Sweet. | J.Bellingham

21

'I was thinking just one time, maybe the stars align, and maybe I call you mine'

the pouring knocking took Jude out of his trance. the agitating noise felt unreal. he had drown himself in an infuriating silence for minutes now trying to clear his thought in vain.

It had been two weeks, 14 days, 336 hours and 20 160 minutes.

All this time without smelling her perfume, looking in her deep brown eyes, seeing her silhouette even from afar. All this time without Jude feeling Laura's presence.

It was the longest they've ever been apart from each other. Laura never went on a vacation without Jude and even when Jude would leave with his family, he'd always manage to either bring her with them or for the stay to be shortened.

A small version of himself siting on his right shoulder wrapped of white tissue whispered in his hear : "everything will be okay, she loves you too much to leave you like that". But the mean and vicious looking one sitting on his left shoulder laughed and answered : "she's gone for good".

Two weeks, and every fourteen days that passed, he thought of her. Not an hour went by without her name ringing like a doorbell.

The doorbell.

Jude blinked a few times, wanting to make sure he heard it right before standing up. He approached the front door and unlocked it, trying as best he could to get out of the thoughts he'd been stuck in for days now. But nothing could take away what was engraved. He was thinking so hard about her that he felt as if he could see her, standing there looking at him.

Or could he ?

The open door gave way to the young girl, standing there, staring at him. Her eyes were blood-red and misty, dried tears accompanying the smudges of her mascara and her jerky sniffles. She'd run here, judging by her outfit of jogging bottoms and pyjama top, which she'd covered with a jumper she'd borrowed from Jude a few months ago.

The young man didn't know whether all this was just part of a feverish imagination, maybe Jobe would wake him up by tapping him on the back of his neck, or maybe it would be his mother calling him incessantly. But it didn't matter, even if it was all just a stabbing nightmare, if he could enjoy it and look at her for a few moments then so be it.

'Laura.' He pronounced the word, rolling on his tongue like a forbidden fruit Adam and Eve could not resist to. He didn't say it for days but he screamed it so loud in his thoughts his throat ached.

She tried to say something, it looked like a faint 'I'm so sorry' but it broke in the middle of her sentence. The cries left her throat and Jude felt his knees weakened.

Seeing Laura vulnerable was one thing, but seeing her open up to him like that, coming to him after two weeks in which they hadn't spoken or glanced at each other. Something was wrong, someone had hurt her. But he'd have plenty of time to get angry later, his beloved was shaking with sobs and she needed him now.