The Memoriam Files: Hearts ✔

| Chapter 14, Lullaby

|Please let me take you, out of the darkness and into the light

|Song: Lullaby, Nickelback

|||

Dawn's P.O.V.

The huge black cargo door closed before me, taking Lisa and the others out of sight. Taking a deep breath I stared at it. My heart was beating fast in my chest. Letting them go into the city without having any way of knowing if they would be alright was awful. But I had a more important job to do.

Turning on my heels I let my eyes wonder around the room.
When they landed on Newt, who was leaning against the bench with his arms crossed and an indifferent expression on his face, a wave of sadness rolled through my stomach.
We didn't say a word for a while, just stared at each other, taking in this new and strange version of us that we had become.

'You should've gone with them,' he eventually said, his voice deprived from any emotion.
My body was frozen as I watched him walk away and dread spread through me. Never before had he looked at me with this coldness and it left a chill in my bones.
Maybe this was it, the moment I had officially lost him. Only because I wanted to cure him from the disease that would take away every part of him. Every part that I loved and cherished. Even the flawed parts, the ones that made me love him even more.
And as my eyes followed him walking away a sudden resistance took a hold of me and the sadness made way for anger. Hot anger raging through my body.

'So this is how it's gonna be from now on?' I said, raising my voice and taking a step forwards. 'You're slowly going insane and you're gonna spend your remaining time being mad at me?'

Newt froze, stopped walking away but kept his back turned to me.
'I get it, okay? I screwed up, I endangered all of our lives and almost got us killed. But you are dying Newt. Are you honestly mad at me for trying to safe you?'

Silence filled the room and even from this distance I could tell his entire body was tensed up. He clenched his fists but I wasn't planning on stopping now.
'Because if you are, that makes it clear how much you care about me. Since you clearly wouldn't do the same for me then.'

Suddenly he turned around, anger painted on his face. 'You betrayed us! I told you I didn't want the cure and you go behind my back to do it anyway!'
'So if it was me sick you would be totally fine with just standing by and watch me slowly go insane?' I yelled at him, my heart aching and tears appearing in my eyes.
He stared at me, his eyes wide and suddenly I was terrified of his answer.
'But you're not sick,' Newt whispered, 'so it doesn't matter.' And he turned around, ready to walk again.
'I love you,' I suddenly whispered, 'you know that right?'

He didn't answer and it was killing me. Silence spread through the room and I could hear my own heart beating in my chest.
'You have to stop, Dawn,' he softly said.
I blinked, afraid I heard him wrong. 'What do you mean?' I whispered.
Newt turned back to me, all the anger was gone and had made way for cracks. Cracks in a mask of a boy in pain for too long.
'You have to stop loving me,' he repeated, 'I won't be here for much longer and I won't leave you here, knowing you will never move on.'

And then it all made sense. He wasn't mad at me for trying to cure him, he would probably have done the same if it was me. He was mad at me for not trying to let him go.

Shaking my head at him, a tear finally fell from my eyes. I didn't bother wiping it away. 'Please don't say that,' I whispered, 'please don't-'
'You don't bloody get it!' He suddenly screamed, 'you're in love with a ghost.'
'No, you don't get it,' I replied, my voice steady although tears were streaming down my cheeks, 'whether I pretend not to love you, or decide to show it for the time we have left, it will hurt just as much when you're gone.'
He stared at me, his eyes holding all the pain I had wanted so desperatly to take away from him.
'I don't want to spend to last bit of time we have left together pretending that I don't love you. When the time is there I will say goodbye, not before.'