After Us

Chapter 11 : Two steps back

For the first time in months since he'd decided to come home and complete his internship here, Type got up from his bed this morning feeling like he hadn't slept at all.

To be fair, that wasn't far from the truth. He'd spent the whole night wide awake trying to convince himself he did the right thing by telling Tharn to leave. By telling him not to come back, shutting the door behind him and feeling entirely like he was walking towards his own death with every damn step he took back to the house, up to his room and even further away from Tharn.

It didn't help that even after everything he'd said, he realized that Tharn didn't exactly leave. He'd walked away when he told him to, but didn't drive away or at least drove back to the hotel like Type had expected him to. Peeking through the curtains had been a stupid idea - he hadn't wanted to, he'd tried not to, really, but it was just hard - because the moment he saw Tharn's rented car still parked on the same spot when he'd peeked to check, he found himself creeping back there by the window almost every damn hour just to check if Tharn was still there.

The text message he'd received at the same time didn't help either - he'd expected much, much more than mere messages from Tharn to be honest, especially after what happened earlier - but they were more than enough to keep that hopeful part of him unable to fully accept the reality that they weren't meant to be.

You can chase me away, but I'm not going anywhere, Type. Not this time. Not until we've talked and cleared things out once and for all. You can't just tell me to go and expect me to follow. I refused to. I'm not going anywhere. Not again. Not without you.

Much as he wanted to answer, to tell Tharn he would only be wasting his time, he decided not to say anything. He'd already done enough damage by leaving Tharn without a proper explanation two years ago, and he wasn't planning on making it worse by thinking, and letting Tharn believe they could simply pick up where they'd left off as if the heartbreak and the pain he'd caused Tharn didn't happen.

Tharn obviously thought it was that simple, but it wasn't. None of it had ever been simple to begin with, not then, and neither would they be now just because Tharn had said so. Lots of things had already happened during the past two years they weren't together and Type wasn't that stupid to expect things to change just because he wished for them to.

Even now, he couldn't let himself believe that there was still a chance for redemption. For another chance, as Tharn had explicitly pointed out. Type knew better than to do that to himself, much more to Tharn, knowing the extent of what Tharn had to give up to be with him.

He wasn't going to let Tharn throw his life away for someone who couldn't choose him, his future, over someone who was never good enough for him.

The time they spent together earlier might be a mistake, but it was his to keep. The memories, that almost surreal feeling of being loved by Tharn repeatedly that he didn't want it to end, surrendering everything to the man suspended above him, inside him, and the thought that even for just a moment, while he remained pinned under the delicious weight of Tharn's body, surrounded by his scent wishing he could bottle it all so he could take it home with him, clinging into that familiar warmth and basking on it for as long as he was allowed, Tharn was his again.

Even though he knew everything was temporary, that none of it could ever be real because Tharn was never going to be his again. Tharn belonged somewhere else, to someone else, and Type knew that even before Tharn came here to find him.

That should have been enough to be cautious, enough for him to keep his distance but he guessed he already knew where they were headed even before they got there. He'd never prided himself to be in complete control whenever Tharn was involved, and it was obvious that this time wasn't an exception either.