the doorman » a.i au

twenty; "marry me."

“Okay, let’s take a breather,” I chuckled. Ashton’s lips lingered slightly before he lifted me off his lap and onto the space next to him on the couch.

We had been doing this the whole evening, laughing momentarily and having small talks in between kisses. His parents were away for the whole week and we couldn’t be happier to take advantage of the situation, hence why I had been staying over for the past three nights.

“You’re so light,” he poked at my sides, earning a glare from me.

“That’s really only because you’re like…” I traced my fingers down his arms, “completely ripped.”

“If you keep doing things like that, this whole taking-a-breather thing isn’t going to work out,” he licked his lips. We locked eyes for a few moments before I burst out laughing.

“Shut up.”

“But back to you, you’re really light,” he tightened his grasp around my waist.

“And really pretty,” he kissed my hair this time.

“And extremely clever,” he continued kissing my forehead, my wrists, my shoulders as he continued showering me with compliments. Just never my lips. And that was good because we both knew that we wouldn’t stop if we were to start kissing again. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, I relaxed as he proceeded to just hold me in his arms in silence.

“I’m gonna miss this,” I said, though it came out muffled.

He twisted strands of my hair between his fingers, sighing. “We’ve four months, let’s not talk about it until then.”

I wished he understood that it wasn’t that easy at all to stop worrying about something with just a click of my fingers. I wasn’t like him; I wasn’t carefree, happy-go-lucky and optimistic. And I really did wish he understood that. But most of all, I wished he would confess that the thought of us being away from each other for so long kept him awake nightly too. As absurd as it would sound coming out from his lips, at least I’d know that we were facing this together and we felt the same thing. But I knew he wouldn’t because nothing kept him awake – he was optimistic and full-of-hope Ashton. He had his bet on the fact that we’d overcome anything and everything. While I, on the other hand, didn’t.

-

I was sure that my phone only died to mock me. If it were really alive, it was probably thinking something along the lines of, “Hey, at least one of us could sleep.”

But the clock continued ticking at a rate my heart recognized and I sighed heavily.

I woke Ashton up at 2.46 in the morning. I couldn’t not – it was like prolonging the inevitable.

“What’s wrong?” he rubbed his eyes, sitting up in bed, “Is it a bad dream?”

Suddenly, I couldn’t say anything. He looked at me, and I looked at him and I could feel the tears already coming. So I just shrugged.

“Is it about us?” he asked softly and I knew that he knew. That he understood. “Let’s talk about it in the morning, Kare. It’s not gonna do us any good, talking so late.”

A part of me wanted to bury myself under his blanket again, telling him, “No, let’s not talk about it at all, I’m just being a little pessimistic brat.” But of course I didn’t. Because doing so would be lying and I wasn’t going to lie. Not about this, anyway.

“No,” I shook my head, “I wanna talk about it now. I’ve been missing hours and hours of sleep thinking about us, I don’t feel like putting it off.”