Royal love

Chapter 60

"Adeline," he says. "It's not what it looks like."

He must realize how scared I am from my face.

"Oh really?" I ask with a forced laugh. "'Cause it looks like you have my name carved into your back."

He doesn't respond. He stands up, grabbing his shirt from where it was on the roof, pulls it on.

"Adeline—"

"I've known you for five months, Hayden. Five. Why in the f*ck would you ever get my name carved into your back!?" I spit loudly.

"Adeline—"

"This ruins everything," I yell. "I don't know who you are, how am I supposed to know you weren't sent here to spy on me? How do I know your not a creep who's obsessed with me?"

He doesn't respond, again.

I feel tears prick my eyes, who knows why. Maybe because someone I trusted is not the person I thought he was at all.

"I can explain," Hayden says very slowly. "Everything. I can explain everything."

I wipe my tears away as they roll down my cheeks. I stare at him.

He stares back.

His eyes are dropping and he looks, genuinely, sad.

I sit.

"Ten minutes."

A pause.

"And if I don't like the explanation, your leaving. Everything. This house, the school, my life."

Hayden dust a few feet away from me.

We don't look at each other. I stare at the trees that tower over the house, that tower over me.

Hayden takes a deep breath.

"It was my father," he says.

I look at him but he's looking out into the nothingness too.

"Is that it? Seriously?" I ask.

Hayden sighs again. Shakes his head. I look away from him again.

"This is going to be a lot, okay? Can you handle it?" He asks.

"For f*ck sake, Hayden. I told you to explain. Explain," I spit.

"I'm the son of a very famous man," he says. "he leads almost every mafia in the city. Almost every gang. He's famous in the worst way a person could be famous in."

He pauses, as if to let me soak it in.

"I was sent to the school to watch you, I was sent to get as much information as I could and kill you." The wind blows, I feel it on my face. It makes my nose red and runny. My cheeks burn from the cold. "I couldn't do it," he says slowly. "I couldn't kill you," he says so slowly. "So," he licks his chapped lips.

"He carved your name into my back to remind me what my job was."

I feel my frozen eyelids unfreeze and my eyes widen. Suddenly, for one of the first times in my life, I feel bad. I feel bad for jumping to conclusions.

But at the same time, what was I supposed to think?

"I'm sorry," is all I can get out. My brain is overloading with information.

"It's not your fault," he says quietly.

When I look over, in his direction, I see his eyes glistening, like mine. Tears.

Forming tears.

I can tell he's fighting them. Screaming at himself to suck it up.

I know that feeling.

I know it too well.

I get closer to him, lightly wrap my arms round him, trying to hover it over his scars in case they still hurt him.

It's a little awkward but it's what I have to offer him. I've never been good at comforting, since I didn't have a figure in my life that properly showed me it.

He leans his back into my arm to silently tell me it's okay for me to touch them. I rest my head on his shoulder, he rests his head on my head.

I feel his head moving.

I feel the emotions.

I feel the desperation, sorrow, helplessness, seep out of his body. I feel them float in the air.

And then I feel water in my hair.

A tear he had let roll down his cheek into my hair.

I tighten my grip on him.

I want him to know I'm here for him, because nobody ever let me know they were there for me.

And I know how it feels.

He wraps his arms around me. His grip is so tight, it's as if he thinks I'm going to run away now.

Suddenly I feel even worse for telling him ti explain or leave my life.

____

Around thirty minutes pass. Hayden's head is now in my lap, he's sobbing uncontrollably. I don't think this kind of crying is just from what I've done and said to him tonight or the story behind my name carved in his back.

It's years upon years of built up tears from the abuse, the suffering, he endured.

And, for that, no matter how much he cries, I will never think of him as weak.

Never.

____

Hayden is done crying. He has been for a while. He fell asleep with his face in my lap. I slowly lean back so my back is on the roof.

I hold his head in place as I do so, not wanting him to wake up and think I'm leaving.

Once I'm in a comfortable position where his head won't fall, I stare at the sky.

Run my hands through his long golden hair. His long, soft, golden hair.

I breath in the cold air. Stare at the stars. They shine so bright where we are now. Back at the school, the sky was too foggy at night to see the stars.

When I was a few years younger than I am now I would stare at the stars from my room in the castle. I would count them. It was my way of calming down.

I listen as the trees sway to the strong wind blowing every so often. I watch them dance with each other as my eyelids become heavy from my tears and from the late hour of the night it is.

And, again, I don't fight the urge to sleep that's pulling my eyelids shut.

Word count: 1009
9-15-23
6:26 pm
(Not revised)
Sad chapter 😢
Hope you enjoyed ❤️