The Reason | ✓

Epilogue: Will - She Wouldn't Be Safe

Epilogue: Will - She Wouldn't Be Safe

I don't know where I'm going, but I know that I can't be here.

After I ducked out of her front door and made my way down the steps of her apartment complex, I only had one thing on my mind: Go back. But I can't. It isn't right. But her face when I said no... I shake my head hard as I make it down the last flight, trying to shake the image from my mind and to go on with my endeavor.

She wouldn't be safe, I tell myself as I slip my sunglasses from the neck of my shirt where it hung and slide them onto my nose, and popping my hood up in the process. She wouldn't be safe.

She has a family. A niece, siblings, mother and father.... A tremble goes down my spine and I know that I need to stop my thoughts in their tracks, but I can't stop and all of a sudden I'm going back to last month, the last time I saw Leslie, my sister.

She is the last of my family, and what happened to the rest of them is something that I've blocked from my mind for what feels like centuries. But when I saw Penny... I groan at the memory - the feelings I had when we were looking over the pictures that hung on her fridge. The smile she had when retelling old memories of her family.

And when she asked me about mine, like it was obvious that I have one, my heart had dropped like something heavy knocked it loose. Something heavy - like the truth.

I need to tell you something, I had told her at the coffee shop. I was almost there. Almost.

Don't. Why didn't she want me to tell her? Why was she so keen on keeping my identity a secret? It's like she already knew; like she knew how it would ruin absolutely everything.

I turn a corner and realize that this was the street she pulled me to a stop and looked at me with her mesmerizing brown eyes, silently asking me to kiss her. And when I complied... a smile pulls at my lips and I suppress it, knowing that I should just forget her. It will be best. I can't stay.

Right then is when I hear the quickening footsteps of a clumsy person running, maybe even sprinting. My heart races, knowing only one thing to do: Run.

But I don't. Because there is one chance, however tiny that chance might be, that it's not the people I'd need to be running from. So instead of leaving, I turn, and see the one person I've been needing to see ever since I left her house.

I can't forget her, I realize right then as I watch her blonde bangs flop on her forehead with each stride she takes towards me and her brown eyes piercing mine with adrenaline and determination. I can't forget her.

She wouldn't be safe.

But when she reaches me and crushes her body to mine, and I selfishly wrap my arms around her tiny figure, it doesn't matter.

"Don't you ever leave me like that again," she pants as I rest my cheek on her the top of her head.

"You won't be safe," I tell her, my voice straining as the words come out because I want more than anything for her to not care.

"I know." My muscles tighten around her and my breath hitches, because I know this might be the last time I see her. "But I don't care."

Letting myself smile for the first time since I left her house, I step away from her and look down at her sweet face. "Are you sure?" I ask, leaning down to her height and resting my forehead on hers. She smiles in reply, her eyes sparking with mischief. I laugh breathlessly and crush my lips to hers, hating myself for being so selfish to want her but loving the fact that she'd risk almost everything to be with me.

She wouldn't be safe.

But she doesn't care.

___

Alright guys, and that's a wrap! 'Tis a short story after all, and although there is no specific ending in this snippet of their lives, I just wanted to leave things there where things are good with Will and Penny.

Who knows, I may even post an additional chapter - a "five months later" kinda thing. Sound good? Just lemme know :)

Much love, Caline x