639 Miles Apart

Chapter 3

The notification was still staring up at her. Emerson had now been waiting in bed for a couple of minutes just staring. She was ready to leave for school, but was hesitant on opening up the snap.

 Finally she decided to open it up, and it was a picture of Alex and Jordan and it said hey. Emerson smiles so wide, she couldn't imagine this was actually happening. She replied back with a picture captioned "Hey, good game the other day". Emerson then quickly put her phone away and ran to her car to head to school. 

Even though she was still technically early, she hated to be late. Emerson was the type of student some would call a "nerd". She rarely missed school, and wouldn't be caught dead not doing her homework. However she didn't love school, but she figured if she had to be there all day everyday, might as well put in a good amount of effort.

The day slowly dragged on. And finally after what felt like eternity, it was lunch time. Emerson walked into the lunch room and headed straight for the table where a few of her best friends were sitting. There was a group of about 10 of them who were all friends and did a lot of things together, but out of everyone in the group Quinn was the closest to Emerson. While Izzy and Peyton were busy talking about a band they were going to see perform in NYC next weekend, Emerson told Quinn about Alex.

She started by saying "So guess what? One of the boys on Duke posted his snap on Insta yesterday, and I added him, and he eventually added me back and snapped me!" Quinn just smiled and questioned "Was is Grayson?". Since they were from Syracuse and they weren't big basketball fans, Emerson's friends didn't know anyone on Duke basketball except for Grayson. They first knew of him due to his reputation and the fact that everyone at SU hated him. However Emerson's love for Gray rubbed off on them and they all understood why she loved him.

Emerson just frowned and replied, "No unfortunately not, but Alex is a cutie, so at least I can talk to one of them!" As she finished her statement her phone buzzed because a notification popped up. It was Alex! She decided to answer a little quicker this time, so she immediately opened the snap. Alex sent a picture of his basketball shoes and it said "Thanks! (sorry just finished up with practice) but, wyd?" Emerson decided to reply with a picture of her and Quinn and just said they were unfortunately in school. 

She sent it and then asked Quinn about her boyfriend who was leaving this weekend to go back to college. They met two years ago and finally started dating right before he graduated last year.

The day went a lot faster after lunch, Emerson and Alex kept snapchatting back and forth constantly. Alex asked Emerson lots of questions, and she learned that Alex is still adjusting to not playing every minute on the court this year. He told her that it is easier to digest since Grayson didn't play very much his freshman season either. He loves all of his teammates, but he is particularly close with Jordan. They both understand what they are each going through and they are proud to be "bench buddies". 

 Alex also told Emerson that he liked a couple of the schools that were recruiting him, but once Duke came knocking it was over. He wanted to play at the same place his dad did many years before him. Plus he added that since he was from Georgia, he didn't know how he could handle the snow in Syracuse. It was almost weird how comfortable their conversation flowed. Emerson was quickly liking Alex more and more, but it was a best friend bond, nothing more.

***

Emerson and Alex were still constantly going back and forth, except now they were texting each other. Emerson was a bit reserved and didn't want to tell too many people what was going on in fear of them laughing at her. So she just told Quinn some things they would talk about and also filled Sofia in on some of the stuff they talked about as well. Alex was way more open.

Alex had told Jordan, his roomate, that he found this "chill" duke fan from Syracuse. Even though Alex had added a lot of people back on snapchat that one day, conversations died out pretty quickly. In fact Alex was only talking to two people still, Emerson, and this other girl, Alyssa, who was in one of his classes. It was very natural to talk to both girls, but Jordan always teased Alex when he would respond to Alyssa. It took him multiple tries to get a "perfect" picture to send to her, whereas Alex would send random pics to Emerson, not giving a care in the world.

Jordan didn't mind Alyssa, but he loved Emerson. He begged Alex to give him her number. He wanted to find out more about this girl. Emerson and Jordan became pretty good friends as well, and they even ganged up on Alex to tease him about liking Alyssa. 

One day Jordan even stole Alex's phone to get Alyssa's number, he sent it to Emerson and she sent an anonymous text saying that Alex liked her and to ask him out. Alex might seem like a pretty outgoing guy, but he was a coward when it came to confessing his feelings for a girl. When Alex came home to their dorm room, Jordan and Emerson were facetiming, and Alex told them that Alyssa wants to go out to eat some day this week. Both of them broke out in a fit of laughter. Emerson couldn't even breathe, Alex actually started to get mad. Jordan finally told him what they did. Although Alex was kind of mad, he thanked them for doing what he couldn't.

Emerson wasn't a secret between just Jordan and Alex, no the whole team quickly learned about her too. Almost everyone on the team loved the girl from a rival city. Emerson was over the moon, she was friends with almost all of her favorite boys!

She was thrown into a groupchat with all of the freshman. She could relate to them the most since they were so close in age. She quickly learned who had a fling or flings with girls on the team, and who were better friends among them. She even noticed that Trevon wasn't as bad as she thought. Jack, Javin, JRob, Marques, Antonio, and Brennan all snapchatted her as well. They only had streaks, but didn't consistently talk with Emerson. The upperclassmen liked her and loved the fact at how close she was making the freshman, they were close before, but in smaller groups, now they all were all really good friends.

The only one who didn't like Emerson was Grayson. He would make snarky comments to any teammate who talked about her in front of him. He thought it was weird that this random girl was talking to everyone on the team. He wanted no part of it. He was busy enough with his classes and basketball schedule, he didn't want to hear everything about this girl. The team quickly figured this out, and would refrain from talking about her in front of him.