I'll Run to You // Awsten Knight

Chapter 48 - Oh, Sweet New York

January 27, 2018

3:48 A.M.

Lucky for Hope, Houston was still warm enough for her to wear a hoodie with sweatpants, though she had no excuse for the chunky sunglasses with the lenses dark enough that nobody but her could see through them.

It was the best she could do for now.

She would not cry. She could not cry.

Not only because there was a sweet-looking old lady next to her, but if anyone had already recognized her, who knows what people would start speculating about why she was crying?

She couldn't wait for a distraction, she couldn't wait until she left, to be away from Awsten, away from her family, away from responsibilities. She could do anything she wanted to within reason. 

The three and a half hour flight felt more like six hours of torture. Someone behind her smelled extremely like feet, a toddler four rows in front of her kept throwing food at his mother and the flight attendants. They don't deserve that, she thought.

Getting her suitcase was a wreck, to put it simply, unknowing people bumping into her at every direction, suspecting fans trying to get close, until she finally found her luggage and got the hell out of there.

Nicole picked her up. Nicole was always there for her and Hope realized just how much she wishes she took Nicole with her on that trip. 

The ride was nothing but Hope's story of what happened with Awsten, with Maliki, and the god awful airplane going home. 

"Hope, you've delt with this before, right? You know how to get over a breakup like this, just do what you did last time," Nicole thought it was good advice in the moment until Hope turned it all around on her.

"You mean drinking until I threw up and going back to some random ex that doesn't care about me and just cares about my body?" She laughs with no humor. "Yeah, seems like the best idea I've ever heard." After Eliza cheated on Hope, Hope went back to one of her exes from high school, someone she can barely remember now, but she still knew he was a jackass. Her old friend told her it was the worst decision she could make and advised against it, but Hope could be one of the most irrational people when she got out of a relationship. Nicole was the only person keeping her sane at this point.

"Then whenever you go out, I'm coming with you to make sure you don't do anything stupid," and the way Nicole said it made the whole thing sound non-negotiable. 

 Hope couldn't find her words, she just looked out of the window, focusing on one person at a time until they left her view, then she moved on to the next. She never saw the same face twice in New York, so it was a rare time she ever stopped to look at people in the first place.

But Nicole being with her all the time? Sure, she loved her friend, but being forced to be with her best friend until she got over Awsten sounded like torture. "You're not going to try to live with me, are you? Or can I have my own apartment?"

"Hey," Nicole put her right hand up in surrender, the other staying steady on the wheel, "I know spending every day with me after you'd just gone through a breakup wouldn't be the best thing, so of course I'm not going to live with you. You do need your own space. I'm just saying that whenever you go to a party or gathering, you let me know and I will be there right by your side the whole time to make sure you're rational enough to even be there. I'm trying to look out for you."

Hope understood, she knew it was the right decision; there was just a part of her that kept complaining and asking why she couldn't just be left alone for a year to feel sorry for herself. "But I don't need a babysitter, Nicole. I'm a grown woman with this huge career and I can hire anyone to wipe my ass within five minutes," her voice was getting louder, and wondered where this was taking her. "I don't need my friend to look after me all the time"

Nicole went silent for a long, long minute. All she could manage was an I'm sorry before they got to Hope's apartment.

Then Hope was alone, Nicole said it was for the best, but she knew her friend only wanted to leave the situation, find something else to do with her time.

When she looked around at her home, all Hope could do was remember the time that Awsten stayed here. The late night on the couch, everything he did for her birthday... she wouldn't dare go into her bedroom yet.

The bittersweet memories of something that felt something so far away lingered more than Hope wished. But, in truth, it wasn't bittersweet like a casual breakup would've brought. This was a whole new deal.

Tears started streaming down her face before she even felt the sting behind her eyes, the shaking of her chin, wrinkling her nose, it was all horrific.

Her heart was hammered and nailed and stomped on by a child throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. Her confidence plummeted to make her feel like nothing.

The worst of it all was that she couldn't do anything about it, there was no going back to Awsten and talking to him about, no texting or calling, it wouldn't be right over the phone. She most definitely wouldn't put Gracie into any trouble and ask her to come visit while it was her own brother Hope had just broken up with. 

Awsten needed his space. Hope needed hers.

But there was no space in New York, you're either trampled like a cockroach on the street or you're the bug killer. 

She'll squash Maliki like they're nothing but a gnat, Awsten would be caught in a Venus fly trap, all of Hope's sadness would be electrocuted in a lantern to lure pests to.

Hope couldn't sleep the rest of that night. Her feelings tossed around like her body in that bed she felt so uncomfortable in. It wasn't long ago when her and Awsten were in these sheets together feeling feelings she'd never had before, never thought she'd have. Nothing with Eliza or her other exes felt like Awsten did.

But really, what was the true connection of their relationship? She knew she thought he was sweet, funny, enticing, captivating, even. But what was it all for?

Thoughts and thoughts kept showing up to the doorstep of her brain and didn't leave until they got a full meal and left satisfied. She was being taken from, her own self was taking and taking and taking from her own mind, her own heart.

The heart that once belonged to Awsten, though they never said anything about love. She knew her heart belonged to him in those short months they'd known each other.

But why?

Why?