From Mine to Ours

45: So, that's that.

"No, no I'm not okay."

They deserved to know the truth. Dinner wasn't awkward as I expected to be after blurting that out. I was worried that I would seem dramatic and we would've had our heads hung over our plates in tense silence. Thankfully, the opposite happened and I nearly punched myself for having doubted them in the first place.

Let's have a cuddle on the sofa?" Asher's usually chipper voice is toned down to an almost whisper and the sounds of chairs scraping along the floor reach my ringing ears. The tears won't stop no matter how hard I try to swallow them back down. It's like a dam has completely broken and I have no means to stop the flood.

Gentle and strong arms pull me up and guide me to a spot on the sofa where I'm surrounded by a tangle of limbs, a cloud of soft breaths and a barrier of soft head pats. "What's going on in that pretty head of yours, Love?"

"We- we weren't even that close, but..." It hurts.

Betrayal hurts, a lot.

"Hey, it doesn't matter how close you were, you're feelings were hurt and he was your friend..."

"It's like that door shut on me all over again, just like with Tyler..." Getting closer with him again has been a surreal experience in and of itself, but being so close to a similar act of betrayal is feeding into my original distaste to the man all over again. Perhaps, I trust far too easily.

"Would it help if you talked about it, or would you rather simply sit here quietly?"

I shake my head, my thoughts turn back to the memory of my parents and I at the dinner table that one evening. The evening I almost told them the truth, but regretfully never did. Bottling things up does no good for anyone. "Oliver dug another nail into my wall of trust, but I don't know if I'm fully prepared to have him face the consequences for that..."

"You know he deserves it just as much as Cadence does though, right?"

"Logically, yeah, but it just doesn't feel real..." My eyes finally look up and the first person in my line of sight is Julian giving me a sympathetic smile. Genuine and small, just enough to leave me feeling comforted but not enough to make me feel looked down on. He cares.

"We completely understand that, but he's been lying probably this entire time, Love," Sebastian whispers, his lips pressed to the top of my head as he slowly rocks Asher and I side to side. The brunet uses his fingers to turn my head to him and I see him look at me with such softened eyes, a gaze so gentle and warm I could practically melt at the sight.

"It's time to bring this to an end, Noah, let's do it together,"

Together, huh? I think I've gotten so used to their presence, I never properly processed the whole idea. Throughout this whole thing and even before that, possible even since the day we met nearly... a year ago, they've stuck by me. Regardless of how many times I pushed away, they stayed. They never got bored like I originally fear and they never suddenly lost interest for even a second.

Wow, a year ago. We've almost known each other for a full year now.

"Okay..."

"Sarah, Jennifer?" I walk through the door, Gabriel a step behind me before he shuts the door after him. I filled him in on our recent discoveries as best I could on the way to work and I've been trying really hard to convince myself that the sudden frown on his face is from his concentration and not from the news I told him. "Can we talk?"