We Could Be Enough - Lams

XIII.

He looks visibly startled that we're in the bathrooms. He makes an effort to seem intimidating, but it comes off as kind of pathetic.

"What do you want?" Alex hissed. "Shouldn't you and your stuff be miles away by now?"

"I'm not leaving." He answers. His voice breaks for a moment.

"Well, that's surprising, given the kind of stunt you pulled last night. If I were in charge, you'd have been on the bus to loserville half an hour before anyone else would have noticed you were gone."

I glance at Alex. Is he really saying those things to him?

Thomas narrows his eyes. "If you were in charge, this place'd be pure anarchy." 

Alex balls up his fists, and I see Jefferson notice this too. Out of the corner of my eye, Stanley scampers off back into his place under the sink.

Thomas sighs. "But I didn't come here to start a fight."

"That's very uncharacteristic of you."

"Hey, quit it! I was trying to tell you something." Alex rolls his eyes. Thomas continues anyway, "After the fiasco that was last night, I want to say sorry."

"Why?" I ask. 

"Because I realized that if I don't stop being a big ol' bag of dick garbage, I could lose everything I've worked hard for. I don't want that to happen, so this is purely for my own benefit."

"Wow, I didn't know it had feelings," Alex says to me. I glare him, as does Jefferson.

"Alright, if you don't care, fine. I tried to fix it, and you don't want that to happen. So that's how it'll be." He turns around and reaches to open the door.

"Thomas, wait," I say. Everyone freezes. "Thank you for apologizing. I can't forgive you entirely and you know why, but I hope we can fix that. Right, Alex?" 

I elbow him in the side, and he frowns at me for a moment before responding.

 "Right."

Thomas looks between us, then leaves wordlessly. The door swings shut behind him, and the stale air and silence fill my head.

"I'm sick of the pool. Let's beat it." Alex says, walking out of the door and leaving me there.

I quickly follow. My eyes find him walking around to the other side of the pool. By the time I've caught up with him, he's gathering flip-flops and sunscreen in his hands.

"We just gonna go back to your cabin?"

"Yep." He confirmed.

I straighten up and look over at our friends at the other side of the pool. They seem to be having more fun than we have. Peggy is splashing both Eliza and Angelica, and Laf and Herc seem to be racing each other. Lafayette is winning by a couple of feet. I wish I could join them.

Then I look back at Alex. The chlorine-water has almost completely dried off of our bodies by now, leaving his hair to drip water down the side of his face. I like his hair down. But it also looks really good when it's in a ponytail.

Gah, why is this so confusing?

This is impossible. He's way too hot, and he'd never like a nerd like me. Practically impossible. 99.9999998% impossible. That's way too little of a margin to mess around with. There's no chance for me.

But there is that .0000002% chance that it could work.

God, if that's all I'm clinging to, then this better fucking work. I ain't about to spend an entire summer living literally right next to someone who thinks I'm a creep because I went all in at the beginning without any clue of what I'm doing.