How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

41.

Weeks... It had been weeks since I had moved in.

I wondered for a good few days whether or not I've just been hallucinating all of this. All the way from learning how to make a killer cappuccino to sleeping beside her every night. Sleeping beside Tess. And then I would wake up every Saturday morning to the smell of freshly made pancakes, that was if I didn't have a shift at the café starting at 7 in the morning.

I was lucky that this particular weekend I only had four-hour shifts in the evening.

So, when the smell of blueberries wafted into the room, I barely had to open my eyes to figure out where I was going. It leads me right where I wanted to be, hugging Tess as she flips the pancake with her free arm.

"Good morning you," she says softly.

I just smile and give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

The little dining table already had plates and cutlery set up over turquoise placemats. The curtains over the window were still, meaning the heat had finally shut off after being on at full blast last night.

October had finally shown up and the days were starting to get shorter and shorter, but it also meant that the temperature was changing too and it wasn't for the better. Last night especially, it was certain that it dipped under zero degrees.

I sat down at the table and Tess placed a pancake on my plate. Unfortunately, the only topping we had was maple syrup (and it wasn't even the real stuff) because someone forgot to go to the grocery store last night as he promised he would on his way home.

"Where's Chase?" I ask, noticing that he isn't here.

"I think he's still in bed," Tess replies, licking some batter off her thumb.

"Still in bed?" I question, "He's always the first one up for pancakes."

They're for sure his favorite food, so for Chase not to be up right now it just felt like something was really wrong.

"Do you think I should knock on his door?" I say to Tess.

"That might be a good idea." she agrees.

So, I start tiptoeing down the hallway towards his room. I didn't know why I was tiptoeing, it's not like I'm trying to avoid waking him up. Maybe I don't want him to hear me coming, make it more of a surprise, yet the fact that the floor creeks so incredibly loudly would make it impossible for me to conceal myself.

I tap lightly with my knuckles before putting my right hand on the door handle and turning it slowly.

"Chase?" I whisper, "Are you awake?"

At first, I didn't see anything, but with the door opened wide enough I bring my head up. And holy moly did I walk in on something!

Chase, still completely passed out over some guy who I had never seen before, and did I mention that guy was clearly awake now. He just winks at me and signals with his hand that he's all right. I step back and close the door behind me and head back to the kitchen.

I hoped my pancake hadn't gotten cold yet, but it was a thought so minimal in my life at the moment.

"And what's the verdict?" Tess asks, still working at the counter.

I'm sure my eyes were completely open, almost popping out of my head, "Uh... where did he say he was going last night?"

"I thought he said he was going on a mandatory class trip," she tells me while pointing her wooden mixing spoon at me.

I was about to tell her to be careful not to get some of that batter all over me, but I knew she would have probably made a comment in regards to licking it off of me, yet I didn't think I should be changing the subject.

"Is that class trip a six-foot guy, completely ripped by the way, with brown hair?" I say.

I watch her snort, almost spilling her mixing bowl over.

"Really?!" she asks.

"Yes really!" I reply getting closer to her.

If I wasn't physically trying to stop her, I'm sure she would be rolling around on the ground howling her laughter away. Instead, she accidentally sticks her entire left hand in the bowl full of her pancake mix.

"Oh no!" she squeals lightly.

Now it was my turn to laugh at the situation. I felt sorry for her, but I just couldn't help myself. And I should have known that this wouldn't last too long before she would take her revenge, taking her battered hand and smearing it across my face.

"You didn't?!" I say trying to wipe some of it away.

"I did." she shrugs happily.

We both just end up standing there laughing and holding on to each other for support, but this didn't stop me bringing myself up to kiss her despite the way she felt about my now plastery feeling face.

I pull away from her leaving behind a trail of pancake batter on her lips. Some even managed to get in her hair, clumping some of her curls together.

"This is going to be a mess to clean up," I comment, but she cuts me off pretty quickly.

"I love you!" She says on the verge of shouting.

Loves me? She loves me!

We hadn't said it to each other before, but until now I didn't understand how those words could be so important. She meant it with all her heart and I knew there was nothing stopping me from telling her the way I felt too.

"I love you," I finally say.

She pulls me close to her again and our lips come so close again, just taking a second, but we kiss.

I didn't care what people would think of us if they caught us like this covered in half our uncooked breakfast, but these are the kinds things you do for love.

"Hey guys," I hear groggily from behind us.

I let go of Tess and we look to see Chase wearing his housecoat wiping away the corner of his eyes. The guy from his room is standing right at the corner of the beam of the doorway and only seems to be covered by a bathroom towel around his hips.

"It looks like I missed quite a lot," Chase says.

"Yeah," Tess and I say sarcastically in unison.

"Oh!" he speaks up finally remembering, "this is Axel."

"Hey," Axel waves simply, "nice to see you again," he tells me.

Awkwardly, I reply, "Yeah."

We all stand in silence for a minute, but Chase just couldn't keep quiet.

"Before I forget, Claire," he says grabbing a letter from the corner of the counter, "This came for you yesterday."

"Who's it from?" I ask.

"Don't know," he tells me.

I rip the envelope open and I read over every word on the paper carefully.

Everyone was waiting for me to say something. I could tell they didn't want to pry, but I could sense how impatient they were to hear what was written in the letter.

"It's from my brother," I say.

"What did he write?" Chase questions.

"He... He wants to know if I'm going to come home for Thanksgiving."