Alex's POV

Why did I do that? Why did I reveal myself to him so quickly? Why did I feel so calm around him? Why did I believe everything he said? What made him different from everyone else? I've never been one to just let out most of my secrets to anyone. So what compelled me to let him know? Also, why was I still hugging him?

I slowly pushed myself away from John and gave him an apologetic look. "Umm... s-sorry. That p-probably made you unc-comfortable." I mentally cursed myself for stuttering. It makes people look weak, but I always end up stuttering if I get too nervous.

"No, no. It's fine. I didn't mind." He smiled at me.

"R-really? Most people d-don't like hugs. So..."

"It's fine. If I had a problem with it, I would've pushed you away." His smile widened.

"Oh. W-well, if you really didn't mind..."

"I didn't. In fact..." He hugged me again, taking me by surprise. "I rather enjoy hugs." I just kind of... stood there in shock. No one had really hugged me and meant it before. I haltingly wrapped my arms around him, looking at the floor slowly.

We stood there like that for a good two minutes before I pulled away. I didn't know how he felt, or how I myself felt, but... It was really nice. "S-sorry if that w-was r-really awkward..." He just chuckled a little bit.

"Nah, it's fine."

"I-if you say so."

"I do." He gave me a big smile, which caused me to give a weak, small one in return. Odd. I didn't usually smile. It felt so weird on my face, like it didn't belong. His eyes seemed to light up at my responsive smile, which I didn't understand. Why would he care about my facial expression? Why would he care about me at all? Then again, I was probably just imagining that. No one cares. Why would they? No one would ever take the time to care about a freak like me. He was just acting nice to me out of pity, I was sure of it. There was no other logical explanation. People didn't just care. That's something I've learned about the world. You couldn't be different and have people care about you. It just didn't happen. But when I looked at John, he got this light in his eyes the moment he would look back at me. I couldn't understand what he was looking at. But I've never seen that look before whenever someone was looking at me. So there was no way he was looking at me when his eyes lit up like that. There had to be something behind me. Something I wasn't seeing. But now, as I looked at him with that small smile on my face, his eyes lit up, and I couldn't think of anything else he could possibly be looking at. Maybe he was just thinking of something...

"Why don't you smile more often?" That question startled me from my thoughts.

"Wh-what?"

"Your smile is beautiful. How come this is only the second time you've given me a genuine smile?"

"What d-do you mean?" How could he tell if my smiles were fake or not?

"I've seen enough fake smiles in my life to tell the difference."

"Oh," was all I responded with. I'd have to work on making them look more realistic, then.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Oh, uh, I g-guess it's just because I d-don't smile v-very often, that's all." I shrugged, hoping he'd let the topic drop at that. And he did, which I was relieved about. I didn't want to go into any detail with him. He wouldn't care anyway. It's not like I was special. But he just kept glancing and smiling at me, so I started doing takes behind me. It got to the point where I expected him to be looking my way whenever I turned around. I didn't know how I felt about it, but that's probably because I didn't know what he was thinking. Though, in all honesty, it probably wasn't anything good. No one ever has good thoughts about me.

"Hey, can you come over here, for a minute?" John asked after about twenty more minutes of him continuously glancing at me before working in a sketchbook.

"Um... okay?" What did he plan on doing? He was going to hurt me or something, wasn't he? I could feel myself getting more nervous with each step, but I refused to let it show as I approached him. "What do you need?"

He motioned for me to get closer to him, which I hesitantly did, bending down a little. And then he did something I didn't expect. He held up a piece of paper right next to my face, staring back and forth between it and myself before taking it away and circling something. "Alright. Thanks."

"What did you do?" I asked, confused, as I tilted my head.

"I needed your eye color, but I couldn't tell which shade was correct," he said with a shrug, going back to his sketchbook.

"Why did you need my eye color?"

"Because I'm drawing you. I'll let you see it when I'm done, if you want."

"Oh, um... okay." That was more than a little creepy... Why would he want to draw me? I wasn't even attractive. I had to wear a 'binder'. I was just overall gross. In my own head, anyway.

Soon enough he finished and he let me see. I blushed a little as I looked over it. He had drawn me a lot better than I looked. Man, I wished I could actually look like that. I nodded and walked into my own dorm. That dorm was almost as big as the house I was living in... The house that was no longer existing. I walked to my tattered satchel and I pull out one of two things. My ukulele. Yeah, it still was not... Fixed. It had a long long way to go. But, I sat on the couch and worked at it.

I touched the faded, delicate blue face of the ukulele, relishing the memories I had with it. My father got it for me when my mom and dad were still together. After my father left is when I really started to learn. Because I needed to make money. I only made a very small salary every day, as people thought I was faking being broke. But no. I actually was. We always burned the money on food. Nothing else. Then my mother and I fell ill. I had to use my money on her, but she wouldn't allow it. She spent both of our salaries on me, to get me checked and get medicine for me. I regret not being able to persuade her out of it. I heard a loud thud as I was cranking at the tuning pegs. I turned my head slowly to John, unable to hold in all of my laughter as he had fell on the floor, trying to catch his turtle, and succeeding.

"It's okay. She's okay," he said reassuringly. Though, to me or himself? He carefully got up, gently placing his turtle back in her tank. I was still giggling softly when he turned to face me. "That was a very terrifying moment," he said with a small smile.

"Was it?" I asked with a small smile, once I got my laughter under control.

"Yes. Yes it was." He smiled back with a small laugh. His laugh was adorable. I could listen to it all day. I wish I had a laugh like that... I bet my own laugh was super annoying. I went silent and I crossed my arms, swaying slowly. John noticed, but I didn't think we was going to do anything. As I always said, expect the unexpected, aaaaaaaaand he hugged me. I cringed and tried to get away. I didn't deserve it. Maybe John deserved it. But I sure as hell didn't. I just stood, frozen as he hugged me. When he let go, you better BELIEVE I ran away. I hate being hugged. Maybe its because hes the first to hug me. Huh. Who knows?

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Mmkay, here's Chapter 3. Sorry it took so long. We honestly kind of forgot about it, then came back to it and finished like 6 days ago and I didn't notice until I just randomly decided to check. Sooooo, here. Hope you liked it. There was not much proofreading, but I'm going to publish this for you anyway. We'll update the next chapter whenever. Yeeeeeeaaaah, we have no update schedule. Maybe we should work on that, but we probably won't. Alright, hope y'all have a nice day. Bye!