All Of Your Flaws

Part Twenty Three

           

"Honestly, what do you want me to say here Addison?" Dylan asked. "I feel like I should just give up on hoping that something I say might get through to you. I should be done with hoping that you might see what is in front of you without it having to be spelt out." Still holding onto Addison's wrists Dylan slowly backed Addison up until Addison hit the edge of her bed and sunk down until she was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Addison's heart hammered in her chest as Dylan knelt down, still holding onto Addison's wrists, in front of Addison with eyes full of so many emotions and questions Addison could have easily become lost in them.

As Addison closed her eyes, she fully understood that there was no going back from this, no going back from whatever happened next. Whatever happened would change everything.

It took a moment to realise that Dylan was gently kissing each and every scar on her arms, light kisses that tingled in the best way, and Addison ripped her eyes open as a sigh became caught in her throat. When Dylan came to the most prominent scar, the kitchen knife scar, he ran a thumb over it carefully before kissing it then moving back to work light kisses up Addison's arm and shoulder until he came to Addison's jaw.

Dylan's lips came up to Addison's with what felt like hungry purpose, a hunger that matched Addison's own with frightening similarity. When Dylan's tongue gently pushed against her own, Addison opened her mouth welcoming the taste of Dylan; a mix of coffee, cigarette smoke, spearmint gum and a tangy taste that was just...well Dylan. It was terrifyingly intoxicating and Addison just wanted to drown in it.

When she really thought about it, Addison was a storm. She was a violent, uncontrollable storm that ripped through life leaving havoc and destruction in its wake but Dylan was like a natural force that calmed the storm inside of her. Dylan was a safe place in the midst of a hurricane. His words, his touches and his presence lessened the power of the storm raging inside of Addison's head. Dylan was the one that could pull Addison back from the deep thunder, the paralysing lightening that surged through Addison's brain and the constant crash of deep ocean blue that threatened to consume Addison if she was not careful.

How had any of this been possible? How had Addison become so reliant on a leather clad wandering loner of all people to help bring her back from the precipice and what would happen if Dylan was no longer there to hold her back? What would happen when Dylan realised that Addison was too broken to be fixed and ran? She was so used to pushing people away, so used to running from people, that she'd never stopped to think about what would happen if someone else were to see the real her and run. How would Addison be able to come back from that?

"Dylan...Dylan...Dylan stop." Addison said pushing Dylan away and breathing in heavily. A crushing weight was pressing against Addison's chest and everything inside of her was telling her that this was both the right and wrong thing to do.

Inside, she was ripping in half in the most violent way possible; one half of her needed to be as far away from Dylan as possible but the other half was desperate to never leave, desperate to keep clinging to those tiny fragments of joy between them. Those tiny fragments showed Addison she could feel genuine happiness and something almost akin to love.

"Shit...did I do something wrong?" Dylan asked as his brow furrowed. "Addi, I'm sorry. I knew I shouldn't have done that." Dylan muttered shaking his head furiously. "I'd been thinking about it but I should have never done it. It's not-" Dylan started to babble and Addison could see in Dylan's eyes that he was rapidly becoming nervous of the situation and that was all because he thought that he'd been wrong to do the one thing Addison had been desperate to do since Molly's party.

"Dylan stop, just listen to me. You didn't do anything wrong." Addison said. "I just...I just can't do this right now, I can't." As soon as she said those words, Addison felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach because it was true, she couldn't be with Dylan at the moment, and she hated herself because of it. She hated herself for feeling so lost that she was unable to be happy with someone, especially Dylan.