I needed to pee, badly. I groan, turning over in Alex’s bunk, hoping that I could somehow forget about my need to use the bathroom and just go back to sleep. After a few moments of tossing and turning, I finally push myself up and out of the bunk and drag myself over to the bathroom.

“Fallon?” A voice calls from behind me, scaring me so much that I actually let out a small scream.

“Fuck Alex.” I take a deep breath, an attempt to calm my racing heart. “You scared me to death.”

“Sorry.” He says quietly. I can’t help but notice how cute he looks with his hair all rumpled and messy. Even though he’s awake, he looks dead tired and I bite my lip, feeling guilty. It’s obviously my fault that he’s tired. I stole his bunk because I couldn’t stand being so close to him in such a small area. When we tried to share the bunk at first, my heart raced and it scared and frustrated me so much. I can’t feel like that around Alex. I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t feel that way around him.

“It’s fine. What are you doing up?” I ask, twisting my hair up into a bun.

He shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep.” Again, I feel horrible, but before I can apologize to Alex for being selfish, he continues. “What about you?”

“I needed to pee real bad.” I say feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. Alex laughs at me and my cheeks heat up even more.

“I was going to head out for some breakfast.” He pauses, looking at me for a few moments, a wary expression on his face. “Would you want to come?”

I don’t even think about it, my mouth is already forming my answer before the question fully registers in my head. “Yes.”

Within thirty minutes, we find ourselves seated in a sketchy looking diner sitting in comfortable silence as we look over the menu. We’re in a booth and for some reason Alex is sitting next to me rather than across from me and for some reason I couldn’t fight the smile that broke across my face when he did.

“What are you getting?” Alex asks, looking over at me.

I shrug, still unsure. “I don’t know.” I groan. “Everything sounds so good.”

Alex chuckles. “You’re still the same.”

“Shut up.” I whine. I’ve never been good at deciding what to get at restaurants. It always bothered me that I would probably choose the wrong thing and then be so disappointed when the food arrived. When Alex and I dated, I always made him order for me because he had like this hidden talent for choosing the greatest things on the menu.

When I was with Daniel though, he always refused to order for me, saying that I was old enough to order for myself and each time we went to dinner I was always disappointed with my dish. I remember one time during our two year anniversary, I found myself accidentally wishing that Alex was at the restaurant with me instead of Daniel because I would’ve been having so much more fun.

Alex ordered for me, after much whining. When the waitress finally arrived with our food, I praised Alex’s skills. “You’re like the Food God. I feel like I’m having a food orgasm.”

Alex snorts and leans into me, laughing hysterically. “That’s not even a thing Fal.”

I nod enthusiastically. “It so is. You have to try this.” I hold up a forkful of pancakes to Alex’s mouth, trying to feed him as we both laugh, falling over each other.

“Delicious.” Alex pants as he tries to catch his breath from laughing so much. There’s a streak of syrup on his cheek and I instinctively lick my thumb and swipe it, trying to get the stickiness off his face.

He falls silent when I do this and I find myself staring at Alex’s lips. I find myself wanting to kiss him. Really wanting to.

And so I do.

My lips gently press against his and I feel his warm breath against my lips. I feel my stomach explode with butterflies and I can feel my pulse racing out of control. I open my mouth, breathing in his breath and Alex sighs happily.

I pull away slowly, keeping my eyes closed. I know that the moment I open them the pure happiness I’m feeling will vanish because I’ll realize what I’ve done.

“Fallon.” Alex whispers my name so softly and I feel his thumb brushing against my cheek. “Fallon, open your eyes.”

I can’t, I don’t want to face what I’ve done and how stupid it was. I kissed Alex, something I’ve wanted to do for years, but I've repressed the feeling because I can’t. Because when I do, I feel like this. I feel small and stupid because I’m only trying to get hurt.

I open my eyes when Alex says my name again and he’s looking at me they way he used to look at me. His brown eyes are so big and happy and I want to mirror him, but I can’t. All my happiness is gone and I’m left with my eyes burning with the feeling of oncoming tears.

“Fallon, what’s wrong?” Alex asks, his happiness becoming concern. “Fallon?” He asks again, so innocently as I struggle to keep my tears from spilling over.

“I,” I take a deep breath, trying to steady my voice. “I need to use the bathroom.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but then decides not to as he slides out of the booth to let me leave. “I’ll wait for you.” He says quietly, sitting back down.

I scramble toward the bathroom, desperately trying to reach it before I burst into heart wrenching tears, but the waitress from our table, a tall brunette, stops me. “I just wanted to tell you that you and your boyfriend are honestly the cutest couple I’ve seen in my entire life. I wish I could find a guy to stare at me like your man looks at you. There’s just so much love, you know?” She smiles widely and sighs.

All of a sudden I can’t breathe. “Can you tell him that,” I take a deep breath, trying to bring air back into my lungs. “Can you tell him that I’ll meet him back at the bus? I just really need some air.”

The girl nods, sympathetically. “Yeah totally! You look kind of pale.”

I don’t respond, already stepping out into the sunlight, moving quickly towards the bus, leaving Alex behind.

Notes

The next couple of chapters may be a little fillerish. I'm not sure yet but I think that they might be because the next intense thing that i have probably should be followed by Alex's point of view.

Thank you so much for all of the comments and subscribers! You guys are so great.