Summer Rain

XXXVII ~ Tremors

{If I Could Fly - One Direction}

...Pay attention, I hope that you listen, 'cause I let my guard down, right now I'm completely defenceless, for your eyes only, I'll show you my heart, for when you're lonely, and forget who you are, I'm missing half of me when we're apart...

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July 26th - Elliot's POV.

            Under the weight of the words that closed up my throat, I felt lost in the moments between what I wanted to say and what I actually articulated. She sat like a jack-in-the-box, leaving me on edge, as I waited for her to explode into life. She was quiet. Unbearably so. 

           How could I say it? How could I tell her the truth and drag her fully into the darkness with me? I had no choice. She had to know the truth. 

           The diner was quiet, a few customers were sporadically seated in various booths, and the neon light flickered in the window. Time ticked on, and I knew it would come out of me, and I would crumble. There was a knot inside of me I had to undo, but the only way to do that was to try and right these wrongs.

            I've made mistakes, and I've tried to fix them time and again, yet I always get sucked back into the deception of a better life. Was this a better life? I felt my hands quake like the tremors before an earthquake rips cities and homes and lives apart? Was this what I wanted? To see the girl I love sitting in front of me, as my hands shook before I ripped her life into shreds?

           I had muttered the polite 'thanks for coming' when she walked in the door, her eyes bright and apprehensive as they looked up at me, the caramel sparkle of her eyes that always melted me when I looked into them. Still, the tension between us meant that niceties were not necessary anymore. 

             Sitting in front of her, I knew that this was the moment I had worked so hard to avoid. This was the moment I had never wanted to come true. In the nights when I would wake in a cold sweat, this scene that lay before me was the setting of every nightmare. 

             She had once told me that if I wanted to be with her, I had to be the one to fight for her. As much as I have known that in my heart I was fighting for her, with every breath, a part of me was crying out to keep quiet, to keep her oblivious, but the reality was coming at us all too quickly. 

              It was too late to keep quiet. It was too late to pretend that everything would work out. My girl was in danger, and it was all because she loved the wrong boy. 

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{AVA}

             The cab ride into town was filled with awkward silences and my seatbelt vibrating with my heart hammering against my ribcage, threatening to burst free. I gripped my heart tightly, to make sure I knew I had my life in my hands and that, naively, I had some control. 

             With each step on the concrete ground, it all felt like a dream. I had a feeling that I was, in fact, not entirely cognisant. It was like I was being pulled magnetically to my appointed destination. Each step aligned with my heartbeat, shaky and uneven. Had Bodhi already blurted out what Elliot wanted to say or was there more to this tangled web that I had found myself dancing and trapping myself in?

           I could see him sitting at the booth near the far window, his posture slightly hunched and his face unreadable, yet the tremors of his hands told me all I needed to know. Readying myself to face the unknown, I swung open the door and made my way to his table, the air in my lungs scarcely stopping the imminent waves of panic. He sat in his usual black-shirt from work, and I had chosen to wear one of my favourite periwinkle blue babydoll dresses, no cardigan, and my hair fell around my shoulders. He regarded me the way he always had before, his eyes taking a mental picture so that he would know the details to draw if he ever wanted to.