Lightning Bolt

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

IT'S HARD TO WAIT AROUND FOR SOMETHING THAT

YOU KNOW MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN.

BUT IT'S EVEN

HARDER TO GIVE UP, WHEN YOU KNOW IT'S EVERYTHING

YOU HAVE EVER WANTED.

The next few months felt bitter sweet.

I was grieving for my Dad, feeling the separation from my Family more than ever before but at the same time Matt and I were growing closer. My Dad's death was becoming a divining moment in our friendship.

Matt was there for me, helping and supporting me. We saw more of each other now, not just once a week on a Sunday. We would meet for coffee or take strolls along the sea front, head over to the hills of Devils Dyke or The South Downs. We spent time together at the cinema, relaxing over dinner and once he even took me bowling with memories of our first date filling the air.

The awkwardness to our friendship seemed to have disappeared. It was easier now just like when we had first met; the endless conversations, the laughter, the fun. We were enjoying each other's company once more.

When we laughed together my heart broke all over again. It was something I had always missed and thought we had lost forever. We were starting over from the beginning building on our foundations but somehow it felt different, it felt more. We had always been so close but our spark, our chemistry was only intensifying, our relationship somehow growing stronger.

When I did visit his place on a Sunday I wouldn't leave straight away after the film, instead we would sit chatting, sometimes till late into the night....

"Have you seen the time? It's almost Midnight!" he said glancing at his watch in disbelief. "You might as well stay".

I stared at him unable to hide my stunned reaction, my mouth instantly running dry.

"I mean that's if you want to? I can make the sofa up?" he quickly added, his own shock seeping through to his handsome features.

I swallowed hard nodding my reply not trusting myself to speak.

What he didn't realise was I would stay forever if I could.

I didn't sleep that night knowing he was in the other room.

The covers of the make shift bed smelt of him as I breathed them in letting his scent fill my body and mind. I lay there wishing he would come to me, to pick me up in his strong arms and carry me off to his bed, but this was simply wishful thinking. Yet the flicker of hope I always carried within my heart started to grow just like my love for him.