Melted by You

27

That Monday, I arrive at school early. I've got volleyball practice again, but nobody seems to have showed up yet. Not even Kathryn, who's always strictly on time. That's strange. The bus schedule was suddenly so different too.

I look around, and see there's nobody at school. At all. I look at my phone, and see that I'm an hour early. Oh. Great. I sit down at the bleachers standing by the football field, waiting for Dean or Lucas. Or anyone. Except maybe Kathryn. I've officially declared that I don't like Kathryn. She's mean.

I wait for a while, listening to music, and thinking about everything. When I was young, I went to a psychiatrist once, to see if I had add or adhd or anything like that. She told me that if I was ever bothered by all my thoughts, I should just try to let them flow through my brain for a while, before taking control again afterwards.

I find that surprisingly, all my thoughts have the same subject this time. Well, almost all of them. Some are about the cold, some about boredom, but most of them are about Owen. After our conversation last Friday, we ate our ice cream, and talked about all kinds of useless things like what movies we're going to watch after we've watched all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. We actually made a list.

After sitting there on my own for a long time, I see a figure in the distance. I take out one of my earbuds, and wave. The figure waves back, and walks towards me. I grin when I see who it is.
"Hi!" I say, and I walk towards her.
"Hey!" Willow says, and she smiles. "Why are you so early?"
"I got up an hour early by accident" I say, with a big smile. There's a lot I want to talk about with her.
"What are you so happy about?" she asks, smiling.
"Owen" I say, without any subtlety. She raises her eyebrows.
"Did anything happen?" she asks, and she bounces a little on her legs. I grin, and nod.

"We talked things through" I say. "And we're just kind of seeing what will happen".
"Aw, that's great!" she says, and she claps her hands. "And what do you think will happen?"
"Well..."
I look at my feet, smiling.
"I really like him. And I guess I'd really like it if things were official. But if he needs time I understand that, so I won't try to rush things".

She steps forward, and gives me a tight hug.
"I'm so glad to see you so happy, you have no idea" she says quietly. I hug her back, and there's a short moment of silence, before I ask: "So how are things with Logan?"
She steps back, and has a small smile on her face.
"Just... Perfect, really. I like him so incredibly much" she says.
"Don't you mean you love him so incredibly much?" I ask with a smirk. Her smile grows a little, and she nods.

"It's so strange, the first time he said it was so casually, so I just responded as casually as I could" she says.
"Was that at the party?" I ask. She shakes her head.
"It was that afternoon. He just gave me his gift, and I was super happy with it. It was this little book from when I was younger, my mom always read it to me but we lost it when we moved closer to the city".
"Aw, that's sweet" I say. She nods again, a blush on her cheeks that I can't help but think isn't because of the cold.
"And I told him how much I loved it, and he was just like 'Well, I just wanted to give you a nice gift because I love you and you gave me a cat for my birthday' and I didn't even realize until ten seconds later".

"You're rambling" I notice. She giggles.
"Oh, sorry" she says.
"Owen says it's cute when I ramble" I say, and I stare at the sky dreamily.
"Well, the two of us are very cute" she says, with a confident smile.
"We are, aren't we?" I say, and we laugh, as we continue gushing about the Marshall brothers until Kathryn arrives for practice and breaks up the fun ("Great, you're here, we can start early").

I see Alex first. She's walking across the field, yelling at the cheerleading team. They're constantly falling over. I stand by the sidelines, watching her try to train her pupils. When she notices me, she smiles.
"Landon! Hi" she says. "I didn't know we could stop already".
She turns to her team.
"Dismissed!" she yells. All the girls hurry off to somewhere else. I watch them run away, some of them whispering while glaring at Alex.

"They're useless" she groans when they're out of earshot. Then, she turns to me with a smile. "Anyway, how are you?"
"I'm doing great" I say, with a smile. "How is your biflexurality?"
Her smile stiffens.
"I was really that drunk, huh?" she says.
"Yeah" I say. "It was kind of funny, but I felt really bad for Willow".
Alex nods. "She talked to me the morning after. I've never seen her that upset, really. I'm just glad mom and dad didn't notice".

"So, what have you been up to this weekend?" she asks. I grin widely, and start telling her everything I told Willow. I really like talking about it, it makes me feel very confident. A guy like Owen Marshall likes me. I mean, he's obviously popular, he's charming, he's gorgeous, and he likes me. And I'm just... Me. Not that there's anything wrong with being me, I like being me. But I never thought I was that special. I mean, sure, there's the whole 'Everybody loves Landon' thing that I hear every once in a while, but other than that, I don't think many people know me.

I walk with Alex to the lunch room, where Logan and Willow are already sitting. Willow's talking about something very passionately, while Logan is just nodding and smiling while staring at her.
"Hi guys" Alex says, with a bright smile. She sits down, and grabs her food. She's staring at something in the distance. When I follow her gaze, I spot a familiar bush of curly, pink hair. She looks up, and notices me. I wave, smiling.

She walks over to us.
"Hey" she says. "Can I sit?"
"Of course!" I say, and I pat on the empty chair next to me. "Why aren't you on the football field as usual?"
She shrugs.
"Not a lot to see out there. Plus your friend was staring at me again. You still haven't told him, have you?"
I shake my head guiltily.
"Sorry" I say, and I glance over at Alex. She's listening very intently.

"So what's new with you?" she asks. "Any updates on..."
She glances at Logan, who is now staring at Willow again, who is staring at Jay suspiciously.
"Yeah, I'll tell you later. Everyone here already knows the story".
I look at Logan.
"Right?"
He nods, and rolls his eyes.
"Owen wouldn't shut up about it" he says. "But good for you".
I smile. I was a little scared Logan wouldn't approve, but he seems alright with it.

"Well, I should get going" Jay says, and she gets up. "I'll see you Landon".
She walks away. Right before she walks outside, she turns around, winks, and leaves. But she didn't wink at me.

After school, I walk across the school ground towards the bus stop. I'm the only one going home at this hour, so I'll have to wait by the bus stop all alone. As I walk, I smile to myself, reminded of that time it was raining and Owen offered me a ride home. It was such a nice thing of him to do, and that was even before we were really friends.

I look up, only to see a familiar car standing there. There's a person leaning against it, playing with his car keys. He smiles when he notices me.
"Owen?" I ask, with a shy smile.
"Get in" he says, grinning as he walks to the car door. "We're getting ice cream".

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