Got your back

Chapter 23

Author's note: Hello everyone! Sorry for the super delayed update (school again). To thank you for your patience and hopefully sort of make up for it, here's a relatively longer chapter. Also, not sure when the next update will be, but I will try to make it as soon as possible. As always, thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think! ❤

Hailey woke up to the sun streaming in through the window. She grimaced slightly and squinted  against the painfully bright light. Groaning quietly, she buried her face in her pillow, trying her best to block it out. It was too early for this. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. To make matters worse, her head was pounding and her eyes felt swollen. As she lay there, dangerously close to falling back to sleep, she tried to figure out why she felt so terrible. It took her a minute since she wasn't quite fully conscious yet, but then the events of the night before came flooding back. She scrunched her eyes shut to block out the memories. The gala, Caden, nightmare after nightmare.

The nightmares. Her eyes shot open, and it was only then that she processed that the other side of the bed was empty. Frick. She stumbled out of bed, quickly throwing on a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie, before hastily pulling her hair into a messy ponytail. Her headache and lack of sleep combined with how fast she stood up made her vision blur, but she ignored it. Not helping her situation was the sense of dread that was quickly setting in. She made her way out of her bedroom, her heart rate quickening, her breaths getting shallower with each one she took.

She stopped abruptly when her gaze fell on the sofa in her living room. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She forgot how to breath, her legs felt weak, and now her lightheadedness was getting hard to ignore. But she couldn't think about any of that. All she could think about was how the sofa was empty.

There were no blankets, no extra pillows, absolutely no trace that Jay had ever been there.

Hailey furiously blinked backed the tears that were suddenly burning her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? How had she let herself believe that this time would be any different? She didn't deserve to be cared for and loved, and apparently last night was enough for Jay to finally realize that.

Last night. She only vaguely recalled her conversation with Jay. Between the tears and exhaustion and the overwhelming feeling of fear left over from the nightmares, she couldn't remember what had been said. The only thing she could remember was the look of hurt that had crossed his face when she asked him to leave. What kind of person did that?

The scenes from her nightmare replayed in her mind, and she involuntarily shuddered. What kind of horrible person was she that her brain could come up with such terrible ideas about the person she loved more than anything, that she claimed to trust?

No, it was no wonder he left when he had the chance. She didn't blame him. She would leave herself too, if she could. Nobody deserved to have to put up with her brokenness. Just like she didn't deserve his kind of love.

What hurt the most, though, was that she'd fallen for it. She'd stupidly believed that this time, well, this time would be different. She'd thought maybe, finally, someone might actually love her, broken pieces and all. And not the kind of 'love' that causes the brokenness. The kind that protects you and supports you, that's there through good and bad. But she'd been naive. Because that kind of love wasn't real, at least not for people like her.

Her gaze still glued to the empty couch, she focused intently on trying to keep herself from completely falling apart, on trying to get her body to remember how to breath, refusing to let yet another person break her. So she nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a voice from the kitchen.

"Oh, crap you're up. Dang, I was trying to surprise you."

She immediately turned to face the sound, shock clearly displayed on her features. Her gaze landed on her partner who sported a sheepish grin from getting caught in the middle of his master plan. She let out a shuddering breath. He was still there.

"You're still here," she said breathlessly, stating the obvious.

His smile faltered slightly, and he replied, with a hint of concern in his voice, "Is that alright?"

She hurriedly nodded. "I just thought," she started, glancing back at the sofa. Now that her panic had started to subside, her brain was beginning to operate rationally, and she realized that of course Jay wouldn't have left bedding strewn out on the sofa. Old army habits die hard. She shook her head, a slight flush of embarrassment rising on her cheeks. "Never mind."

Jay cocked an eyebrow but didn't comment or otherwise give any indication that he noticed the swirl of emotions that she had to fight off. He turned back into the kitchen, giving Hailey a second to compose herself. She let out another shaky breath as she tried to pull herself together.

Taking a step toward the kitchen, she cleared her throat awkwardly, trying her best to ignore the lingering sense of embarrassment. "Um... so, you said something about a surprise?" She started, not quite sure what to say to him, the vague fragments of their last conversation echoing in her head.

He turned back to face her, and her first instinct was to avoid his gaze. But before she could, his eyes caught hers, and she couldn't look away as he shot her the smile that he kept special for her. She couldn't help but smile in return. It wasn't her characteristic bright smile, more of an uncertain one, but it was a start.

"Maybe," he teased in reply, with a soft smirk. The corners of her lips turned up slightly further in response. As he turned to put the finishing touches on whatever it was he was working on, she sat down at her normal spot at the kitchen counter. She curled one leg under her and pulled the other up to rest between her and the edge of the counter, shifting her weight to lean against the back of the chair. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to ignore her pounding headache. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she could very much feel the throbbing of her pulse against her skull.

The soft sound of something being placed on the placemat in front of her made her reopen her eyes. She smiled slightly, glancing over at the back of Jay's head as she did so. He had wordlessly placed a cup of coffee- made just the way she liked it- in front of her. But the part that had made her smile was that next to the mug were two painkillers for her headache. He knew her that well.

She swallowed the pills, but she was already beginning to feel better just by being around him.

"You want any help? I mean, I have no idea what you're doing, but the offer still stands."

"No need," he replied, turning to face her. He was holding two plates, one of which he placed in front of her. Now her small smile turned into her full blown grin. He had made her chocolate chip waffles- her favorite- and had even gone so far as to make it into a smiley face with whipped cream and more chocolate chips. It was something her older brothers used to do for her after a particularly bad night when she was little, and she had continued the habit when she was older and had one of those cases that you'd never really be able to forget. The waffles she ate as often as she could justify, but the whipped cream smile was reserved for days when she really needed to try and make the world seem a little less dark. But of course Jay knew that and of course he would remember it.

"I was going to surprise you with breakfast in bed, but obviously that part of the plan got spoiled," he teased.

"My bad," she laughed.

Even as he teased her, he didn't mind that his surprise hadn't gone according to plan. The sight of her smile and the sound of her laugh were better than anything he could've come up with.

As they sat there, alternating between eating bites of their breakfasts and chatting about both everything and nothing, Hailey couldn't help but keep stealing glances at her partner. What she didn't notice was that he was doing the same. She just kept thinking how thankful she was to have him in her life.

And meanwhile, he was thinking the same thing.