Greyscale [✓]

Chapter 35

A/N: sex sex sex!;D not explicit at all but thought I'd give a warning anyways, haha

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CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

The class were flying back to London first thing the following morning and so, eventually their teachers came out to usher everyone back into bed. Hannah didn't want Rayne to feel as though she was burdening herself on him by hanging around in his room until Ashlyn fell asleep again but he only rolled his eyes and pulled her along.

Perhaps it should have made her feel a little wary to be entirely alone in a small bedroom in the middle of the night with a boy – especially after all that had occurred with Gabriel – but Hannah found that she was content. Her body was relaxed as she sat crossed-legged on the edge of the hotel bed, fingers absent-mindedly tugging against the duvet beneath her, damp hair falling over her shoulders in a mess.

She had gotten so used to their little routine that she had purposefully been ignoring her phone, other than a quick message per day to Cameron and her aunt Sara. She'd even gone as far as to log out of her Facebook app altogether to avoid all the pesky notifications. Allowing herself to be so disconnected from everyone else made her feel a freedom she never before had tasted, and it was amazing.

Hannah had never before thought she was much of a complainer but there was something about Rayne that made her insecurities fall out of her mouth without a moment's thought. But he was so understanding, so receptive that somehow, it didn't feel like it was a bad thing. Ashlyn's snide comments were still ringing around her head and so, naturally, she blurted some of them out.

Rayne was seated opposite her, his hair beginning to frizz a little from the chlorine of the pool they had just gotten out of and his t-shirt inside-out, label sticking out on his right side but he hadn't seemed to notice.

"I just don't get how you can believe her stupid comments and think people actually like her more than you," he said, brows scrunched tight in horror. "I mean, honestly, she's a bitch and a half to everyone unless she had get something out of them. Surely you'd know that better than me, as well."

Hannah pressed her lips together, tugging the smile back in as she tried to explain her thought process. "Everyone knows she's so horrible but that doesn't mean they don't like her. Other than when she opens her mouth, she's goddamn perfect and ugh, it's just so annoying but at the same time, it makes me feel, I dunno, I can't explain it. It just... it makes me a little sad that the world is designed in such a way that beauty and money is still what's most important in life."

He didn't say a word, jade eyes running over her face, memorising every curve and crook. She shook her hands, motioning something that even she didn't understand in an attempt to explain herself.

"Just, y'know, well," she spluttered out, pathetically. "Ugh, just Ashlyn and her stupid pretty face and fucking hair and goddamnit, don't even get me started on those eyes of hers – isn't that a cliché and a half? Everyone loves the blonde-haired, blue-eyed bitch and no matter what, after how much I've pissed her off this year, she'll make sure I'm always known as just the mutt that crawled after her for half my life because I was too scared to do anything for myself." She let out a hollow laugh, one that scratched the inside of her throat as her words drifted off into the silence stretching between them. "Maybe if I'd had blue eyes I woulda got somewhere by now, innit?"

Rayne was appalled.

"How can you say that?" he finally burst out, having kept quiet at every word of hatred she had pulled out that night. His forest eyes shone bright beneath the dim light, wild with an emotion she couldn't quite decipher. "Yes, her eyes are blue and yes people love blue eyes but big fuckin' deal. Yes, people write songs about blue eyes comparing them to oceans and all that rubbish. But yours are amber; they're like the gold that people slave their whole lives to desperately pull out of the ground. Just because hers are like waves doesn't mean yours can't be mountains or something, y'know what I mean? Ashlyn Janek might be a typical Barbie doll but you're anything but ordinary and that's a million times better."