Me before you

chapter 9

So they found their routine.

And slowly, slowly, Y/n found herself going out for 'walks' (ironic), for movies, for lunches. Grocery shopping, Christmas shopping – the most mundane, ordinary, boring list of things that all seemed inexplicably special with Sana. Or for Sana. Whatever. Sana was there, was what she was trying to say.

It was nice. It was like that first day, by the sea, with the wind and the seagulls and the calmness spreading out from her chest.

Y/n knew her parents were noticing. They were trying not to say anything, skirting around her as if they were afraid saying the wrong thing would scare her, send her scuttling back inside her shell. But it was nice to see them happier, even if it meant downplaying her renewed hair and the new wear on her favorite leather jacket.

The first time it scared her was a Tuesday. It was cold. They were watching a movie.

Sana was wearing a grey turtleneck. It was the first time she'd seen her in something semi- relaxed. It was making her chest ache, for some reason. Y/n hadn't really been paying attention to the movie anyway, but she could tell Sana was: so somewhere along the line she just gave up on watching the actors on screen and turned to watch the expert one beside her instead.

Y/n watched, hair heavy against her neck, studying Sana while she stared at the screen. Her profile was surrounded by the bright grey light spilling from the window, but it didn't so much shadow her as it did illuminate her; picking out the dust in the air the same way it picked out the specks of gold in her brown eyes, the shape of her nose and the shape of her eyelashes beneath expensive mascara. It was hard not to see that she was devastatingly beautiful.

It was hard, now that Y/n was seeing more and more.

She didn't know what was wrong with her before. She'd appreciated the thought of having a pretty lady carer, but she hadn't thought about the reality. Or maybe Sana was just so pretty you physically couldn't process it all at once: it had to creep up on you, piece by piece.

God, I need to get out more.

Y/n felt her brow furrow and tried to not seem like she was staring. Honestly though, she wasn't staring because Sana was beautiful. She was staring because she was fascinating.

She'd been watching humans objectively, like a scientist or an alien, for almost two years now. She'd studied her parents extensively. She'd seen Sana's veneer almost every day, the polished picture of clipped words and impassive expressions, and she'd glimpsed the woman beneath it several times now. She'd seen her with her son and that had changed everything. Seeing her watch movies also happened to be pretty interesting.

Sana would frown when she didn't like something that was happening on-screen, purse her lips when a character did something stupid. And sometimes – and this was Y/n's favorite – when she was really into a scene, there would be a sharp intake of breath a little to her left.

That's not what scared her. All of that was good, she thought. Yoongi would have thought so: that was her noticing, focusing, thinking about things. No, what scared her was when Sana's hand reached over of its own accord and threaded her fingers through hers.

Y/n damn near imploded.

Panicked, her stare whipped over to her carer's, but Sana eyes were still glued to the screen. She was obviously more caught up in this boring film than Y/n had given her credit for. She was watching intently, lips slightly parted. Her fingers shifted through Y/n's.

Her fingers were soft and small and warm and Y/n mustered all the strength she had to make her own clumsy fingers move as much as they could. Teeth gritted, heart racing, Y/n managed to get her fingers curled ever so slightly around hers. It was the first time in years that the effort of moving what little she could felt worth it.