When Sunrise Comes

Chapter 5 - Miles

I shamelessly stared as Jaiven fell asleep in my arms, her head resting against my chest. Something about her reassured me that even if Kade did find out that we had spent the night on the roof together filled with deep conversation, that everything would be okay. I couldn't bring myself to worry about whether or not she was going to tell him. It didn't seem like it, and even if she did, it isn't like I chose to be up here. He had instructed me to be thrown up here after all.

Jaiven made me curious. I felt myself wanting to get to know her and learn about all of the things that made her who she was. I wanted to know her secrets even if they never compared to the size of mine. I wanted to comfort her and provide her a shoulder to cry on so that she could finally grieve the loss of her mother properly. The urge to be strong for her coursed through my body on its own accord. Although she knew more about me than anyone else there were still so many things she didn't know. 

They were things I didn't ever want her to know and then there were the things I wanted to tell her the minute her beautiful eyes opened again. Like how I too lost my mother at a young age in a surfing accident where she drowned so I avoided water at all costs and never learned to swim. I found that I wanted to show her all of the little places where I found peace in this shitty town to comfort her as they did me. These thoughts terrified me. Never before felt, they were foreign and dangerous. As much as I enjoyed the thrill of danger this was a different sort of danger that sent chills running down my spine after one night of conversation.

I knew better than to involve her in my life. I couldn't be the person to break her, because soon enough it would happen if she was trapped in my world. A world of secrecy and lies. Void of emotion and a clear barrier between the week and the weekend. The completely opposite two sides of Miles Gray, of which no one saw both. They saw either one or the other. No in between. That was the only way this life worked. During the week I was a beaten up teenager picked on by the golden boy and his team for nothing. Too weak to defend myself, a town black mark from one story that took place long ago. On the weekend I was a mystery monster that no one heard or seen of until I appeared in the old warehouse by the train tracks two towns over. Covered by my hood, disappearing into the darkness and never accompanied by even those who believed they knew me once the early hours dawned. 

A double life lived perfectly separate, just how I liked it. No one from the school ever attended the fight scene two towns over as it was too far away. No one from that fight scene ever appeared at Nicolson high school. It kept me safe, hidden from everyone and allowed me to retain my walls. All of which was abruptly jeopardized by the sudden entrance of the brown-eyed, blonde-haired girl fast asleep on my chest. She didn't deserve someone like me in her life that much was clear. Yet I was too selfish. I let her walk right in the front door of my life and over the carpet with her shoes on without a second thought.

I gazed down at the peaceful look resting on her face. Her brown eyes covered by her dark eyelashes and soft cheekbones. A perfectly straight nose and full lips adorned her beautiful face, encased in hair ranging from dark brown to honey blonde shades. She really is truly beautiful. Dark bags sat beneath her eyes as the death of her mother lingered on her shoulders, a weight she didn't know how to rid herself of. Truth to be told it never would completely go away, this I knew. It was something I believed that you learned to live with and carry, always knowing that is how they stayed with you even after they were gone.

Jaiven lightly stirred, her head tucking lower on my chest so that I could no longer see her face. Heat emanated from her small frame and into mine. I was usually quite warm but the brick wall against my back did little against the cool night breeze. There are a lot of things I would give to have met Jaiven elsewhere or in a different way, but in my mind I knew that it most likely never would have ended in even a word spoken between us hadn't we been locked on this roof together. Whether that was for the better or the worse I wasn't sure.