All Grown Up (Eden High)

Alex

My phone beeped, alerting me to an incoming text, just the sound I was waiting for, and I took it out and looked at it. The smile that’s always there at about this time every day spread across my face. “Hi, baby!” I rubbed my finger over her face on the screen before hitting her number in contacts.

I have her texting me every evening as soon as she gets in the house from school, then I call her back if I’m not too busy just to hear her voice. I don’t stay long, don’t tempt myself past what I can endure even though I’d stay on the phone with her all day if I could.

We don’t exchange risqué pictures, like any normal teen couple, or discuss anything that anyone might find suspect. I keep everything above board and as streamlined as it can get because I’m walking a thin line here. But that shit’s about to end soon, and I can hardly contain the excitement.

It’s been hard as hell surrounded by all this love and being the only one not attached to someone who looks at me the way Sian looks at Jace or the way Belle does Jared, and then, of course, there’s Track and Shane and their wives.

I try to look at their relationships more as something I have to look forward to than something to be envious of, but it’s not always easy. Sometimes the loneliness can drag on for damn near ever, and I start climbing the walls.

But things are about to change; she’s finally reaching that age where I don’t have to walk on eggshells, don’t have to hold back what I feel for her and she me. We’ve both had to deal with the strain of keeping ourselves in check while our friends moved on and got married, Jace and Sian even having kids.

Now the closer we get to that point, the more impatient I find myself becoming. Before her, before I knew that I wanted her, this situation, I find myself in now would’ve been ideal. I’d have been playing the field on a campus filled with beautiful women with no holds barred, living in a luxury complex with all the necessities anyone could possibly need at my fingertips.

But I went and fell in love with someone that I couldn’t have. The funny thing is until my best friends started getting hitched as teenagers, I might’ve walked away completely, might’ve convinced myself that it was okay to continue living life, as usual, smashing anything that came my way.

It’s easy to do that where we come from and being who we are, and the truth is, I always expected my college days to be like that, nothing but parties and bedding as many women as would allow me to have them.

I never in a million years would’ve thought that I’d be the guy I am today, that’s for sure, the guy who waits around for that one call to brighten up my day. Who never sees anyone else, even if they’re standing right in front of my face. Not only that, I don’t even have the urge to stray.

It never once entered my mind to cheat on her and what we have, what we’re starting to build together and not because I know my boys would ream me a new one either, but because I genuinely deep down inside, cherish just the thought of what we will one day share together, her and I.

She answered on the first ring as usual, and I got to hear about her day. I listened to her every word, taking it all in. I’m not just listening to her words, though, but to the tone in her voice. My little innocent hasn’t yet learned how to hide her true feelings from me, and I hope she never does.

It’s one of the best things about finding each other so young, we’re growing together, and I’m getting to know the real her before she learns how to fabricate shit. Today she sounded like her bright, beautiful self, so I was able to relax.

Since I’d left for school, leaving her back in my hometown, not being able to see her every day except on Facetime, I’ve had lots of moments where I worried about her and let’s not get started on missing her. I never knew that missing someone could make you feel like you’d lost a limb.

Before, even though I kept my distance because she was so young, at least I got to see her, got to keep tabs on how she was doing. But now that I’m here, so far away, I literally feel like a very vital part of myself is missing.

So these phone calls and the times we spend staring at each other through a screen are now the highlights of my life. And since Mandy’s been put away, my baby had lost that look of doom from her face and sounded more like the girl she was when I first noticed her.