Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Chapter 25: Starlight

//TW: swearing, physical and verbal abuse, PTSD\\

Im sorry guys if updates arent as regular as usual. It isnt your fault. Im just not in a great mental state rn and it feels like writing is the only thing that could potentially help me but this isnt getting the kind of attention and shit I want it too, so its kinda discouraging to keep writing

But im gonna stay with it bc I need to

Thomas

I flipped through the pages of the book rather lazily, curled up against the couch in the one spot that drank in the most sunlight. I enjoyed the feeling of its setting rays warming my skin, as if it could actually reach through the glass and touch me. It was stupid, but perhaps it was just nice to know that the light didn't hide away from me, that it wasn't just another one of those things lingering just out of my grasp. It was tangible, it was real, and it decided I was worth its time.

I read and I relaxed and I basked in the light of the setting sun, every so often glancing up at the door. I waited for Alexander to come home, just as I waited every other day. Just as I would wait until the end of time, if that's what it took. Perhaps it made me weak and pathetic but there's nothing I enjoy more than him stepping into our apartment and making my world just a bit brighter, moment by moment. I live for his smile, and as long as I have it, what do I have to fear?

I craved him, needing his arms wrapped safely around me like a flower needs sunlight in order to bloom. It isn't fair, the effect he has on me. But there's nothing else in the world I would rather have. There's nothing else in the world I want. Just him. Just my Alexander.

It was pathetic, almost. I knew it. I was ashamed of it and the way I clung to him. But still, I couldn't keep myself away from his brilliance. Not with the way he smiled at me. Not with the way he held me, so tenderly and sweet and so delicate. Not with the way he looked at me whenever he thought I wasn't watching, like I was the center of his universe, like I was the brightest star in the sky, twinkling away without care of who was gazing up at me.

So I sat, facing the door, and waited.

I didn't have to wait very long.

The door opened the same time it always did without fail. I glanced up from my book with that same smile I always had, that stupidly over-eager smile just to see him and have him see me, for he was the only one who ever really did. Alexander stepped into the room silently, and if I had been any smarter, I would have immediately noticed the difference in the mood, the anger etched into his face in tiny lines, though barely visible even if you looked. But I'm not smart. I saw what I wanted to see and was blind to everything else, just as I always was.

"Hey, Alexander," I greeted softly, setting the book down after carefully marking the page. I uncurled myself, gazing up at him and waiting for his familiar smile as if lost in a dream. I shifted towards him, wanting to be as close as I could. "How was your day?"

"Horrible," he responded tersely, and all at once, the sunlight turned cold and unforgiving. It rejected me, dipping down behind the skyline, leaving me to whatever tempest had suddenly blown across the sky just so it could disrupt the perfect peace we had crafted for ourselves.

Alexander slammed the door shut behind him. It was a reflex, the way I flinched at the sudden noise that rang through the apartment, loud and unyielding. My heart plummeted from my chest all at once, losing itself to a vacant chasm sitting right where my stomach should be. I shifted away from him; the innate fear deep within me of a wild, caged animal—the fear that had been building inside of me for four awful years—finally broke free once again.