3000 Miles for the Boys [completed]

Chapter 6

After many long, painful hours of the night, I finally fell asleep... on the couch downstairs. I tried sleeping in my bed but I would always end up laying on my back staring at the latch. I pictured small insects crawling out of the latch and creeping their way into my bed. I imagined them crawling on my face and going up my nose. Ew.

Once I woke up, the next morning, my neck hurt and my back was sore. I sat up resting my back against the arm of the couch. Ow. Everything hurts. I leaned farther back until I was laying upside down over the arm of the couch. I closed my eyes and yawned. When I opened my eyes they were watery and everything was blurry. I wiped the 'tears' from my eyes. When I opened my eyes, who did I see? Chase. He was standing in front of me. I guess this guy really does get up early. It had to be 6:30 on a Saturday.

I sat up quickly, startled by Chase's mysterious appearance. "Morning," he said as he passed me and walked into the kitchen. Just now I took in his appearance. He was wearing sweatpants and a white tank top. From here I couldn't help but look at the muscles he had. His biceps were the size of grapefruits and I was just guessing, but I'm almost positive he had abs.

I blinked and directed my vision towards the dining room table. I got off the couch and walked towards the table. I sat at the seat that I was in yesterday and stared blankly at the table. How does a 17 year old have muscle like that? I asked myself. Snap out of it, you have a boyfriend.

I watched as Chase poured Lucky Charms into a blue, ceramic bowl. He took the milk out of the refrigerator and poured it in as well. He raised his head to look at me. "Do you want some?" He asked.

I blinked a few times, realizing he was talking to me and not some imaginary person in the room and nodded. "Sure," I said, my voice cracking a bit. I watched as Chase repeated the whole cereal process again. When he was finished he walked to the table with both bowls and handed me one. I took it from his hand, ours touching momentarily. I placed the bowl on the table and began to eat.

Chase chewed his cereal and looked at me, questioningly. "You were sleeping on the couch, right?"

"Uh, yeah." I replied with confusion.

"Why, you have a bed upstairs. You do know you sleep in those, right?" I was ready to throw something at him for that low remark.

"Yes I know." I put my spoon down in my bowl and was ready to explain. "Did you know there was a latch, door, thing in my room?" Chase furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "I'll take that as a no. Well anyway, there is one. In the ceiling. So yesterday, me, Keaton, and Ethan were looking at it. We opened it and climbed upstairs, and we found some weird stuff up there. There was someone up there with a flashlight and they were walking around."

"Oh so you were scared." Chase looked satisfied that he had figured out why I was on the couch, without me telling him.

"No," I said defensively, "I was just, nervous that, that person might kill me in my sleep, that's all." Chase leaned back in his chair and had a smirk on his face. "It's true, I was not scared."

"Hey," Chase raised his hands up in defense, "I didn't say anything."

In an effort to change the subject I said, "So, why are you up so early?"

"Well," Chase swallowed the food that was in his mouth and looked at me, "I go for a run every morning."

I watched as he put more cereal in his mouth. The way he moved the cereal around in the bowl was... different. "Why do you go for a run so early?" I asked as a follow up question.

"If I get to the track any later than seven, there will be a bunch of people there and-"

"Oh, and you don't like people so you go early so you don't have to see anyone." I said sarcastically. I nodded, "I got you." I raised my eyebrows and continued to eat my food. I shoved a spoonful of marshmallows into my mouth, not caring how unattractive I looked at the moment.