A reason to live

chapter 1

Chapter 1

"You need to go Clay," I insisted, turning away from him to sit at the edge of the bed. So many thoughts were swirling through my head, every little rumour and every little action that had happened in the past year. Through the haze, I heard him open the door. I waited for the sound of it closing behind him, it felt like eons passed, but the clicking of the door never came. I forced myself to turn around, to see what he was doing.

Clay was hovering in the door, the conflict of what he should do evident in his eyes. He cast his gaze up and looked me directly in the eyes and watched as the tears streamed down my face. It wasn't a normal cry, where you the tears rack through your body and your eyes and nose stream. The tears falling down my face were a lone indicator of the emotions coursing through my body, I was motionless as every heart breaking feeling ran through me. Unable to maintain eye contact any longer, I turned away from him and waited to be alone.

"No," I heard him say, causing me to look back round. I found him walking back towards the bed and noticed that I no longer saw conflict in his eyes. It was determination. Before I realised what was happening, I felt his arms wrap around me, holding me to his chest. I couldn't help but tense up, his gesture overwhelming me. I expected that he would stop and move away, but he didn't. Instead we stayed like this, and after a while I relaxed. Let his touch calm me. As the time passed, I turned towards him, and rested my forehead on his shoulder as the tears turned into body racking sobs. It felt like an infinite time passed as I cried out every bad thing that happened to me. Every tear represented me letting go of the hurt and anger until finally the tears stopped. For the first time in months, I could think with clarity.

I pulled back to look at Clay. I expected to see pity coming off of him, but all I could see was concern. Before I could stop myself, I leaned in and gently placed my lips to his before pulling away and letting a small smile spread across my face.

"Hannah, what," Clay began, before I put a finger over his lips.

"Thank you Clay," I whispered, moving my hand to hold the side of his face.

"For what Hannah, what is going on?" He placed his hand over mine and pulled it towards him so that both of his hands were holding mine.

"I don't know, Clay, for everything. For holding me, letting me cry all over you, for not walking away. For not seeing me the way everyone else sees me," I tell him. I hesitate before I continue. I want to tell him the truth, the messed up thoughts that I'd been having recently, but I was scared. What if it back fired and he ran away from the emotional mess that I am.

"Hannah, I would never. I mean, you can talk to me. I'm not going to go anywhere," he gently squeezed my hands. "Let's get out of here. We can go to Rosies and get a shake, we can talk."

"Not Rosies," I respond sharply. I squint my eyes shut as the memories begin to play in head. But I can't do this right now, I won't, so I force them back open and lean in to Clay, nestling my self in his arms. Almost automatically, he holds me to him and I am able to calm myself. I'm able to bring myself back to the now, and enjoy the warmth of his body around mine. After a couple of minutes, I pull back.

"Can we go to mine?" I ask him. I want to tell him the full story and I can't do that with a potential audience.

He doesn't answer me, instead gets up off the bed and holds his hands out to mine. I take hold of them and move off the bed to stand in front of him. As we move out of the room and down the stairs, I can feel a sense of change within me. It was as if the reasons that I had been coming up with to stop everything, to stop feeling, I was leaving them behind. Instead I was following the reason I had to live and for the first time for as long as I could remember, I wanted to.