Learning to be Strong Alone // Jeraphina Fanfiction

Chapter XXX: No Matter What

"Sometimes
it's the smallest decisions
that can change your life
Forever."

...............

[Mentions of suicidal thoughts]

3rd POV

Maybe he'd regret it.

Scratch that.

He'd definitely regret it. But he'd regret it either way; awful decisions would be made by either party either way no matter what he ever decided to say. 

If he told someone, people would be angry . . . confused. If he held it in and tied it to the hidden parts of his brain to collect shame like a sponge . . . it would only leave their anger to stew.

Arlo had sat quietly in the living room after Remi had come back to report that there was . . . nothing to report. He sat there with a silent shame only seen by himself—a shame he had that only he would ever know.

Recklessness; that's why he didn't tell Remi. She would take his words like an oath to find John—Alden—and save him. She would put up her heroic act and break into the building where he resided, pitting herself against the authorities with nothing more at her side than an easily disabled quirk and two goofball cowards.

Remi would risk all she currently had to save what John currently didn't:

John.

He couldn't tell Remi; she would be too reckless.

Arlo's eyes crept around the room, looking at who sat waiting for something more to occur.

Isen and Blyke would immediately tell Remi that John was alive, no doubt; they are her two goofballs after all.

His beedy pupils that dilated in the dimly lit room finally locked onto Seraphina as she sat subtly slumped in the comfort of the couch. Her lips quietly trembled . . . yet he found it loudly echoing in the chambers of his vision. Her hands shakily fiddled in her lap, the knuckles of her skin faintly being drained of blood at the pressure she placed.

She'd stopped wearing her hair extensions since John had died—she'd stopped caring about what she wore and how she was perceived by others. The eyeliner she once put on slowly dropped off day by day, and the bags under her eyes seemed to become heavier as the moments ticked by.

Her weight had dropped—maybe not dramatically enough to notice when peering in from far away, but her clothes were baggy. All of them.

She was empty without much to live for in the new life he gave her.

Arlo sighed once again.

He'd regret it no matter what.

All had left the dorm by the time he had finally chosen to.

Arlo stood in the doorway, his hand resting on the white frame of the opened door as he looked back into the empty room.

Almost empty room.

"Seraphina?"

She looked at him with her once glimmering, now blank and barren blue eyes. The girl did nothing but hum at him in response, lips seemingly stilled in a disquieted line.

No matter what.

His mouth gaped as he stood, body paralysed in the light of the hallway like a deer in headlights.

"Claire was...

right."

A lump made its way into Arlo's throat as the words fled the prickled, pink of his tongue, finding an awkward comfort in the skin of his neck; it blocked him from breathing, it blocked him from speaking.