All Because Of Him

ninety three.

"Secrets I have held in my heart, are harder to hide than I thought. Maybe I just wanna be yours, I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours."

❀

There are moments you cherish in life. Moments when you feel as though you're a broken piece of glass, but then someone comes along who carries the magic glue to piece you back together again. To fill the cracks, sew the severed fragments of your heart and replace all those somber dark memories with something lighter, brighter and warm.

That someone, the magic glue, the shield protecting me from all my demons, the voice reminding me that I'm not alone is none other than Mason West.

When the two of us got back to Jessica's he practically carried me over to the shower, helped me undress despite my attempts to do it myself, and washed every inch of my skin, leaving behind trails of kisses in every area he cleansed.

Then the thai food arrived and he gave me his wallet to pay the delivery man while he continued to get dressed, and as my bare feet wandered over to the front door, mind questioning how appropriate it is to open it in nothing but Mason's Tshirt, something fell onto the hardwood floor below me.

I picked it up, turned it around and my eyes widened.

What fell out of Mason's wallet was a picture. A picture of us.

The one I showed him outside the treehouse, the one I left in my shoebox all these years he placed in his wallet.

I didn't have time to over analyze it, because by the time the magnitude of the situation hit me the doorbell rang for the second time. So I placed it back inside his wallet and for the rest of the night, while we ate food and watched the next Marvel movie, after he spread open my legs and made due on his promise to show me just how much he appreciates me, while he held me close, whispered sweet nothings in my ear and kissed me goodnight I didn't say a thing about it.

But my heart swelled.

And for the first time since this arrangement between the two of us started, something different filled the cracks, something I've tried to let go of, something sharp and more painful than I imagined it'd feel.

Hope.

❀

The next morning, while half my brain is still lost in whatever dream I was having and my mind gradually forms a coherent ball of consciousness, I wake up to the feeling of calloused fingers brushing against my cheekbone, and a pair of soft lips kissing my temple not once, not twice, but three times.

My eyes slowly flutter open to find the culprit. The window is cracked, letting in a light breeze, the morning sun casting a yellow glow across his face and my chest aches at the sight. He's propped up with one elbow digging into the mattress, his other hand resting gently along the side of my face, eyes staring down at me. There's a look in his eyes that's turning me inside out and when the corners of his lips rise ever so slightly mine can't help but follow suit.

"Good morning, beautiful." He says to me, and a flurry of birds fly through my stomach as they do everytime he looks at me like this.

His eyes gleam over me as his thumb continues its movements along my cheekbone, gently swiping back and forth in such an intimate way that I've become blind to all the warning signs blaring in the back of my head. But as the expression on my face turns tender, mind trying not to become so dependent on waking up in the mornings with him by my side, I notice something different about him, something off.