Beautifully Obsessed

Chapter Sixty-One: Almost is never enough

17/07/2022

This chapter is dedicated to a very very close friend of mine, who inspires me to be everything I could ever be and who never fails to remind me of my potential. She truly means the world to me and I hope that everybody reading this finds themselves an adoriest just like I have been so lucky to. 

I hope you enjoy,

~Adoriest's Aph

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Embry's POV

"All I want to do is look after you Embry, I swear, you gave me this fresh start, I won't mess it up."

But how was I to tell him, he already had.

My glossy eyes were blankly trained on the floor, I couldn't look at him. Every time I did I seemed to lose a part of myself, a part of us. "Look at me Embry, everything I do, I do it for you, don't you get that?" Desperation seeped from his voice as I made no move to entertain him. "Or maybe you just say that to make yourself feel better" I muttered, gently rubbing my throbbing cheek.

"Do you know why I call you little bug?" He perked up, crouching in front of me so that I had no choice but to look at him. My silence was enough of an answer for him as he gently smiled, continuing. "Do you remember when-" sighing, my tears fell one by one, "don't Noah, just don't" I whispered. "Do you remember when we were kids, and one summer we were hanging out in your room and there was this spider in your bathroom," he rambled on, ignoring my plea. "We were playing on your new Nintendo when you went to go to the bathroom, and I heard you scream so I ended up dropping and breaking your Nintendo, the Nintendo you had begged your parents for all year."

My eyes finally focused on him, my tears falling faster as the memories hit me painfully. "You came out of the bathroom sobbing, do you remember why?" I gently shook my head no. "Not because this Nintendo you had wanted for so long was broken but because you felt bad that you had been scared by the spider when it had done nothing but exist, it took me the whole day to calm you down, and I can still remember the protest you gave when I offered to kill it for you" he rested his hands on my thighs.

"You have always been like that, you take the saying 'could never hurt a fly' literally, anytime we came in contact with any bug, spider or fly, you never let anyone hurt them, you protected them because they couldn't protect themselves."

"You're my little bug Embry, I have and will always protect you, even if that means protecting you from yourself" he smiled as if he was the greatest thing in the world. My face however remained blank, my tears starting to run dry, my energy running low with them. "I'm tired Noah" I stood up, brushing his hands off of me. "Let's go to bed then babygi-" he held his hand out. "No, Noah, I'm tired of this, of us, of you, I can't keep doing this with you, I'm sorry, god am I sorry, but I can't" I point to my red cheek as I spoke.

"Embry baby-" I cut him off once again. "Noah, just listen please, it's always one story after another, but I can't keep doing this, I wanted to believe in this fresh start so badly, so so so badly that I ignored everything you had done" I tilted my head as I continued.

"I love you, you know that, I know that, I love you so so so much, but I'd be lying to myself if I kept saying I wanted to fix this, there is no fixing this. We have been all that we were meant to be, and God I've wanted to say these words for so long and I never had the courage, I tried so hard to give in and just be happy these past few days."

I watched in growing alarm as he took a step closer, holding my arms out in front of me. I warned him to stay where he was. "You can hit me and hurt me Noah, but it doesn't change anything, it doesn't erase all the bad, I had been so terrified of who I would be without you but now I'm beginning to get scared of who I am becoming with you."

"You don't mean that Embry, you're just thinking irrationally because of my mother, do you really think Indigo can be any more for you than I am, because-" "Stop, just stop Noah, I can't listen to your crap anymore" I bitterly laughed. "I don't need Indigo to be anything for me, I don't need Sebastian to be anything for me, I don't need you to be anything for me, I want to be something for myself. I don't need you to protect me Noah, I'm going to protect myself and because of that I can't just stand by and let what happens happen anymore with us."

I watched as his eyebrows scrunched in frustration, his hands balling in fists, "so what then Embry? Tell me what you want" his tone was exasperated. "I want to leave, I want to go home to my parents, I want to remember the good times we had and just leave it at that, I want to feel sane, fully and completely sane, because every time I almost feel sane it's robbed from me." My eyes pleaded with him to understand.

I flinched as he threw his arms around me, pulling me into a tight and emotional hug. "Okay" he whimpered out and for the first time in that moment, I could hear my heartbeat speeding up, my hands becoming sweaty and my lungs breathless. "W-what?" My previous confidence became hesitant.

"If I keep you here, I'll lose you, so it looks like I'm going to lose you either way, and somehow losing you physically seems much less painful than losing you emotionally" he stepped back, his face now wet with tears. And for a moment my heart constricted painfully at the thought of leaving him but I knew it had to happen. I watched nervously as he walked over to the door, but all he did was open it.

"I'll call a plane and taxi for you, just-just promise you won't forget about me" he spit out through a sob. My body felt like it was on fire as I stood in disbelief, was this really happening? Speechless, all I could do was nod as I stepped towards the door.

Almost there. Almost free. "Can you tell my mom I loved her, I want her to know how much she meant to me before I go." And so there I was almost out the door. Almost putting all this in the past but his words stopped me, they turned me around as I faced him.

"Loved? Meant?" I repeated.

"Noah, you used past tense, what did you mean by that?" I questioned, cautiously stepping towards him. I could feel my hands get shaky by my side, and my brain cursed my heart out for worrying. For being curious, because as I've learnt so many times before curiosity killed the cat. And sometimes, just sometimes, satisfaction isn't enough to bring it back.

"I love you Embry, every version of me that I have ever been has loved you" a small smile lifted on his face. "Noah, you're scaring me" and for the first time this fear he instilled in me wasn't for myself, rather, I was scared for him. "Why did you use past tense?" Just leave Embry, just walk. Out. The. Door.

Don't look back. Stop looking back. "I always thought it was so sad when people said that death didn't just mean you dying but it meant every person you have ever been dying, the child you were when you were 5 and the teenager you had been at 16, the man you could have become at 30."

Shutting my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath, it was now or never. And so I stepped towards the door, almost home. Ready to leave this place. It had been in this moment right here, where I was almost where I had wanted to be for so long. Almost in that cab, getting on that plane. Almost normal.

"I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't live without you Embry, but I know I need to let you go."

But sometimes,

Almost isn't enough.

"So, I'm going to kill myself."