How to get him to fall in love | ✔

Chapter Nineteen

Being an adult is realizing that life seems to be escaping you, and your time is no longer your own like it used to be when you were a child and had time for everything, now time is flying and there's nothing that you can really do about it. Don't even get me started on the bills, assignments and deadlines and not enough time to maintain an actual social life, visit family, let alone practice any hobbies or recreational activities.

I don't speak to my mother again, I'd spent months building a new relationship with her, and a few hurtful comments was enough to bring it all crumbling down again.

Maybe it's for the best

Tessa phones around every weekend but our calls are always short and I end up ending every one of our calls because of something else, class, needing to get groceries, having fallen asleep

I hate that my time is no longer my own anymore

I see Elias every day without fail now; I think that's more on his end than mine, because I haven't done anything differently since we last spoke. He always passes me by greeting ''Hi friend'' by which I ignore and roll my eyes multiple times. Our friends have begun to wonder what's going on between Elias and I and our strange behavior, I always shrug and Elias always responds with ''ask Amber'' and sometimes when I get tired of the shrugs I throw in a; ''Elias is an asshole''

Eventually our banter moves to weekly phone calls, it feels like I call him just as much as I do home

''Why do you see Lila?'' I ask him one week when we are parked outside of my apartment in his truck, we had just come from Starbucks and had taken his car, then returned back to my place, only I wasn't letting him in, because hat just didn't seem like a smart move

He seems to ignore my question; at least I think so because he takes a long time to respond

''That's only if you want to tell me, I don't want you to think I forced you to tell me'' I add

''You're insufferable you know that'' he says running a hand through his hair, but I don't think he minds my insufferableness that much

He sighs, before opting to tell me

''In high school I was head boy and had loads of responsibilities whilst still maintaining good grades, an unhealthy amount of extra curriculum activities and doing anything and everything just to ensure I'd get into not only any college, but a good one, that I'd have options for many good colleges, which in turn triggered this crippling anxiety and occasional depression''

I dropped the jokes

''That must've been tough'' I offer empathetically

''It was insanely difficult and stressful, but Lila helped, really helped. I was against it at first because therapy and a man's ego do not go together so I resisted it at the beginning, which only made it worse for me''

''of course the ego problem'' I say, not being able to

Elias ignores my remark in good nature

''And the depression?''

He harrumphs, but obliges to tell me anyway

''I call it seasonal depression, it comes and goes, but its always been around, started when my parents got divorced, and then went away for a couple of years in high school, and then came back when Wendy and I broke up''

I say nothing but listen

So Wendy is her name

''What about you?'' Elias asks me bringing his coffee cup to his lips i watch him swallow, his Adams apple bobble when he does this, I don't know why I find his throat so sexy and why I would like to know what it would be like to feel and kiss the skin there