, worried she could trick her mind into forgiving him and becoming his friend for the eyes of her friends as if nothing ever happened... Despite everything, she still found herself observing the precision with which Travis' long fingers executed the simplest task of lighting a cigarette.

She shook her head to snap out of it.

"Ophelia is coming!" she announced followed by a long exhale, trying to refresh the subject.

"Cool. Are you guys going for coffee?" asked Oliver casually.

Alex clenched her jaw. The sentence gave her chills, conjuring the thought of Travis wanting to join them.

"Um...I don't...know actually..." Alex mumbled while she was trying to think "probably" she added, wishing to avoid sounding suspicious. " I really have to focus on studying."

With her thoughts bouncing back to Travis, the moment there was silence, she started asking herself to what extend her confused mind would go to bring drama to the forefront. From what she had seen of him, he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would be capable of assaulting girls in his apartment regularly, but as it seems, there is more than meets the eye. What was it that even in the repulsive recollection of that night, made Alex able to still manifest some curiosity in her about the guy. She was revolted with herself and her own thoughts.