Five Weeks to Forever [BxB] (WILL NEVER BE FINISHED)

Chapter 12.

Riiiiiiiing..... Beep.

Hello. Please leave a message after the tone.

Beeeeeeep.

"Hey, Elliot. Uhm.. it's me again. Look, I'm really sorry I keep blowing up your phone, but you still haven't responded and I'm starting to really feel like shit. I know our project is due this Friday, but honestly.. I don't give a fuck about that. I'm worried about you. Did I do something wrong? Did I say something? Please, please just tell me. I want to make things right if I did. And if you don't respond, I'll see you tomorrow either way, so.. Just, we're going to talk either way, okay? You can't avoid me for forever."

"Wanna bet?" I mumbled quietly from my spot on the bed, my eyes half lidded, exhaustion sweeping through me like a hurricane, doing its best attempt to lull me back to sleep. It was way to goddamn early in the morning, five thirty to be exact, and sunlight had yet to slink in through my window, night still claiming the outside air.

The voicemail was from last night. That one, along with the other seven that were clogging up my inbox that had appeared over the past forty eight hours. They ranged anywhere from thirty seconds to ten minutes long, each one growing in desperation and worry. It permeated his voice so thick I could practically feel it wafting through the phone.

I hadn't answered him yet. I couldn't.

What the fuck would I say? 'Hey Matthew, your psycho girlfriend nearly sent me to the hospital and threatened to do it again if I got too close to you! L-O-L, no biggie right?'

No. If Veronica would beat my ass just for getting too buddy buddy with him, I don't even want to know what she'd do if I spilled the beans to him. Shit, I wouldn't want to know what he'd do. I'd tried so hard to avoid driving a stake in between his current friends and him on his behalf, the last thing I wanted to do was do that with his girlfriend of two years.

I didn't want him to hate her. He didn't deserve that.

She didn't deserve that.

Unfortunately, though, that meant I had to come up with an excuse. Something that would explain why I suddenly disappeared from the party thirty minutes in without a trace.

And the longer I ignored his calls, the more suspicious he would get.

I knew, deep down, that he was right; I couldn't avoid him for forever. Like it or not, I was going to see him today in school. Even if I did manage to avoid him for the majority of the day, our last period together, English class, had been converted from the usual lessons and long, boring powerpoints to a fifty minute session to solely work on our project. Since it was the last week before it was due, our teacher wanted us to dedicate all the time possible to polish it before presentation day.

Which gave Matthew the perfect opportunity to talk to me, one-on-one, alone.

And I had a feeling he was going to extort the shit out of it.

Another loud, annoying blaring alarm from my phone had me groaning, rolling onto my side and lazily slapping at it to put it back on snooze. I needed to get up, it was already nearing six and Eloise would be here before long, but fatigue claimed my bones and turned them into rubber.

If it wasn't for that damned aforementioned project, I wouldn't be this tired. I had spent all Saturday and Sunday working on it, pouring out my heart and soul to make it the best it could possibly be. The essay, an eight page behemoth with enough quote citations to put a literary professor into a comma, was finally done, all printed out and stapled and placed nicely in my bag for the peer review that would happen later this week. The visual aid, a poster board that had snippets of information written neatly on top, was almost done, it just needed the finishing touches of those pictures Matthew had printed out earlier.

I had spent nearly eight hours on it both days, which had nearly killed me, but the satisfaction of knowing it was almost done, and done well, was reward enough.

Seriously, though, this thing was basically my child.