The Boy Next Door

back home

Caleb walks me to his room and kisses me goodnight. "I had an amazing time with you tonight, Eb."

"Me too, I love you Cae. I love you so much."

"Alright Ebony, I love you also, but how about you get to bed. We need to get up at 6:00 tommorow to catch our flight, okay?"

"Okayyy," I say, and change into my pajamas and replace my contacts with glasses. Then I get into bed, and Caleb tucks me in.

"Goodnight, beautiful girl." He says, and kisses my forehead. And he reaches down to my face and lightly takes off my glasses and puts them on my bedside table. My left eye's vision goes bad, I smile up at him.

"G'night cutie," I say and he heads out of the room

~

I wake up to my alarm, it's 5:15, I have a half an hour before we need to go. Perfect. I put on a pair of leggings and my Bratayley shirt that I got from a fan. It's really adorable, it has the cartoon Caleb on it, like the Bratayley shirts you can purchase, but they made it so instead of Caleb it says Caleb's Girlfriend. And on the back it says SUBSCRIBE TO BRATAYLEY! I love it so much. I wash my face and reapply a bit of concealer for under my eyes just to touch up. I pull my ringlets into a high bun and slip on a thick blue headband. Then I shove my book and phone into my rucksack and pack up the rest of my things around the room into my suitcase and I'm out the door. Everyone's waiting for me outside the door and smile when they see me. "Morning Ebony love! Did you have fun at the dance last night?" Asks Katie.

"Yeah, it was great," I say hugging her.

"Goodmorning Eb!" Says Caleb.

"Hey Cae, hey girls and Paige!" I say turning to them.

"Alright, let's go grab some breakfast bars and get to the airport." Says Annie.

"Wait, Paige, are you coming home with us?" I ask.

"Awe no I'm not Ebby, I've got a flight an hour after yours. I wish I was." She says frowning.

"Oh, I'll miss you, Paige!"

"I'll miss you also, sugar!" She says as we get in the line for the little lobby shop for breakfast. We all get nutty cranberry bars that are really good.

"You Americans sure know how to make breakfast!" I say, laughing.

"What does that even mean?" Asks Hayley.

"I mean, these breakfast bars are incredible!" Caleb laughs and puts his arm around me. We get into the taxi and drive to LAX we get our tickets and it's time to say goodbye to Paige.

"I love y'all so much!" She says.

"I love you!" Shouts Annie, and she throws her arms around her cousin. Hayley follows, and so does Caleb, and so do I, and so does Katie. It becomes a huge group hug, I love all these people so much. We pull apart, and it's time for us to go. We each hug her one more time and then head towards our gate. We're already boarding, so soon we're on the plane. It looks just like the one we came on did, and we have a fiver person row like before. Caleb and I take the two person row, and we do the same thing with the blanket. We take off and I fall asleep almost immediately. I wake up when the pilot speaks into the loudspeaker.

"We'll be hitting a bit of turbulence, so please stay seated and keep you seat belts fastened. Thank you." Turbulance? I've never experienced turbulence, isn't that when the plane jumps? My stomach flips. I look to Caleb, he somehow manages to fall asleep through that. I can't wake him up! Then I look to Katie, Annie, and Hayley. They're all asleep as well. The plane jostles, and I hear the overhead compartment luggage move. I grab Caleb's arm. His eyes open abruptly.

"Ebony?" He asks, suddenly alert.

"Ummm, sorry I woke you up, the turbulence uh... Scared me." I say, blushing.

"Oh, it scared me when I first experienced it, but you'll be fine." He says, rubbing my arm. I lean my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, trying to ignore the shaky plane. Soon I'm asleep again, and the pilot wakes me up again, saying we'll be landing in ten minutes. This wakes up everyone else, and we all talk about our favorite parts of VidCon.

Then we get off the plane, claim our luggage, get some Starbucks, and we're out the door, back in Maryland. It's raining a bit, and it's 12:00am. We get in the taxi and again, it's the interview Ebony about living in England show. I answer all his questions until we arrive at home. "I wanna take a nap," says Hayley yawning as we get our bags out of the car.

"Thank you so much Katie, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. I love you guys and I really hope we can do something like this again."

"Awe Ebony, we love you. You're always welcome over and you're totally coming to VidCon with us next year!" She says, and hugs me.

"And thank you guys for letting me tag along!" I say to Annie and Hayley.

"I love you so much Ebony!" Says Annie, and hugs me.

"I love you also!" Says Hayley.

"I'll walk you home," says Caleb, taking my bag in one hand and mine in the other. We walk up to my house, and before I can open the door, Mum already has. The door flies open and she throws her arms around me.

"I missed you!" She says.

"I missed you too!" I say.

"EBBY!!!" Shouts Joey from behind Mum, he joins in the hug.

"Thank you for taking care of her, Caleb," says Mum. He smiles, and I hug him.

"Thank you for taking me, Cae." I say, and kiss him.

"Bye Ebony, see you soon." He says.

"Bye Caleb, love you!" I say as he heads to his house.

"Love you!" He shouts back, I smile.

"Sooo, tell me all about it!" Says Mum, and I do. I tell her every last detail. I tell her about Paige, Colleen, Tyler, Iza, Muhrin, Zoe, Alex, Emmi, Zara, and everyone else. I tell her about the Bratayley booth and about the Synnamon incident and the hotel, and the pool, and the fans, and the dance. I tell her everything right down to the breakfast bars, which she laughs at. Then I tell her about mine and Caleb's ship name, which she thinks is funny. Then I show her it's an actual thing by searching the hashtag Calbony on Instagram. There are hundreds of edits of Caleb and I at the dance. The pictures are originally from Emmi, Alex, and Zara's account. There are also edits of him and I that people have screen shotted from vlogs. I like a few of them, and there are quick "THANK YOU SO MUCH EBONY" replies that make me giggle. I'm really tired from the plane, so I have a few sushi rolls that Mum got for me and I go to my room. I unpack and throw all the clothes from the trip in my hamper and change into my gray pajama shorts that say ZOELLA on the bum. I put on a cami and climb into my cushy bed and fall asleep. I wake up at dinner time and tell dad all about my trip while we eat noodles. Then I tell them about the show Modern Family and we find it on TV and watch an episode before we go to bed. I read a few chapters of The Hunger Games and then text Caleb goodnight. I really miss him, I'm used to having him saying goodnight to me in person. I fall asleep to thinking of VidCon and Caleb.