falling

eleven : dont let me go

A/n: Last chapter before epilogue! also my fav chapter...happy reading!

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she couldn't breathe. That was the only way to describe how Jade felt. The happenings around her only made her go further into her shell of suffocation.

She loved Elijah with all her heart. He made her bloom like a flower. It took a good eye to spot the thorns around it. They were childhood sweethearts and always knew they'd be more...and they were. They were each other's oxygen.

Hence the lack of it now.

Jade was distracted from her thoughts when she felt the shadow of her love falling over her. She couldn't turn around to look at Elijah for she knew she'd break. She couldn't even look at his reflection on the window... but she had to look at her love before she left him.

"Dance with me?", Elijah said with his hand extended for her to take as he asked for one last dance before she left.

Jade propped up and turned around, slowly placing her feet over his and placing her head over his chest. She did what she always loved doing. Listened to his heartbeat. He slowly moved them from side to side.

It was something the two always did together. Slow dancing in silence.

"Promise me something" , his voice spoke in her ear making her shudder. He was crying. No doubt of it.

"Anything." Jade said trying her best to keep a calm composure but in vain.

"Live your life, my light. Dont hide away from what life has to offer you. Live...and love. Isolation is not safety. If no one knows you're alive then you aren't alive. Stay alive for me..I'll find you again", he said

She mustered all the strength she had to look back at him with a small sad smile.

"I could never die without you anyways", Jade said right before walking towards her unpacked clothes that sat by her nightstand.

Elijah followed her, not ready to let her go. He inhaled her scent. Vanilla mixing with a tint of coconut from her shampoo. To say he would miss it would be an understatement. The most difficult part was that they were together for a year without either of them mustering the courage to tell the other their true feelings. Their love.

There was no easy part to this. It didnt matter what anyone told him, he would wander around anywhere holding her close claiming that she was his home. She was and to him will always be.

It was clear that she was being pulled in a thousand different directions but she still managed to pull air from the windows and keep herself alive.

She had a stubborn heart that refused to stop beating even with a thousand knives stabbing through it.

"I leave in half an hour"

"Oh". That was the only thing he could get himself to say. He immediately clung to her holding her close and once again inhaling her scent that to him was home. Even if stranded on an island he'd consider himself at home if she was by his side.

"Dont let me go..not today..not ever."

He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his torso. He sat down on the bed letting her fall on his lap. He needed her all around him. Always.

"At the end of the day I want you to be proud of who you are. Of everything you've accomplished. Proud of how you stood against this chaotic world. You are and will always be my light, but you must find your own. Be proud of how you survived." , he said while taking shaky breathes and not once breaking their eye contact.

"I only survived because of you", Jade' s voice was softer than Elijah has ever heard it be. He pressed his lips to her forehead while a tear made it's way down his cheek.

"I was only able to keep you alive because of you", he said.

He leaned in and they sat there for nearly 20 minutes with their foreheads pressed together.

When Jade's mom came to say it was time to go, he carried her down the driveway while she pleaded with him telling him not to let her go.

"Jade. You have to go and get a degree and a good job. Go live your life and party all the time and kiss a lot of boys. Make stupid decisions. "

She looked down and shook her head " I will not give my heart to anyone else. There will be no one after you. I will never love anyone the way I love you"

"I pray to god that you do." and then he let her go. he watched as she cried with tears in her eyes as she stared out the window, the sun hitting her puffy eyes.

Jade's mum stood beside him, watching Jade and her father drive away. Elijah took a deep breath.

"thank you," jade's mother smiled down at Elijah. he to bite his tongue so he didn't cry.

"for what?" he whispered.

"for making my girl happy."

Elijah walked home, taking the long way through the park, their park. he sat down on the hill they always sat on.

he was crying and he didn't do that often; he wasn't used to the way tears stuck to his eyelashes or how his heart felt like it was had been torn apart with shards of glass or
razors. she's only been gone a few minutes but he could already feel himself losing her smell or the way she felt safe wrapped in his arms. he couldn't believe she was gone and he was stuck in this moment waiting for her to forget him, even though she told him she never could, he knew she didn't want to leave, but he could feel the throbbing in his chest even though he knew she couldn't come home.

he just wanted her to tell him how to stop the pain.