Waiting For You

Chapter Eleven

A/N: So, I have created a playlist on Spotify named "Alex's and Hunter's Playlist", which is based on songs I believe they would like to listen to when they are together. If you want to go check it out, my user name is Valentina Olga on Spotify!

"How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head".

~Anonymous

Hunter

I had been thinking of the perfect gift to give to Alex non-stop for the next four days. His birthday was on Friday, and since we skipped school on Monday we couldn't skip again. Calla and Noah had told me that they had found it weird how both Alex and I skipped on Monday, but they left it at that.

They did want to find out who my soulmate was. And yes, during those first two weeks they had been pestering me about him. But soon they stopped. They realized that nothing they said would get me to out him, and also respected his choice to stay in the closet.

Since his family would celebrate on Saturday, I figured he could use some time away from them. Come Friday afternoon, I told him to come to my house and that we were going on a small road trip. His response was rather ecstatic. We started driving at three in the afternoon and we planned to be back by ten in the night.

As we drove down the highway, headed West, I put on one playlist that I had fixed, of songs I liked and songs Alex liked. With the corner of my eye, I could see him and the aura that surrounded him. You could see how in his element he was as he sang along to the songs that blasted throughout my car. Yes, being an artist was hard and not guaranteed. And yet, someone with Alex's passion and talent had to succeed. If he didn't, no one could.

We stopped at Santa Cruz, after an almost three-hour drive. We got a pizza and drove down to the beach where we sat down and ate.

"So, how do you normally spend your birthday?" I asked him, as we listened to the waves that crashed at the seashore.

"Home, with my parents and Chris. Sometimes I go out with my friends. Nothing special," he said with a shrug.

"You don't do birthday parties?" He snorted and gave me a sideways glance.

"How do you spend your birthdays?" he asked, diverting the subject.

"Oh, you know, I get woken up by an enthusiastic Aurora, then we go to the beach with my father. And in the afternoon, I do something with my friends".

"The beach...? Right, your birthday is in July, right?"

"Yes, July 24th," I answered, taking another piece of the pizza. "So, how come you started a YouTube channel?"

"Eh, I don't know. I sang ever since I was little, my mother even says that before I even spoke I hummed melodies. And singing has always been something I did when I was stressed out or bored. I love singing. And I love how some lyrics can describe emotions better than words, you know..." I nodded along and he smiled at me. "It was actually Don's suggestion to start a channel. Because I always sang, he urged me to get a channel and put myself out there".

"Yeah, you do seem closer to Don than anyone else..." I muttered.

Without saying anything, he turned his gaze straight ahead and watched the horizon. Seeing as the sun was about to set, I turned to also look at it. I always preferred the sunset to the sunrise. Maybe it was because the painter in me loved all the different colors. Or because by nature I was more of a night owl.

And judging from Alex's expression I could tell he also loved the sunset. Though truth be told, who didn't love a nice sunset?

With as little movements as I could, I reached behind me and pulled to my lap, an empty notebook. My art style was influenced by comics and manga since I grew up reading those kinds of things. It took me years to de-manga my portraits because my old art teacher had scoffed about how manga wasn't an art form. How could a form of drawing not be considered an art form? Because it was also mixed with dialogue? Or because it originated from Japan and we lived in a racist world?