George was laughing like a maniac. Karl had just landed on his property in monopoly for the third time in the past six rounds. Not, to mention it had two houses on it.
"I am popping off!" George yelled in between giggles.
"Ok, ok, but just you wait. You will land on mine next time." Karl says with a smirk while handing George the Monopoly money.
Karl and George were so caught up in the pure bliss and delighteness of the game they blocked practically everything else out. That included the phone under George's pillow, ringing from Dream's multiple calls. He had no idea his phone was ringing, and if he knew it was from Dream, he probably would have given in and answered.
The boys wrapped up the game around 1am, they decided it was best to get a few hours of sleep before their introduction day tomorrow. George had won, by a whole lot, but there were no hard feelings. They cleaned up the pieces and packed it back into Karl's game bag. The lights were turned off with only a lamp lighting up the room. George climbs into bed and grabs his phone. His jaw drops and a gasp can be heard from the boy's mouth. This normally would've called Karl's attention, but he had his earbuds in and didn't hear it.
George blinked a few times again before looking back on the screen and reading,
"3 Missed Calls: Dream
1 Voicemail: Dream"
It was from an hour ago and he guessed Dream had already gone to bed afterwards. Although George was genuinely interested by what it said, he was in such a good mood and he didn't wanna ruin that right before bed. He decided to wait until tomorrow morning until he listened to it, most likely after the introduction assembly. He looked over at Karl who had already passed out completely. George reached over and turned off the lights, closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.
Dream was woken up by the nagging of his alarm. Bad, Skeppy , and Quackity also woke up starting to get ready for the day. Skeppy and Bad left the room to grab breakfast for everyone, Quackity stayed behind. Dream sat up on his bed with his head in his hands. Quackity sat down next to him and asked a question,
"Hey, did you ever end up getting a reply from George?" He asked in a soft voice, due to how early they had to wake up.
Dream didn't answer, and Quackity took that as a no and continued to talk to him.
"He probably was just asleep and hasn't woken up yet, he will probably answer when he sees it today. I wouldn't stress it." Quackity got up and walked into the shared bathroom to continue getting ready.
A simple, "Thank you." could be heard from Dream.
Around 10 minutes later Bad and Skeppy returned handing Dream a coffee, prepared just the way he liked it, just the way George had shown him years ago. He quickly was reminded of George again. With each day Dream's desire to be with George again grew, while George seemed to be the opposite. George did miss him of course, but he was moving on slowly but surely. Just then Dream got text, he checked his phone hoping it was from George.
George woke up to the sound of music blasting. Karl wasn't a big fan of regular alarms so he always used his favorite songs instead. This was new to George, but he was a big fan of it. He woke up in a better mood than most mornings, probably because he completely forgot about the missed calls and the voicemail from Dream. He got up and got dressed making more small talk with Karl. A lot of the talk was reminiscing on last night's game.
Karl couldn't help but smile at the good work he had done, he could tell offering to play board games with George really got his mind off of Dream.
Karl liked seeing happy George, he hadn't really seen that side of him. Before grabbing their bags and leaving the dorm Karl makes sure they both have everything.
"Ok, got everything?"
"Yep, I think so, list some items and I will do a quick check." George answered.
"Ok, textbooks, pens and pencils, water bottle, phone, ...." Karl continued but George froze right then and there. Phone. Suddenly George remembered what he didn't want to. Dream's voicemail. He told Karl to wait a second and George grabbed his earbuds, plugged them into his phone, and him and Karl headed out of the dorm.
He pressed 'play' on the 13 minute long voicemail and held his breath. The message went a little something like this:
"Hey, George.... I know you didn't answer the other calls so, you probably aren't ready to hear from me yet. I get it, trust me, but I just have so many things I need to get off my chest. Every little thing reminds me of you, the smell of fresh air, people laughing, the posters on my wall, the feeling of my sweatshirt, my empty hands, all I can think about constantly is your smile. I know we decided to move on but I don't think I was ready when we said our final goodbyes. So, I guess this is my closure? George you are the most beautiful, astonishing, understanding, charismatic, and passionate person I've ever met. And maybe will ever meet. I felt bad for not asking you if you made any friends on your first day too, I told you all summer I would. I broke a lot of promises. I miss you, I really do, and I know it's best for us to just grow and move on but, it's still so much harder than I thought it would be. I've tried distracting myself but nothing seems to work. I know getting this voicemail in the middle of the night isn't probably what you wanted to hear. I mean, I'm not even expecting any kind of answer or call in return, I just need you to know all the things I didn't get to tell you. I love you forever. That's a promise I'll never break."
The call slowly faded out until George's earbuds went silent again. He started rubbing the tears from under his eyes with his sweatshirt. That's when Karl noticed.
"Hey George," Karl said looking George into the eyes as George peered up right back at him.
"I know everything isn't ok, so I'm not even going to ask you that. My question is, do you want to talk about it?"
They continued to walk in silence for a little bit until George managed to get a few words out.
"When we get back." George said as his breathing became steady again.
They reached the Welcome Center and joined the rest of the crowd waiting to hear the speech and pick up their books. Meanwhile, George was too busy replaying the voicemail to hear Dream's voice again over and over to pay any attention. He then opened the messages app and began to write out a very long message.
(word count: 1291)
Author's Note:
So sorry for the late update my week has been unbelievable busy.
YOU ARE READING
Sink or Swim
Roman d'amour"Would I rather drown from too much love, or die from the thirst of it?" George and Dream are highschool sweethearts who end up separating after the summer going into college, desiring to move on and grow as people. They run into each other again a...
