Changing You ✦ The Sequel

Chapter 35 {R}

~ ☾~

Watching my best friends leave had felt like pouring my heart down the drain.

Like an earthquake was ripping open the ground I had built my safe place upon and it was falling apart, piece by piece.

It was something I had always been afraid of, to watch them go on their own path and leave our old life behind. But somehow this was still worse than I had imagined, and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to accept the changes that were disrupting my life.

I didn't understand how he did it.

How he managed to get me through my loneliest days and darkest nights.

I didn't understand how all he had to do was be there and I'd feel better. How he did nothing more than wrap his arms around me and hold me and all my struggles and problems would vanish.

Just like right now, in the middle of nowhere.

Skin on skin contact, anywhere and everywhere and it felt safe. The lake around us peaceful and quiet. All our problems left behind in what appeared to be an entirely different world.

I looked up at him, finding the warmth in his eyes. "Thank you," I said softly.

His eyes moved between mine, reading them like an open book, and for a second I forgot what I wanted to say.

He had those kind of eyes.

The ones that make you forget where you are if you stare into them for too long. The ones that talk without speaking. That feel — so much — without even telling, but only around the few people he trusted enough to see this vulnerable side of him.

"For all of this. I have no idea what I'd do without you."

I let my eyes fall shut as he leaned up to press a kiss to my forehead, his lips lingering for a few moments as if to kiss every anxious thought from my mind.

Somehow, that's exactly what he did.

"And you're not going to find out."

~ ☾~

I woke up to the sound of crying. Muffled crying, with the suppressed sobs and hushed whimpers of a person trying their hardest not to break down.

I shot up so fast I got close to fainting again and as my eyes darted around the room I felt a fresh wave of panic spike up my back. Not even because I didn't know where I was, but because I had no idea where he was. What had happened.

I blinked once, twice, and put the strong chemical smell, white walls and machines surrounding single beds together into the realisation I had waken up once again in one of the places I dreaded most: the hospital.

My eyes flickered to the one person who was with me in this room; sitting across from me on the rim of another, too clean bed.

The sight of the broken boy terrified me.

My mind jumped to the worst conclusions considering the state he was in: his chest pulling together only to fall apart with each soft cry, the sound catching in his throat, head buried far into his hands.