Broken

| 6 | Mavis

I walk upstairs to my room and get dressed out of my clothes, change into my pajamas, and brush my teeth. I run cold water over my face from the bathroom outside my room. It wakes me up from the long night I've had. I'm exhausted after today, and all I want to do is sleep, but I can't. I can't sleep without knowing he got home ok.

I can not believe myself right now. I'm so stupid. I am so fricken stupid for caring. I just met this guy. I just met him, but here I am falling head over heals for him. I need to stop.

My phone starts to ring, disrupting my thoughts, and I answer it as fast as I can.

"Hello?"

"Hey, I got home safe. Can you sleep now?" I roll my eyes and sigh.

"Good." I say through the phone and it goes quiet for a moment.

"If I'm being honest, I don't want to hang up." he says in that voice that can make anybody fall in love with him.

"And why is that?"

"I'm bored, and I hate sleeping."

"Well, what do you want to talk about then?" I hear him laugh through the phone, making my back tingle at the beautiful sound.

"You." He's killing me.

"Did you have fun tonight?" he asks and I have to take a deep breath to contain myself before I speak.

"I had a lot of fun. I haven't laughed that hard in forever." I say shaking my head at the thought. It felt so good to let loose tonight. To be myself again after all of these years of faking everything I do.

"It was good to hear you laugh." he says quietly, and for a moment, I don't think I was supposed to hear that.

"So, you finished that project about the person you look up to?" I ask him, trying to fill the silence.

"Yeah, I chose Jim Brown."

"Who the hell is that?"

"A football player. What about you? Who did you choose?"

"I chose Malala Yousafzai." There's a moment of silence on the other hand that's followed by a light laugh.

"There is such a difference between me and you, you know it? Think about it. I chose a guy who threw around a ball for a long time, but you chose a fricken noble piece prize winner who changed the minds of millions around the world."

"We just have different interests. Your idol reflects your goals, and mine reflects someone I want to be. I don't want to be weak. I want to be strong like her."

The line goes quiet for a moment as I hear him sigh on the other line. Maybe that was too much for me to say.

"Grace, you amaze me." he says, and the way he says it makes my stomach flutter. How did I get myself in a mess like this? I'm falling so hard for this guy, but I wish I wasn't. I know how this kind of stuff ends. It's not like the books with all of the happy endings. This is real, and I know that in the end I'm the only one that's going to end up hurting. Not a lot of things scare me when it comes to guys, but the thought of him leaving does.

An involuntarily yawn comes out of me, and I try to cover my mouth so he doesn't hear it, but of course he does anyway.

"You getting tired?" he asks and I can hear that playful tone in his voice.