Hopelessly Falling [book 2]

Chapter Thirty-Four

XXXIV
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Kevin's POV ***

The sound of the birds outside woke me up from my sleep, and I stretched my arms upwards before bringing one down to rest on Ali.

But then I noticed that Ali was a lot larger than usual, and I couldn't smell her usual amazing smell.. And then I realized that Ali went back to her school the day before and could not have been lying next to me in my bed. My eyes shot open and I saw Eli asleep on top of my blankets, dressed fully in dirty clothes. I jumped a foot in the air and let out a scream that startled him awake as well.

"What the hell?!" I caught my breath as I sat up, my eyes still adjusting to the bright morning sun. Eli rubbed his eyes after he finished being startled.

"Hey there Kev," he greeted me. My jaw dropped as I blinked at him.

"How did you get in here??" I exclaimed, utterly confused

"Window," Eli replied, turning back over as if to go back to sleep. I smacked him on the back of the head to wake him back up, and he turned back to me with an offended glare..

"I can't believe you're wearing dirty clothes on my bed. What were you, raised by wolves?" I gawked at him, reaching over and successfully rolling him off of my bed. He thudded to the ground as I tried to brush some dirt off of my sheets.

"That's what you have questions about? Why I'm wearing these clothes on your bed? Nothing else?" Eli got himself up off of the ground, and shot him a look.

"I just washed these yesterday," I told him sternly. "Oh yeah, and why are you even here?"

"I, uh, got kicked out of my house," he answered.

"Why?"

"Because apparently my parents had an event going on when I bursted through the front door drunk," he replied, and my eyes widened.

"Well why were they having an event?" I asked, and Eli gave me another incredulous look. "Oh, yeah, and why were you drunk? Also why do you have a black eye?"

'A black eye' had been putting it lightly... he looked as though he had been thrown into a pit with two bears and an angry Ashton. It looked as though he had tried to clean himself off, but some dried blood remained in a few places, especially on his clothes.

He went to sit down on the bed again, and I was about to stop him when I realized that he had already ruined my sheets, anyway. They were my good sheets, too, goddamnit.. but I didn't glare at him as he laid back down horizontally on them- the sad look in his expression keeping me from doing so.

"I slept in the warehouse yesterday. That's why I'm dirty. But then I came here last night," he told me, his eyes gazing up at my ceiling. "Sorry if I'm intruding."

"I mean, technically speaking you did break into my house in the middle of the night like a mad man.. but you know you'll always be welcome here. Just not on my clean sheets next time if you're dirty, alright bud?" I repeated myself for the final time as I got out of my bed and walked over to my dresser to put some clothes on. It was quiet for a few moments until he broke the silence with a solemn tone.

"I fucked up."

"How so?"

"I just did. And I don't know if I can fix it," he replied, and once I was dressed, I looked back over to him.

Eli was always so clean and put together even with his typical laid-back appearance.. I hated seeing him like this. He even had a dirt smear on his cheek, and I cringed at its close proximity to the pillow. But again, his sad expression kept me from saying something about it.