Through Adversity To The Stars

Chapter 13 - You Make It Seem Like A Wonderland

The slight pondering of my mind is all it took for me to wish him back. Perhaps without talking to him he'd still made everything more interesting and worth thinking about. I had never wanted any one on a carousel in my head before, being constantly reminded of them, but I did with Alexander. However, I tried to dismiss the fact that I felt this towards him as every other normal person would. Having high hopes for someone so impossible was idiotic because you just know in the end how stupid you were to think you had something, anything.
The used white bedsheets I was stripping seemed to get longer as I tugged them from the duvet, my arms getting restless as frustration took over me. The words from Becky, the thoughts of Alexander, Remy having something to focus on that wasn't hopeless and the mirror that stood besides me, looking up and down at me, judging me almost as if it knew what I was thinking. Ashamed of what I had become; a pathetic typical girl who constantly resisted thoughts that could bring her woe and happiness all at once. Forever I had not fit within that group, rejecting it and reading about it, annoyed with how they have portrayed themselves to seem so helpless to the audience. But for whatever reason, I was terrified that perhaps this time I'd fit, I slotted in more perfectly than before. I hated it, I despised it. I would of hoped and prayed for those unwanted feelings to disappear if that meant that group didn't seem like an option.

I collapsed onto my bed, feeling as though I couldn't continue, letting my arms feel weaker. My view wasn't able to judge myself in the mirror. I wanted to play music, let my whole being be absorbed by the lyrics, I wanted more than instruments. However, I thanked that I hadn't moved a muscle from staring up at the ceiling. "'Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another!' " At first, I didn't want to let myself believe it true. I was wishing that I could ignore his voice, fool myself that I was dreaming, that I had thought so much about him that I was starting to become delusional. "Lizzie?" He shouted up once more. That was when I sat up. When I believed I would of checked even if I had been wrong. I was convinced that the soft voice belonged to him. Without a second thought, I raced to the windows that sat wide open above my bed. I pressed my hands down on the side, eager to see him but prepared that I was going completely insane. However, this time I was glad, greeted by his smile. The smile that seemed more than before. One eye closed due to the sun and a hand raised to protect it. I wanted to say something, say anything but nothing. Just a stupid hiding smile across my face. He ran off into the house, kicking dust up behind him. For a moment I stayed there, taking in his different smile again, making sure with myself that once I made my way downstairs that I wouldn't let my mouth drop open or make it clear that I missed him, to him, Mother, Father nor Becky who was sure to be there to say she had met him.

A knock was all it took, all it took for my heart to end up in my throat. I instantly regretted my thought, already hoping it was him. I stumbled to my feet to answer. It felt like the first time in my life that I had finally gotten what I had expected without asking. Because there he stood, without a plead of a wish. Alexander's head leant against the door frame, biting down on his smile. He had caught the sun on the creases of his cheekbones. His eyelids as always were straight on top. 'Sad eyes' mother called them but I swore Alexander was the happiest man in the world. "Miss me?"

No matter how much I wanted to deny this and let my lips curve upwards, it happened still. "You could call it that," I answered, sounding as vague as I could. "Have you missed me?" was going to be what I would of said if my stomach had settled.

"Really?" The smile he had faded into the one he gave everyone else, just less. Feeling like I wasn't worth the smile in his eyes as I had before.

I breathed in, hoping for the courage I was searching for to be in the air, "well yes. You brighten everything up around here. Make it seem as though we aren't stuck in a dreamland."

He furrowed his eyebrows, a cheeky smirk across his face, "so I'm not in this dreamland you speak of?" Alexander tilted his head forward slightly, immediately making me turn mine even if it did show the amount of pinkness now in my cheeks.

"Wonderland," I said, all I could get out. With a puzzled look, he stayed silent, if he expected for me to expand. "You make it seem like a wonderland," I wanted to say, I wanted to make sure he knew I would be okay with getting to know him more. Instead I kept quiet and uttered, "more like a wonderland." I regret what I had said. Not because it could of revealed how secretly I wanted him to appreciate him as I did him, but because it was some shitty line you would hear only from a film. That is why I added, "kind of."

"Kind of?"

"Yes," searching my mind for an answer, "I mean, you aren't exactly a purple cat. Or have a crazy smile, for that matter."

I wish he kissed me to shut me up but of course he didn't. Instead he just smiled even wider, "is this better?"

This time I couldn't hide the smile like I had done before. This time I didn't regret showing him more than a still face. This time I felt as though we were equals. "Getting there." Just like that, we laughed together. We enjoyed something together instead of small pauses of us both thinking. Alexander Saunders felt human with me.