As far as the Sky

Chapter Nineteen

Charlie-Now

That is a lot. It even is for me so I can't imagine how Addison feels. She says she doesn't have any feelings for him but maybe she wants to see him and talk with him, which is normal. And I don't want to be the kind of boyfriend who prevents her from doing so. If she wants to, she can.

I look over at her, she fell asleep, her head resting on her arm, leaning on the armrest.

She should know that all I ever wanted was for her to be happy.

If she wants to see him, she can, I repeat in my head, trying to convince myself.

I trust her, that's not the issue here. The problem is I don't trust HIM.

I'm afraid he'll hurt her more than he already did.

When A. was still sleeping in the bus, I saw she wrote something in her notebook. I didn't read it because that's impolite, I don't want to enter her thoughts without her permission. But, without even reading, I could tell that if she wrote something instead of drawing like she usually does, something was on her mind, and she didn't talk about it.

My look stops on her face.

I wish I could change all of that, erase all the bad memories of her mind, make all the pain disappear.

Does that make me a bad person, because I wish he didn't exist?

That's not as if I'm jealous or anything, I just think A. doesn't deserve to suffer.

If I could, I would switch places with her. Is my life better than hers, though?

Mr. Gritzy interrupts my reflection:

"Charlie, can you wake her up?", he points at Addison.

"We're almost here", he continues.

Already?

I'm kind of excited to come back home, in part because I missed America and English-speaking people, midnight drives and drinking Starbucks coffees. I missed basketball training but above all: Ethan, mom and dad.

I can pretend I don't care about them as much as I did before, but no matter what I say; I do. I do care about them, and if I'm honest with myself I even care more than I did before.

People getting up from their seats and taking their luggage bring me to the present.

Addison is still sleeping, a strand of hair hiding her face. She looks beautiful, even when sleeping; God, she has never been this gorgeous!

Charlie, you must wake her up, you idiot! Not watch her sleep. Gosh, it sounds so weird put like that.

♡♡♡♡♡

We go out of the plane and immediately, I feel the cold morning breeze on my skin, and it has never felt so nice than after five days spent under the burning Sun of Spain.

After passing through customs, we stay a little at the airport, before taking the last bus of the trip, which will bring us to the high school. From there, mom or dad will come pick me up and the trip will be over. We'll have the weekend for us and after prom day and our graduation, high school will be over too.

It's so weird to think about it, what seems to be yesterday, I was on my first day of high school and on Tuesday, it'll be my last.

Finishing high school means saying goodbye to my childhood, I now enter the adulthood; to never leave it and I guess that's the scary thing about it. There's no going back now.