exclusive [ dreamwastaken x reader ]

chapter forty-seven

It didn't occur to me.

Normally things occur to me – because I plan.

I like things planned. Planned out. I like to be in the know of the endings.

I'm not that kind of person who opens the last page of the book to know if the ending is worth the process of reading, but I am that kind of person who likes to know how many pages a book has so I know if I can read it in the period of time that I have it planned for.

And with planning things, there comes the knowing of possible outcomes. And there are also plans for statistically unlikely outcomes – even if I'm not sure what they are.

It bothers me when things which I planned have an outcome I haven't calculated. When they didn't even occur to me.

But that hasn't happened to me in a long time. Because I plan. I control.

So, I wonder why it didn't occur to me.

I wonder how it didn't occur to me that Clay would break his promise.

I wonder how it didn't occur to me as I heard the doorbell. I dried my tears and was ready to open the door for my family who came back from store. I was ready to play pretend in front of them, because I didn't need them to know anything that was going on with my mind and my life one day before I was leaving them to go to Europe. I was ready to leave this all behind me. I was ready to get some distance between me and everything in my life here.

I wonder how it didn't occur to me that Clay would break his promise – and show up.

But he did.

And I haven't planned it.

Because I was so sure I stopped him from fighting.

Because I felt like the battle was already over.

But apparently not for him. Because he looks at me like he will just never give up – on me. On us.

This time the sparkle in his eyes comes from the fight he is willing to keep up.

I haven't even opened the door only a little – I threw it open. I just didn't expect him.

It didn't occur to me. And now I can't believe how I could have been so foolish as to believe he would be anything else than a fighter.

But as his eyes lock with mine – the eyes that have looked at me with every possible feeling in them I could imagine – I can't see anyone else than a person who would fight.

I can't see anyone else – but I can see so much other things in those eyes. I can see the last time we were here – right here with me inside my house at the door and him right in front of my door outside.

When he told me he loved me.

That he loves me.

That I can also see in his eyes.

I wonder if he's able to see it in mine, too.

He shouldn't be here – he shouldn't be able to see that I love him, too.

He shouldn't make himself break even more.

And something else... he's breaking me with that as well. I don't know if he knows that. I knew it. I just didn't know how much it would be.

And it's so much. So much breaking that could have been avoided...

I didn't know that seeing Clay would make my body feel this. A mixture of feelings. Everything. For some, this might be what love feels like, I think.