Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 58

Awsten, Otto, and Jawn walked silently through the parking lot.

None of them knew what to say, Otto and Jawn knew that Awsten was still furious with everything that had happened tonight and the last thing that they wanted was to make him more upset or angry.

They had left the bus so quickly, they had no idea if Chris was still sitting there with Lucas and Geoff or if he had gone back to his own bus.

Jawn was honestly surprised by the fact that it was Chris who had been the voice of reason in this situation, he was the biggest person who disapproved of Claire falling for Awsten in the beginning even if he didn't openly voice that opinion it was obvious.

"I can see the top of her head over there Aws." Jawn points out quietly, and he can hear when Awsten lets out a sigh of relief nodding.

"Thank you both. I love you guys." Awsten mumbles, not turning back to look at either of them before walking up to the gate letting himself in to walk up the bleachers.

Claire had her head buried in her knees, staring down at the ground underneath her.

For it being a summer night, it was cold outside and he could see her visibly shivering.

"Bear it's me." Awsten calls out softly to her before walking up to where she was sitting.

He watches as her shoulders begin to shake, and he knew that she was crying. He gave her a minute, waiting for Claire to let him know that it was okay that he sat down next to her.

Claire picks her head up, and Awsten can see how red her face is in the glow of the moon above them illuminating the tears that were rolling down slowly.

"How did you know where I was?" she asks him, Awsten sighs at her tone.

She almost sounds annoyed at the fact that he was able to find her so quickly, at the fact that he knew where she would be without a second guess in his mind.

"If there's a lot on your mind, and theres bleachers nearby you're either going to be sitting on them or laying underneath them." he replies gently, holding out the sweatshirt he grabbed for her. "Can I sit next to you?"

Claire musters up a smile, taking the sweatshirt from Awsten before nodding for him to sit by her.

"I'm sorry if I scared you, I should of answered your phone calls. I didn't think that they were going to tell you guys that I left, I was going to come back. Who came to you?" she mumbles as he sits down.

Awsten leans his head on her shoulder softly sighing. "You scared the fuck out of us Claire, that wasn't okay. You should of just come to the bus after it happened instead, Chris showed up in a panic." he replies frustratedly. "But with that said, are you okay?"

Claire lets out a sad laugh shaking her head, "We've never fought before, not like that at least. I've never seen him look at me with such hatred in his eyes. I didn't think they would be overly thrilled about it because they're protective of me, but I didn't think that was going to happen." she tells him as her voice shakes.

"I think he made good points, but the way that he went about it was just all wrong." she says quietly.

Awsten sighs as he opens up his arms for Claire, not having any other words to say but just wanting to be there to comfort her.

As soon as she was safely in his embrace a wave of emotions came over her as her breath hitched in the back of her throat, small sobs leaving her mouth.

"I'm sorry for scaring all of you, I'm so sorry." she repeats over and over again.

Awsten shush's her softly, running a hand through her hair attempting to comfort her.

"You can't run from things bear, take it from me. Nothing is solved when you run, you just end up making things worse sometimes." he speaks honestly, not letting go of her.

"I don't think I have a job anymore. How am I going to move to California with nothing? I still have rent to pay in Philly. He got rid of me so easily." she sobs, processing everything all at once.

It broke Awstens heart to hear her so upset, he wanted to take all of her problems and feelings and shove them into his own chest so that she wouldn't have to feel any of them.

He wanted to wave a wand and fix everything, rewind back to Houston and have longer conversations about their future and how everyone else would feel about it.

In the back of his mind he knew that the only thing that mattered was the way that the both of them felt, but he was also was sympathetic to the way that her friends were feeling.

"He was helping them look for you." he tells her quietly, still smoothly her hair gently.

Claire was surprised to hear this, Collin was stubborn and when he got upset he stayed upset so she wouldn't of expected him to drop it that quickly.

"Did you tell any of them exactly where I was?" she asks him curiously and he shakes his head.

"No I figured that you wouldn't want to be around that many people right now." he tells her honestly.

"I don't want to go back to the bus tonight." she mumbles stubbornly and Awsten pulls away for a minute to look at her.

"You have to Claire. You have to go and at least tell them that you're safe, after that you can come to our bus but you can't keep running." he says sternly. "This, cannot happen again. I know you're upset, but this was fucking terrifying." he says, this time his voice cracking.

"It's been almost 4 hours since your fight." he tells her, knowing that her phone had been turned off so she would of had no idea that she was gone for that long.

In all reality she really hadn't thought about how scary it must of been for everyone to see that she wasn't outside of the bus.

"I didn't realize how long it's been." she admits, feeling the full weight of her actions at that moment.

"That's what happens when you turning your fucking phone off when people are frantically trying to find you Claire, do you remember telling me how it felt when Madison left you and Collin and me saying I could never imagine how that feels? I know how that feels now, it was only 4 hours and I never want to have to do that again." Awsten replies, his tone serious as she nods softly. 

"I'm sorry, I'm right here. It won't happen again I promise." she mumbles, settling back into his arms again. 

"I love you Claire, you just scared me and I know that you're upset but I'd be willing to bet you scared Collin even more. You need to go talk to him." he replies softly into the top of her head.

Despite the number of emotions running through her head at the moment, she knew that he was right.