From strangers to penguins

17

I packed up my stuff to drive back to school and said by to my family and puppy. As I got back in my car, I turned on my phone for the first time since break and my phone got flooded with missed calls and texts from Cayden. I ignored them all and set up my music, and then started the drive back to college.

When I got to the dorm Kristy was already there and I heard her run across the apartment to come see me after a couple of weeks. 

"Lexie I missed you!" She yelled as she pulled me into a hug. "How are you feeling?" She asked and I laughed.

"Im good Kris." I lied as I walked to my room to put my stuff away. "Anyway, you wanna smoke and catch up about winter break?" She nodded and I heard her roll a joint as i finished putting my things away and changed into pajamas.

We set up the fire escape and started smoking when she broke the silence. "Did you have your yearly hook up with Tyler?" I nodded at her rolling my eyes. The first year Dev died, they forced me to go to Tys party for new years. Since Dev had only been dead for maybe two weeks, I got insanely drunk and idiotically slept with Tyler. It happened every new year since. "How many times?" She asked and I held up four fingers. "That good? You never went more than two before." She exclaimed and I passed the joint to her shrugging my shoulders.

"He got kinky." Was all I said before asking her about her new years and christmas. When we got done with the small talk, Kristy finally asked what was on her mind.

"Anything with Cayden?" She asked and I went quite. 

"I finally turned my phone back on. There texts and voicemails but I didnt look at any of them." 

"Why?"

I shrugged again. "Im afraid." She nodded, and looked me in the eyes.

"Lexie, you love him. I know you do. And he loves you. You need to look at those texts. You need to open up to him." I nodded knowing that she was right, and then changed the topic to food.

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I went to class all week, hoping Cayden wouldn't be in any of my classes, and luckily he wasn't. I laid in bed on Friday when Kristy and Andy came into my room. "Were going to a party."

"Have fun." I told her without looking up from my book. 

"No. All three of us are going to a party." I laughed harshly and flipped her off. 

"You either need to talk to Cayden or move on and stop avoiding her." She grunted as she turned on her heel and stormed out as Andy nodded and went with her. I knew that they were right, I couldn't avoid him my whole life. I just wasn't sure if I wanted him out of my life or in my life. 

I tried to continue reading my book, but the only thing that I could think of was Cayden. I finally gave up and pulled out my phone. I opened up my voicemails, and listened to all the ones he had left me. They were mainly just saying to call him back and he hoped that I was okay. I could hear the pain in his voice as he spoke and I cringed at it, knowing how badly I had hurt him. 

I then moved on to read the text messages and they were all along the same lines, until I got to the the first one he sent me, the night of Devins death. 

"Lex, I dont know what happened. I dont know what I did wrong. I would understand if you didn't love me, but that cant be the case. When you're with me you lighten up. I see your body relax and your eyes start to sparkle. You allow yourself to laugh instead of keeping up the cold exterier. If I knew you didn't love me I would move on, but I cant convince myself that you don't. Not with how we are around eachother. I love you Lexie. Everything about you, I love. I know that you have a hard time. I know you struggle with a lot of things. I know that your past is hard and you think that youre broken. Im not going to fix you, but I want to love you. I don't know who hurt you, but I will not hurt you. I want to be here for you through anything and everything that you need me for. I just want you to let me in. I love you baby girl. Please call me." 

I locked the phone as tears poured out of my eyes. I curled into a ball, and cried until there were no more tears left. And then I picked up my phone, and texted Cayden. "Meet me at the shed."