Sunsets and Constellations | B X B

• S E V E N •

E L I J A H

Elijah woke up feeling extremely cold. The television was on standby and Jake had fallen asleep on his shoulder. The clock showed 7:30am which meant they had two and a half hours until class started. Ryder had hogged both of their comforters, only her head peeking out of the cocoon she'd made for herself, snoring lightly.

Last night, they had delved into a conversation about everything and nothing at the same time while the movie played on the TV.

Ryder told them about her stuck up family and why she had flunked her classes on purpose. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Her parents had always threatened to send her away if she didn't do well when she was younger so she'd tested it out as she couldn't bear to stay there any longer. She had been very vague about the whole thing though, and Elijah understood why. They'd barely known each other.

Elijah told them about the time he had accidentally detached two giant tiles from the boy's bathroom in his old school while practising a roundhose kick on the wall as he bunked his math class and gotten suspended for a week. He told them about the time he had played the famous inside-out-bag prank on all of his teammates when they had gone to an interschool tournament and was benched for the first game as he was a junior.

Jake told them how his parents were druggies and how their house always smelled like pot; how his uncle had found him crying on his porch outside because his parents wouldn't respond to him because they were passed out half the time; how his uncle had taken him and his twin sister Jean into his care and raised them as his own along with three of his kids. His aunt had died the year prior to them moving in a car accident. Jake had a fucked up childhood. Majorly fucked up.
Ryder and Elijah had a new level of respect for him, simply for how maturely he dealt with everything. He was trying to get better and that was all that mattered really.

And then Elijah had accidentally blurted out the fact that Arius had a prosthetic arm while telling them what a git he had been during detention.

"Who's Arius?" Jake squinted his eyes.

"The boy with the grey eyes!" Elijah replied, as the same time as Ryder who had called him a permanently pissed off "fungus".

Ryder had just stared at Elijah for a few seconds, like she was sifting through the folds of his brain, making him extremely uncomfortable.

"A prosthetic arm. Man, that must've been rough. He looks like he used to do sports of some sort." Jake had pointed out.

And then Elijah had asked them about the couple that had walked in during lunch.

"The girl's the head cheerleader, Maggie. And the guy is Chase, he's on the soccer team and he's captain apparently. Generic, boring shit." Jake had replied, looking bored to death.

Ryder and Jake had fallen asleep at around three am, while Elijah lay nestled in between them comfortably. He was also a sucker for human contact while he slept. He was a very affectionate person and was not afraid to show it. Toxic masculinity was a no-no. He'd been raised by his mum and Abby, who were both independent, strong women.

His mum was a hero in every sense of the word. After she had found out that the man she had loved since high school had been cheating on her with one of his close friends, she had kicked him out of the house and filed for divorce. His belongings had been put in the attic. They hadn't heard from him since. Elijah couldn't care less about the man. She did multiple jobs so that she could make ends meet. Abby had started working once she was sixteen, as did Elijah. They were everything to Elijah.