HeartBREAK

Chapter forty-one

"Have a good day!", Alec said and blew a kiss on Magnus' cheek. "You too!", Magnus responded and left. Alec grinned- oh he would. It was his last rest-day and he could go back to training tomorrow which he was really excited about. To his own relief his knee was feeling a lot better and the swelling has almost gone down completely. As soon as Magnus left the room Alec grabbed his phone and opened his emails- it was time to confront his parents with what they were about to do.

"Who's missing?", Valentine yelled. "Alec, sir. He is excused.", Raphael raised his arm. "Whether he is excused or not is not up to you, mister Santiago!", Valentine snapped and opened his journal. "Sir, he has a doctors note, he handed it to principal Blackthorn two days ago!", Maia exclaimed. "Mister Santiago, this is how you properly communicate. Take notes, Miss Roberts seems like she at least can do that.", Valentine replied dryly. "Someone is in a fabulous mood today.", Maia whispered and Raphael chuckled:" Can't you see the sun shining out of his ass?" "You could really confuse him with a rainbow-puking unicorn.", Maia replied sarcastically and got in line. All the students knew better than to mess with Valentine, especially if he was having a bad day. "To your relief I can say that with the open house done, the partnering is pretty much done for this year. But don't think that it will get any easier. Next year you will be the ones going to auditions, you need to be a good soloist, partner and group dancer. Try to find where you're lacking and work on that. At the end of the year we will have a few choreographers here which will work on the group-part with you. So for now, we are doing solos." Raphael deeply exhaled- this was more relieving to him than he expected. Not only for him, more importantly for his relationship with Maureen. Tonight, they would meet up again and Raphael had a cute date idea in mine. He didn't let the chance of her parents visiting go by, but asked them for their number. And now he has a variety of his and Maureens' old dance videos from when they were children. "Thinking about tonight?", Maureen interrupted Raphael- somehow she always noticed when he zoned out. "Yep.", he laughed and gave Maureen a kiss on the forehead. "are you sure you're not telling me what we are doing?", she asked and Raphael shook his head:" Just put on comfy clothes. It's a surprise." And he needed to admit, it was a pretty genius one.

Alec dropped himself onto his bed before he fidgeted the brown bag out of his night stand he so carefully hid from Magnus. The bag held a plain, white picture frame and some glitter stones. Yesterday he made a small trip to the store and got a minimum amount of crafting supplies. Valentine's day was coming up and even though Magnus and him never gifted each other anything, he wanted to show Magnus his appreciation. He printed out a mirror selfie Magnus took last year before the midterm party. It showed Magnus holding the phone, all dressed up, and Alec, with disarrayed hair and sweatpants hugging him from behind and pressing a slight kiss on his smiling face. It was one of their favorite pictures. Somehow, it just really showed how their relationship was- Magnus being the active, glamourous and attention seeking one and Alec the rather calm, inconspicuous and laid-back one. and now matter how silly Alec looked, how vulnerable he felt and how rough he behaved, he knew nothing could change the way Magnus saw him. He knew he was loved, for himself and for however he was acting. He knew, he finally understood what Magnus meant when he said he loved every side of Alec, no matter how bad it was for him. Alec felt the same way about Magnus. There was nothing ugly about him, nothing too deep, nothing too scary or too messed up. Magnus was Magnus, with all his bright lights and dark caves, with all the perfect smiles and messy mistakes. He loved him, no matter what. And he never believed in unconditional love, not even last year, it was just after finding out he got cheated on, just after realizing he still loved Magnus, not even a tiny bit less than before, just after that he realized there was nothing Magnus could ever do to make Alec stop loving him. And he wanted Magnus to know by the little letter he planned on writing on the back of the photo which he put into the decorated frame.

"Okay, what is it?", Maureen asked after receiving her welcoming kiss from Raphael. "You will find out very soon.", Raphael grinned and pulled her into the bedroom. Simon stayed in Maia's room so they had the whole room to themselves. And Raphael already transformed it into the ultimate cuddle-cave. He pushed both of the beds together so they had one giant bed in the middle of the room, covered by huge sheets which made it look a lot more like a tent than like a bed. Several blankets were distributed over it and there was a mountain of pillows on top of them. A couple of fairy lights were decorating the edges of the bed and the edges of the laptop standing at the foot end of their beds. Right next to it was a wooden basket with two steaming cups of hot chocolate and some chocolate macadamia muffins from the bakery next door. "Oh my god, this is perfect!", Maureen squeaked and crawled into the cave, closely followed by Raphael who handed her her hot chocolate. "Surprise!", he said after they made themselves comfortable and switched on the screen of the laptop. On it, a six year old Raphael in white tights and a blue jacket appeared, dancing a ballet solo in a regional competition. "No way! Are we bonding over your old dance videos?", Maureen exclaimed in excitement, well knowing that old dance videos were a very sensitive and emberassing topic that you only shared with people you trust. "Not only mine, I have some of yours too.", Raphael smiled and leant back. Then he pressed play.

Hello beautiful people! First of all, I am so sorry for not uploading for a while! I have kind of lost focus and needed some time off to figure everything out but now I am back and will upload regularly again! As a reward you get an extra-long extra-sweet chapter- I hope you enjoyed! Keep smiling, XOXO, AllyMaii