Always Atlas

19 ➵ Petrol Station

ALWAYS

ATLAS

A car honking at us and is what makes the both of us pull away from the kiss and then atlas shoves his middle finger into the air and towards the car while I yell some unpleasant words at the retreating vehicle. Atlas lowers me to the ground, waiting for me to stabilize myself as his hands linger on my waist.

His touch felt warm and soft. The thoughts roaming around in my head weren't though, they were cold and harsh. They consisted of hurtful things like 'you're disgusting for letting him touch your gross body', 'he can feel how skinny and sick you are, he's going to think your disgusting for being so small and boney.'

"Atlas?"  I ask him nervously as I chew on the inside of my lip, "What do you feel?"

Atlas furrows his dark, thick eyebrows, staring down at me with a confused expression when I send him a worried one. He goes to open his mouth to speak but stops quickly when I grab both of his hands and slide them beneath the thick material of my jumper, letting them rest on the bare skin of my waist. 

"What do I feel?" He repeats the question, seeming confused.

I roll my eyes as I stare at him, his warm large hands warming up my overly cold skin. "When you touch me—what do you feel?" I add in hopes that he will understand.

Atlas pauses for a few minutes staring down at me as he shrugs his big broad shoulders. "Nothing."

Is that the answer I wanted? Yes, I think so anyway.

I didn't want him to say that he could feel my bones which were hidden by a very thin layer of pale skin. I didn't want him to say that he could feel majorly cold skin and my lack of muscle. I didn't want him to say that I was disgustingly sick and that I should get away from him.

That I should go eat something.

"Good." I stated.

His brows knit together in confusion, once again. "Good?" He slowly tears his hands away from my small waist. "Why are you asking me this?"

I shake my head dismissively.

"Rory," he says sternly as he stares down at me with a deep intensity which makes me look away from his blue eyes as I can't hold his gaze for longer than two seconds. "Did someone touch you? Someone you didn't want to touch you?"

I shake my head, unable to speak once again but I force it out anyway. "Do I have to answer that?" 

He shakes his head and then we fall into a deathly quiet silence, the only small sound heard is the whistling of the wind, a car zooming past every now and then and the soft humming of some sort of generator at the gas station across the road from us.

My stomach growls at the thought of the snacks and energy drinks that would be in the place. I haven't eaten in a few days and the pure thought of food actually sounded good right now, and that never happens.

"You hungry?" Atlas asks, obviously hearing my stomach grumble, I can't help but nod my head slowly at him.

He grabs my small cold hand and he intertwines his fingers with mine, As we are about to cross the road and head in the direction of the petrol station, he drops my hand out of nowhere. I don't care at all as I was going to drop it anyway due to not liking the constant touching it was making me feel slightly anxious. I trailed closely behind him not wanting to be left behind and in the dark by myself.

We wait for the traffic lights to turn red, so that the traffic becomes congested and slow, long lines of cars building up as they wait impatiently, before stepping onto the street and weaving through the cars until we reach the other side.