nevertheless~

part 73

TESSA’S POV

I sit here with clammy hands and shaky knees in the huge foyer. Even though the establishment and the way it’s maintained tells me that the air conditioning will be at a blast right now, I can’t stop worrying. I just can't. My phone goes up continuously but thankfully for the person who created the infamous, do-not-disturb mode in there, I am not being irritated by the sound of my notifications. It sits atop the table, upside down and I can see it going off one after the other..

“Tessa Young?”, the sweet lady calls for me, as I coolly move my attention to her, to show her that I was actually calm and totally not awaiting her call for me.

“You may please”, she shows me a pleased smile and I pass her one of my own as I pack up.

It never dies, does it? The anxiety. The fear of the unknown and the consequences of our circumstances or our words when we say them. It’s so scary everytime. I’ve been in this sphere for a long time, almost 3 years now, and it's still the same, it never changes.

I get my file and bag up my cellphone as I take cool steps towards the long teakwood door. I knew this was out of my scope, I am fish out of water here, but it’s the best view on my situation. After being ground up in this sphere with Jonathan I think I need a new breather. It’s this. This is my new breather, my inexperience lacks in this particular world but everything else covers it, for me.

I knock twice on the door, before pushing it ajar and walking in when the panel see’s me.

“Miss Young, you’re just who we’ve been waiting for all day”, A distinguished looking man tells me as I walk into the room with a smile plastered on me, as I feel the depths of what I do here.
Everything I do in this room, I say behind these four closed walls and in front of these 5 people decides what I will do ever in my life, it determines if the decision of leaving Hardin alone in Paris was right or not. It hurt like a bitch staging that drama but it had to be done.

*𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠*

I lay there watching him on his arm, as I trace the black ink on his neck, his tattoos and the folds of his skin, lovingly for the last time tonight. I know what I have to do, and I have to do this, for me and him. Even though I don’t owe him anything, I know he needs this. He wants this. I could easily sit here, and walk all over him and get to where I want to, but I can’t do that. I can’t see the fire die from his eyes.

I had seen this boy walk in the office, looking adoringly at that cabin of mine and me, and I knew from the first day that I caught him and met eyes, that his adornment wasn’t alone for my cabin, but it was for me and I was the one who could get him in there and I knew that he deserved it.

I kiss the small mole on his arm and the red spots along it, as he turns away from me in bed, the sheets that hold us together tightening at my end. I stretch and run my hands into his hair, the hair I have grown to love so much over the weeks, the hair that gets as tangled as this story of ours.

I get out of the bed, letting the sheets fall from me, and pick my phone, knowing that it’s been 20 minutes since I was supposed to get out of here and meet Jonathan. I was supposed to be on that first class plane with Jonathan and touchdown at Washington, and I lay here as I let that pass by. I let his offer slide away, that didn’t mean I let down the offer that came to me as a mail.

I drop a small reply to him as I start packing my things and trying not to look at my boy who sleeps there, hoping he’d wake up to me. As much as this hurts me, I have to do it. Being the girl that I am, however learned of life and books I am, I know that this sacrifice hurts but it’s gotta happen. It had to, I never got a chance to bend my life into my flows or towards what I want it to be, it was always my mother who did it.