Forever & Always?

Chapter Twenty

      The snow began piling on. Winter was nearing its conclusion, but that did not stop the puffy flakes of chilled water from falling to the ground. Daniel tried talking to me. He texted me multiple times a night and left me a few voicemails. Of course, I ignored every single message, comment, and voicemail. I felt irritated, drained. There was no going back to him. Forever and always? It did not mean much anymore.

Days turned into weeks and Daniel had stopped texting me. I had flirted with a boy for a little, but it did not last very long.

A: lets go cliff diving

M: do u not see the foot of snow outside your window?

A: ok lets go sit on the edge of a cliff

M: come pick me up

A: on my way

      Alex and I had spent our summers jumping off a cliff at this place known as The Black Rocks. It is not set up for tourists to come and bungee jump off of a ten foot rock. It was a place some people had discovered and called The Black Rocks because they just so happened to be rocks that were black. The cliff was about 35 feet above the water and we would travel about an hour and a half south to jump off the cliff and into the chilly current of Lake Superior. I had been there many times, but never had I gone in the middle of winter. I was eager to see how it would look.

The long drive was spent blasting punk rock music and driving with the windows down, despite the single digit degree weather. When we arrived, we climbed through the woods until we reached the cliff. We stepped over each crack in the giant rock and made it to the edge that we usually jumped off of. We sat down, our feet dangling over the side.

"It's so beautiful in the winter," I gasped. Icicles hung along the huge wall of rock that stood across from us on a different, nearby side of the frozen over lake. The cliff itself was slippery and shielded by a thick layer of ice and snow. The wind was brutal on my pale face, but I did not mind. The sky was a light gray and clouds barricaded any speck of sunlight. I looked to my right. The small shore was covered in snow and there was no visible current forcing the white caps to smack the sand. However, there was a current. There was always a current. The current just happened to be under a four foot sheet of ice. We looked to the left and I pointed out the dark specks in the distance that seemed to be gliding along the ice. Alex explained that they were snowmobiling on the lake. I was fascinated.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked after a long silence. I looked up and out at the icicles far in front of me. I waited a long while before responding.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I've always loved those punk rock bands. You never have. Now you are screaming all the lyrics to songs I never even thought you've heard of."

"So what?"

"And you like cut your hair and don't get me wrong, you don't look bad. You just seem...different. You wear a lot of black now and I had to find out with everyone else that your dad came home. I thought you would've like called me or something."

"Oh," I said. When he did not respond, I decided to say something else.

"I'm sorry." Alex looked at me with an open mouth that was clearly surprised in a seemingly very sad way. His eyes had tears in them for reasons I did not know or understand. I looked back at him with a blank expression smeared across my freezing face.

"Why do you look like I just told you I killed someone?" I asked. He closed his mouth, looking forward.

"I don't know why you're apologizing or why you're shutting me out." I waited about a minute before responding, deciding what to say and how to word my thought.

"I was diagnosed with mild insomnia and moderate depression." He looked down and over at my hands that were resting in my lap. He slowly brought his eyes up to mine. His face looked sad, weak; helpless even.

"I'm sorry," he said in a soft, scratchy voice. He scooted closer to me, grabbing my hands. He rested his head on my shoulder and put my hands to his mouth, raveling his gloved hands around mine. I sat there, emotionless.

"Please, don't be sad," he nearly whined. I chuckled a little.

"Can't help it." He squirmed uneasy.

"Stop," he whined. I grinned. He kissed my hand.

"I love you," He said. Alex rarely said he loved me. My heart sank and for the first time in a while, I wanted to cry and I think that if I let myself, I could have.

"I love you too," I said in return. We both meant it.

    From that day on, Alex spent most of his days dragging me to his car after school and bringing me to all of the places we had already explored. He described the day he showed me those places for the first time and explained how he found them and why he felt the need to show me them. Those days turned to weeks and I could almost feel myself smiling again from time to time. A miniscule amount of hope began pinching my side, but I was not ready to start relying on that pinch of hope to revive me from my emptiness and lost soul.

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Alex is honestly the real MVP. I love his character. This book is so exciting for me and I hope you all like reading it as much as I liked writing it. The conclusion is coming this September!!!!!!! Stay active by reading, commenting (#TheWattys2015), and VOTING! You are all beautiful(: