Bobcat

Suite Life

Chapter Songs:
Hunting Happiness - W. Darling
All I Want - Dawn Golden

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Delia's POV:

That's how I woke up the next morning. I remembered every part of the night. The pictures. The feeling of his touch. It was gentle and kind and loving, but the bed next to me was empty. The light sheet rested against my naked body. The sun was just starting to rise. He might of had class or went to the gym. I wasn't sure, but I didn't feel like leaving just yet. I sat up, pulling the loose sheet with me. I slowly slid out of bed, the sheet still around me as I started toward the window.

The sky was a purple, pink through the heights of the city. I leaned against the side of the window, admiring the view. It really was the city that I fell in love with and I really didn't want to be anywhere else. The sun light graced the edges of the clouds like a ring of brilliant fire. I sighed happily as I pulled the sheet closer against my body. That's when I heard it: the slow click of the shutters of a camera. I turned my head slowly to look towards him, a smile forming on my lips. He didn't say anything as I saw him smile behind the camera.

He walked toward me slowly, whispering, "I have a new headline for my portfolio if you'll let me." He slid his camera onto the bedside table. He was wearing a towel around his waist, and his hair was still partially wet. I could feel how damp his skin still was as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. His lips gently pressed against my bare shoulder as we looked out at the city. We stood like this for longer than I had imagined.

This was it. This was perfection. This is what it felt like, but it wouldn't last. We would probably stop talking, and I was right. It had been almost a month. He was rarely in class and when he was, he was late. He was there enough for me to continue my drawing, but it stopped meaning anything to me a week after we stopped talking. I kept the drawing. It stayed in my room on my desk. I looked at it almost every day when I did homework. I didn't have any words for it. It just sat there.

I walked out of my room almost every day to see Dylan sitting on my couch eating something obnoxiously messy. He just stared at me. I believed that he just shoved my couch full of popcorn and Cheetos out of spite. We still hadn't talked about what had happened. I wasn't sure if Cole had told him what had happened that night or what anything else meant. I'm guessing he didn't. He didn't say anything about it. I knew there was no way Dylan still had a minor crush on me. He'd spent the last month following Nova everywhere she went. He was like a puppy, but that didn't mean that I didn't look at him and see Cole instead.

Everything had gotten quiet. Jordan and I hadn't seen each other in about a week. She'd been on a lot of dates with that Lyel kid we met at Aziza. She was happy with him and I wasn't going to drag her away from him for my own benefit. I spent most of my days doing homework or drawing or painting or watching way too many episodes of Friends on Netflix. I had started a painting two weeks prior. The campus newspaper had released the new art exhibit. It was photographs of students around campus. Of course, Cole was in it. How could he not be in it? He was made for it. He was made to live in front of and behind a camera. I had started the painting of him sitting in an old wooden chair wearing the same clothes as the day we officially met and stopped stopped talking simultaneously. I hadn't touched the painting in almost a week and a half. I felt empty with no friends and empty from the lack of inspiration.

I walked out of my room in my sweats, my hair pulled up against the top of my head. I rubbed my eyes as I walked into the kitchen, almost yawning even though it was almost noon. It had been a long night. I had stayed up studying for a micro-economics test for what felt like forever. I could recall the clock hitting four in the morning. Dylan, as usual, was sitting on the couch, but this time Nova was sitting with him. She sat up slightly and looked at me as she spoke.