Close As Strangers

Fourteen.

Now Playing... Outro: Tear

I glanced down at my t-shirt to see Valley High Knights with our old mascot on the front, and I knew for certain it said "Grayson" on the back with his number below it. A blush crept up my neck and my cheeks as I glared at him, hitting his chest. "Shut up."

He chuckled. "You look better in it than Katie did."

"Can I burn it now?" I faked gag, playfully pulling the shirt from my skin, and he stared at me for a minute before busting out laughing.

"Relax, Molls. I washed it a million times. And you already know how I feel about her."

"I guess so..."

He grew silent, and then quietly, "Are you warm yet?"

I moved closer to him, burying my head in his chest. "Almost."

I smiled softly, his scent of spearmint engulfing me, and it was enough to make me feel at home. As much as he angered me, there was no one I felt more comfortable with than him.

"Alright, well... I'm exhausted, so I'm going to sleep. Night, Molly." He reached over to turn his light off, and then he wrapped his arms around me. I moved as close as I possibly could and held onto him like my life depended on it.

And even if though Wes slipped through my hands again, I knew that night that the old him was still there.

***

"... For your journal entry today, I want you to write about the return of an absent feeling. For example, maybe you haven't felt happy in a while, but now it has returned. Write about the moment you knew it came back."

The class grew silent as they worked on their journal. Out of the corner of my eye, Wes wrote in his journal, but I couldn't see any of it because his arm was blocking it. I sighed, pressing the pencil against my page, but I was struggling. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I was afraid. Then again, it was a grade, and the only person who could read it was my professor.

And so, I wrote.

For years, I had forgotten what it was like to enjoy the presence of someone important to me. Loneliness ate away at my happiness like it had been ravenously hungry for years, until it finally had enough, and all I had left in my hands was my empty, broken heart. What he did to me broke me, but him leaving hurt me more than anything ever had the power to. I never thought that losing my best friend would leave me as empty as it did, but there I was, drowning from the pain of losing the most important person in my life. But then, he showed up at my house one day, and although we were enemies then, a part of me awoke again. The more we were around each other, the more we started finding our old selves, and eventually, my best friend came back to me. My happiness was restored. And from that day on, I knew what it was like to have the world in my hands after the absence of the one thing in my life that kept its axis turning. And it only got better, until after he left, I realized my true feel--

"Molly, we need to go or we're going to be late for our next class." Wes' voice interrupted my thoughts, and I quickly snapped my notebook close, following him towards our next lecture. As we were walking, he kept glancing at me, but I looked straight ahead, holding my journal tightly in my hands. "By the way, why don't you go to dance anymore? I thought you loved it."

I sighed. "I don't know, I just got tired of it, I guess."

But that was far from the truth. The real reason I quit dancing was because Wes left. Not necessarily because he left, but because during his time gone-- when he ignored me-- I lost the motivation to do much of anything, and dance didn't distract me from the pain like it used to. So, I stopped dancing, and I threw myself into work.

We arrived at our next lecture, and since it was Biology, I tended to get distracted. Science had never been my thing, but Wes had always loved it, so I knew I could just steal his notes later to see what I had missed while I was daydreaming.

As the lecture ended, Wes and I walked out, but then his phone buzzed. "Hello?"

I glanced at him, but he remained blank. "Yes, this is he."

Everything was fine until Wes stopped walking, and his face grew pale. "What do you mean she's in the hospital?"

He grabbed my arm, dragging me into an empty classroom, and I stared at him as he paced around the room. "Okay, I will be there in five minutes. Thank you."

He hung up the phone and stood, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the room. Wes started running down the hallway, and I had to sprint to keep up with him.

"Wes, what's wrong?" He ignored me, and I continued running after him. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

As he faced me, I took in his worried, fearful eyes, and my heart dropped. Wes never feared anything.

"Nova's in the hospital," His jaw ticked as he looked away from me. "And she won't wake up."