𝓙𝓪𝓷𝓮 (18+) | ON PAUSE

Chapter 8 | Never Escape

Jaylin.

We laugh for hours. We talk for hours. We listen to each other.

When I glanced at the clock, it was already 7 p.m.

"Okay, Okay. One more question," he sets his coco cola on the nightstand. "Why did you come here? Like why did you move here?"

Ah. That question...

"Um, because. Because of my brother and my mom...they um, brought us here," I smile.

I can tell that it wasn't a good answer but he nods understandably. He doesn't ask. He doesn't force. He just listens. Man...

We've opened quite wide over the past hours. The distance between us is no longer that far. I've learned that the other guys that are always with him, grew together since they were 10.

He met all of them at daycare. Apparently.

Axel. "He's too peaceful, but he can be unusually reticent at times. He can be decent at times and has a strange relationship with dressing the same color socks with his shirts. He has too much control over people, but we find ourselves following him. He's awful."

Asher. "He complains too loudly. He acts like a child. Every day, he criticizes the fact that he is the youngest in our entire group. However, he is only 8 minutes younger than his twin. He's a toddler."

Theo. "He's too loud. Though he's bulky, he is a quite big softy on the inside. Loves to do coloring books. He's just odd, honestly."

Leith. "He's too much of a fuck boy. He plays with too many girls. He hits too many people when he laughs. He's a jackass."

Wade. "He's too serious. Too solemn."

That's all he had to say about them.

I move to my side again. "Actually..." I pause for a second before I could tell him. "We came here 2 months ago because..." he nods. "We found out that my brother had been missing for a year and that my mom had overdosed 4 months ago? I think."

I look at him. He stays silent. He returns his gaze at me. I can't read him.

Of course, I can't. I dropped a whole bomb on this guy, that I met, what, a week ago?

"And this is the house my mom and my brother had lived in," I sigh. "And I came here only once when I was 10. My father and I lived on the other side of the country."

He just stares at me. Is he shocked?

He should be.

"And that's why we moved."

My only sibling. My only brother. My only bond. Hayden Cregor had gone missing for a year. I only found out about two months ago. Same with my mother. Juliette Cregor. Overdosing 4 months ago.

I wasn't close to her, but the only times I spent with her when I was 10 were pure mother and daughter moments. A mother and daughter's only moment together.

My dad got a call one day back in New Jersey. I was sitting on my bed, thinking about my life. How fucked up it was until he came into my room and said we're moving.

☁Flashback☁️

"Jaylin?"

"Yeah?" I pull down my headphones.

"Do you like living here? In Georgia?" he sits down on the edge of the bed, with his back towards me.

"Yeah...I guess, why?" I get worried, seeing how tensed his shoulders are.