Let Go

Epilogue

Aiden's P.O.V.

One duffle bag at a time I carried them to my car. Raiden moved the boxes. It was tiring; going back and forth from the house to the car. Ruby and Tatiana tried helping but they were doing more damage than anything, really. We could've asked for help from the mansion's servants, but I didn't like doing that.

“Be careful with that one. It has some glass,” I told Raiden.

He was so happy that we were going to be living together again. It was different, though. Living in the Manor was a whole other thing than living in a small house.

I couldn’t believe I was taking Scarlet’s advice and moving in with the Reds. But, to be honest, after the incident and Ruby’s taking, I was a little more paranoid than usual. It would be safer for Ruby to live in a guarded manor than in a house on a public street.

Tatiana was going to be with her, too. She loved Tatiana like a mother, which was good. So, with Scarlet and Tatiana watching over her, she would be alright. Plus, Blake was dead.

I was a little nervous.

I was going to live where Harken lived. Assuming he was going to actually stay. It was a big step even though we were still trying to figure out how baby steps worked.

I drove us to the Manor, where butlers took our stuff to the correct rooms. I had my own quarters, which had a room for me, and a room that Tatiana and Ruby took for themselves, which left us with an extra room should anyone need it.

I opened my window and saw him sitting in the backyard.

He looked like a daydream. I couldn’t think of him in any other way. I put my things in my room and went down straight to the backyard to see him. He was still in the same position, playing with his two new puppies: Onyx and Jasper. He adopted them yesterday.

“Hey,”

“Aiden,” He said. He let the dogs play and fixed his attention on me.

“I didn’t get the chance to apologize,” I started, but he didn’t let me finish.

“When I first returned to this town, I was thinking of you. When I tried to kill myself in the upstairs bathtub, I was thinking of you. When I was in the psych ward, it was you on my mind. Every day, I’d wake up and think of no one but you. It's your blood that runs through my veins,”

He took my hands in his and looked me in the eyes like they do it on TV. “You have nothing to apologize for. You were trying to find your life away from everything. Starting new, and I get that. But I couldn’t. In therapy, nothing made me talk but the mention of you with someone else. I couldn’t fathom knowing you had someone else in your life,”

I didn’t know the vastness of what Harken had gone through to get where he was now, and it made me even more sorry for how selfish I was.

“I have so much to tell you. So much. From the times I watched you play football from the benches, to the times I watched you study at school. The classes we shared and the times we didn’t. The way it killed me to mark you with a knife. Do you know how much I hate myself for it? How much I wish that I had died instead of causing what I did to your fragile body?" I could feel him welling up. It was just as sensitive a topic for him as it was for me. I didn't even think anyone was allowed to mention that day until Harken did. "God, Aiden. You have no idea how much I worship all of you, and I can’t even put it in words,”

I started tearing up. I thought of the bad times before the good times. I thought of how much he really occupied of my past, and how much he was present in my present, despite being away for most of it. I thought of a future with Harken, and how beautiful and broken would it be with him rebuilding himself brick by brick, and I realized I wanted nothing more than help him do that.

I trampled him and rolled us against the grass, giving him a gentle kiss. A kiss that put his mind at ease. A kiss that told him I’m going to be his from now on. We weren’t there yet, but we were on our way.

“I wanna ask you something,” I said.

“Ask away,”

“Can we start again?” I asked him.

“Start what?” He asked.

I sat properly. I cleared my throat. “Harken Red, do you wanna go on a date with me?”

“Aiden Haile, fuck yes. Been waiting for this question since I saw you in the school library,”

“Those were good times,”

“I fell in love with a boy for the first time in that library,” Harken said, which made me blush.

We kissed, and I realized that even though I didn’t know much about Harken Red, I knew every inch of him. I had him all memorised in my head, like my own house, like my own name. I knew that if my eyes were blinded and he was there, I'd recognise every tattoo decorating his body. I knew where to touch to land where I wanted. Later I’d know every story behind every single one of them. I’d know the key to his heart. I’d know what every letter to every word meant, and I’d know how much he loved my name being there in the sea of ink that told his life, one illustration at a time.

Later, I’d learn how to fall in love with Harken Red one last time.

A/N: after more than a year of updates, Let Go is finished. And we're well over 20k reads.

Please tell me if you enjoyed Aiden's and Harken's journey and tell me what you think.

I'll see you again in my next story A Flower Blossoms Silently.

All the love, Aiden Summers x.