rainbows

twenty six

Every house has that one person, no, not the disappointment but the one who's always correct but nobody seems to listen to them. Yeah well in my house it's me and not so surprisingly Ryan too didn't listen to me.

So here we stand, in front of Christine, as she passes us a cloth asking us to help her clean the whole place up. Goddamit Ryan.

"You both can go on the upper floor and take out all the books and arrange them alphabetically while Gwen and I will clean this." She moves her hands around the place.

I know the upper floor is huge but I still take a look to make sure and fuck it's seriously huge. Filled with books. I give Ryan a death glare but all he does is shrug with a smirk. Stupid. Motherfucker.

"Okay." He says with a smile and takes my hand "We'll get going."

"Thank you so much." She exclaims. I still don't like her.

"You're going to pay for this." I glare at him.

"Oh, Shutup." He says as we climb the stairs.

"This thing is going to take a long ass time." I sigh looking around with hands on my hips.

"We have all the time in the world." He says walking towards the fiction section.

"No way," I yell at him startling him.

"What?" He says with one hand on his chest "you scared me."

"You don't get to put me in deep shit and then go and take care of the fiction section. You get the boring non-fiction and history section." I said tilting my head.

"Fine." He rolls his eyes walking towards the non-fiction section. Well, it's just next to the fiction section. He starts removing all the books one by one as I stand looking at him. He pushes his hair behind every now and then.

"Are you going to stare at me all day or do something too?" He says, this time, startling me.

"I-I fuck you, Bennett." I scoff sitting down crossed leg next to him. "You're going to do the most work," I tell him to which he pouts.

"No." He whines.

"You asked for it," I say sticking my tongue out. He huffs but doesn't say anything as he takes out the books from the fiction section too.

We remain quiet most of the time. Doing all the work in silence.
The silence is cosy. Cosy. Funny thing, a few weeks ago the same silence made me feel awkward but now it's pleasant and makes me feel at home.

Home.

It feels weird saying that word. I don't even call my house home because it's just a house, made of bricks and walls. I don't feel at home there. But this, this feels like home and fuck, it scares me.

I shake my head picking up the book and as if the universe is playing games it's one by John Green. I throw it under a few unknown books.

It's like Ryan can sense my discomfort he asks "So what exactly happened with Lexi?"

I think of lying to him but, I need to get it out. I know I do. I'll go crazy if I don't.

I take a deep breathe before I start "Promise me you'll not laugh." He keeps on staring at me "Please." I add. It's not easy to do such things. Especially when I've had no such figure types in my life. Like a friend. I start biting my nails.

"I would do no such thing Green." He says but when I don't reply he adds smiling "I promise."

I close my eyes "I didn't get into college." I say, my shoulders slumping. He's silent for a moment and
I can feel my anxiety rising, the nauseous feeling in my pit starting to make me question my decisions again.

"Okay? And?" He questions.

"What do you mean okay?!" I kind of yell at him. "I was supposed to get into college and leave this boring ass town. I was supposed to make friends and- and I was supposed to live my life!" I'm standing by the time I end.

"Alyssa." He casually says "Sit down. Talk it out."

"I am!" I stomp my feet. I don't care if I'm being childish. I hate this so much!

"Please?" He says and I can't believe I'm actually agreeing to him and sitting down next to him.

"A few days I got an email telling me I didn't get in and I haven't told anybody. It's been eating up because all I've ever wanted was to be a doctor since I was a child. But now it seems like the end of it." I keep on biting my nails. "I was going to go to college and make friends and actually live my life for once!" I whine. "I can't tell mom and dad because that's the last thing I want to talk about. I hate this. I hate this life." I want to cry so bad but I don't. "It feels like everything is weighing me down and I can't push up my way through it," I explain to him.

He doesn't say anything this time but wraps his arms around me and this time instead of being frozen I wrap them around him too because fuck everything I want to feel okay. It's the least I deserve.

We stay like this for so long I lose count. But it's a nice feeling, something I want to feel every day.

Everyday? What the fuck Alyssa.

I immediately pull away from him. He softly smiles at me and says "You don't have to wait for college or some milestone to actually live your life or make friends Green. You can do that anywhere. It literally depends on your mind and how you see things around you." He taps the side of my head "Your life isn't ending because some paperwork or email said you couldn't make into college. You can try again and again and again until you get where you want to be."

I simply nod as I digest his words.

"Life doesn't work that way and I just wish you knew." He says tilting his head. "Life ain't fair. Always remember that."

"Life's a bitch." I say a few minutes later chuckling.

"Life's a bitch." He repeats. "Well, it sure as fuck is."

We go back to doing whatever the fuck we were doing in silence. The weird feeling hasn't left me, I can still feel it in the pit of my stomach tying a knot but it definitely has decreased. And for that, I'm thankful to Ryan.

I repeat whatever he said to me and remind myself that I still have one college to send me an acceptance email. I stayed safe by applying to two colleges. And I can still try. I try to calm my nerves reminding me every second that he won't laugh at me after he goes back to his house and nor would he judge me or anything. And if he does I will cut him off my life because I'm pathetic like that and like he said, life ain't fair.