He's a Fanboy?!

He Falls in Slow Motion

*not really edited haHaHaha...*

"I need a life," I whisper to myself as I wipe the tears from my cheeks. I give the Wattpad story its very last vote before archiving it.

Flopping back into my bed, I stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck onto my ceiling when I first moved here. "Friends are like stars, you don't always see them but you know they're always there," was what my dad said the day he put them up originally, in my room back in Calgary. I had been too short to put them up myself back then.

I was ten. It took two years before I realized that they weren't amazing words of wisdom made by my father. It was just an old, cliché quote that was all over the walls of schools everywhere. And tumblr.

Nevertheless, I still took the words to heart, though it seems to me now that I have two galaxies-two sets of stars. One is the unseen galaxy of endless internet friends (okay, maybe they could be thirty year old men but they were still people that could always get me through my writer's block.)

And the other-the other held a single star. This galaxy represents real life. There had been other stars before, but they'd exploded and faded out long ago.

All that is left in this galaxy is a lone, single star. I do know it's there.

How can I not, when it's shining so brightly that I can feel it even when I turn my back?

__________________________

I awake from my nap, rubbing my eyes to squint at the clock. It is ten fifty-three. The window shows a clear but dark night, illuminated by only the moon.

I sit up, wide awake all of a sudden. I have a feeling that I won't be sleeping tonight as I pick up one of the three books off my shelf and plop onto my bed.

Four chapters into the book, I look out the window again. It is noticeably darker, and the automatic garden lights have turned on.

Suddenly I am extremely conscious of the faded lemon walls. I look out the window again, which gives me temporary relaxation, but only makes the situation worse when I focus on the walls again. I feel trapped.

Unwilling to deal with the sudden burst of claustrophobia, I jump out of bed and quietly make my way out and down the hall, for fear of waking anyone. I also happen to be unwilling to answer questions tonight.

Silently, in my oversized white onesie and no shoes, I tiptoe out into the garden. I sit down next to a few red tulips, under a garden light. The grass tickles my feet, so I pull the bottom of my onesie over my feet.

I get through another four chapters before another interruption comes my way. I hear footsteps behind me, careful steps across the grass.

I peek over my shoulder, slightly scared. Hell, I'm terrified. I couldn't get caught. I care about school.

My eyes don't adjust properly, only seeing a black silhouette in the blue midnight. Be that as it may, I can tell that it is a student, too teenage-looking to be any of the school staff. I turn back to my book, willing the person to disregard me.

Had it been anyone else, I would have let the person easily walk away. Except the scent of clean laundry and fresh paper is much too familiar to me as the person walks past me.

I stick out my leg.

I watch him fall in slow motion, doing my best not burst out laughing, not to wake up the whole school. My cheeks puff out and I am ninety-nine percent sure that I resemble a chipmunk.

He lands face-first into the grass, his legs sprawled across the one I tripped him with.

"Who the fu--," he says as he gets up, cut off by my hand cuffed around his mouth.

"Shut up, you want me to stab a butterknife in your eye? We're going to get caught!"

"Annabelle," Brayden snarls, using my full name like a weapon.

"I said shut up. Do you want to be expelled? Or worse, killed?"

"You're the one who tripped me!"

"I had to! I couldn't simply not trip someone breaking curfew. The fact that it was you only gave me more reason to do it."

"That--That makes no sense whatsoever."

"It does in my world."

"This isn't your world."

"My world is my mind, your world is your mind. We all live in our own worlds, and in mine, that made sense."

"Honestly, why do I bother trying?"

"Honestly, why are you even here at this time?" I asked, because shouldn't he be partying or spending the night out like guys like him are supposed to?

"Lunch is not enough time to read." He pauses, and I think he is going to say something else, but he doesn't, so I just say "And?"

"What? That made sense in my world, so I don't believe I need to explain further."

"Then show me your world."

"This isn't Aladdin."

"It is in my world, and I'd love to show you it."

Brayden sighs, an Annabelle-you're-so-damn-annoying sigh and plops down next to me, stretching his long break-stick-like legs out. Our knees touch.

"Reading at night gives a much better feeling than reading in the day, don't you think?" Brayden starts, his head tilted back as he stares at me. "Nobody can bother you with idiotic statements. You don't have to worry about getting anything done. It's quiet, but your own world is deafening with the words of our authors."

He obviously wanted to say more, but I jump in before he can, "It's easier to escape this crappy world and join a new one, even if only temporarily."

He smirks. "You took the words out of my mouth."

Then he opens up his book in his lap and begins to read, and I take it as a signal to go back to my book too.

In the feel of it all, I rest my head on his shoulder, comfortable on his fluffy crewneck. He doesn't move away.

There, under the faded yellow garden light atop the soft grass, reading silently, I am so relaxed that I don't even panic when I feel my heart race faster.

__________________________

i did not update last week oOPS sorry :( school can sma

i feel extremely uneasy writing this story now bc i know that people from school are reading this (btw hey guys how are you)

i am now about to literally starve myself for 30 hours as well as not use technology to understand world hunger. pls wish me luck *sigh*

anyway i just wanted to say i love you if you're reading bc i never thought this book would ever get a hundred reads let alone three thousand (:

see you next friday! plSssSSs VOTE and COMMENT !!

-ellebuj <4