D U S K ✔

Chapter Thirty-One

{UNEDITED}

"What happened?" I asked after a moment of silence. I watched as Adam sighed and threw both hands into his hair, before marching towards his window. He pulled it up, silently and brought out a packet of cigarettes.

I furrowed my brows at the thought of him smoking in his room, but it seemed as though he had done it before so I put my worrying to the back of my mind.

He lit a cigarette, placing it between his lips and inhaled deeply before speaking. "Believe it or not, I actually had a best friend," He paused, a ghost of a smile grazing his lips, "his name was Caleb."

I was shocked for a moment, the utter thought of Adam being that close to someone to be able to call them a best friend was alarming, as bad as it was, I couldn't really picture it. He glanced at me, gauging my reaction with an uncertain glint in his eyes. They were dull, their brown depths seemed to expel an unusual sadness, and in that moment I knew why I stayed.

"Our parents were friends before we were born, and afterwards they spent so much time together, I guess we became close too." He paused, as if in thought, before beginning again, "Caleb was popular, a lot more popular than me--"

"No surprise there." I commented, jokingly. Trying to at least lighten up the mood just a bit.

His smile widened, despite being almost minuscule to begin with, the very slightest alteration to it was a success on my behalf.

"Anyway, he was friends with just about everyone, every type of person you could think of and he was friends with them. Maybe not even friends, he may of just had a conversation with them, but I never heard anyone say anything bad about him, not one time." He smiled, with his eyes heavy as he looked down. "I remember when he made it onto the football team, he got wide receiver, and I was so worried he would ditch me for those air-head jocks, but he never did."

He looked out the window again, inhaling in the smoke deeply. "Never ditched me once, but I guess that's because we shared a common interest."

Before he could say another word I was already deeply consumed into his story, feeling as though I was there myself. "What interest?"

His smile was sad but none the less, he released a dull chuckle, "We both had some things we wanted to forget."

I was about to throw him another question before he stopped me, "And the best way to forget anything, was girls and booze." He spoke, never once looking to my direction, "And we had this tradition, it was our way of trying to sober up before going back home, we never wanted our parents to know. So after any night out, no matter how late it was, we would get a coffee from somewhere. I don't really know how it started but we were strict on keeping it a tradition. And it seemed to work. My parents never knew.

Caleb was the best Wingman any guy could ask for. And he loved to party, I never really knew what his obsession with it was, but almost every night he would come to my house, either already wasted or ready to be. And he would throw rocks at the window--"

"How romantic."

He threw me a glare, "Fuck off." He rolled his eyes, before an old smile stretched across his face, "There was one time, that fucker was so pissed out of his mind, he ended up smashing this window."

He looked over the edges of the window as I laughed lightly, watching as he spent a moment deep in thought. "Somewhere along the way, going out became a routine. Almost every night, we would get smashed out of our minds and just forget everything, one time we both forgot our names and people just went with it." He stopped talking suddenly.