(RIVALS) The Upside of Falling ✔️

Chapter 60: Fantasy

Becca

I blocked out Mrs. Copper's voice as I slouched down in my seat, doodling spirals into the back of my notepad. To my left I could hear Brett breathing loudly, his face resting on his knuckles. I glanced at him to make sure he wasn't sleeping and he looked up from his desk, rolling his eyes as I tried to suppress my laughter.

The lights shut off as Mrs. Copper set up the television for the movie screening. A hush fell over the classroom.

"I should have brought you candy," Brett teased. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder as he leaned back in his chair.

Brett's apartment was full of three of my favourite things: candy, cotton candy ice cream and him. I had the dangerous feeling that I would be spending a lot of time there.

I silently thanked the darkness covering the classroom when heat rose to my cheeks as I remembered how we spent most of the weekend laying lazily in bed.

Once his mother sold their house and Brett is living alone permanently, that apartment would be his new home. But until then, it reminded me of the pillow forts I used to build as a kid: a cozy hideout to block out the rest of the world.

The static hum of the television bought me back to reality. I smiled triumphantly at Brett as I pulled a pack of sour watermelons out of my bag, waving them in front of his face as his eyes lit up.

"I came prepared," I bragged, opening the bag and popping one of the candies into my mouth. I winced as the sourness made my cheeks burn.

The students in front of us turned around quickly at the sound of the candy bag being teared open. I covered my mouth to hide my laughter as Brett's hand shot out quickly and grabbed the bag, hiding it on his lap from the student's view. When they turned around, he placed it back on my desk.

"I don't like to share." He said simply, tossing a piece of candy into the air and catching it in his open mouth. Show off.

"No kidding," I replied sarcastically, turning my attention back to the television.

We had finished studying Hamlet and Mrs. Copper was making us watch the film, insisting that Shakespeare couldn't be fully appreciated simply through text.

"What's that?" Brett asked. I shifted my head to the left to look at him and saw him pointing towards my notepad. On the front cover, there were dozens of numbers I had scribbled down. "What do all these numbers mean?"

I ran my finger along the notebook as my thoughts took me back to a different time.

"It was a countdown until graduation," I told Brett, smiling to myself as I opened the notebook to the first page and showed him the rest of the numbers scribbled into the cover.

I watched as his eyes roamed over the scribblings, his lips pursed in thought. His hair had started to grow longer, falling over his forehead as his head titled downwards. I reached out and brushed it back quickly.

"One-hundred-sixty-five," he said after a moment, his finger resting on the very last number I had recorded. "You stopped keeping track after that. Why?"

Why did I stop keeping track? I couldn't even remember the day I decided to stop filling my notebook with numbers counting down to the end of high school -- counting down to freedom. I had just ... stopped. Perhaps it was because the days began to blur together and I simply forgot. Or maybe I stopped counting down because I had something better to look forward to.