Its Not Living (If Its Not With You)

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The following morning

Clay's eyes fluttered open to see that Hannah was already awake, smiling at him. She leant over and gave him a soft kiss on the lips.

"Merry Christmas, Helmet.", she said softly, still smiling at him big.

"You too, Han.", he said, smiling at her.

"OK, let's get down to business-", Hannah said, suddenly jumping out of the bed.

"-to defeat the Huns!", Clay interrupted, jumping out of the bed as well. Hannah rolled her eyes at him.

"No, to open presents, you dork!", she said, giving him a small push.

"Oh, of course!", Clay said, acting like a 5 year old who got his sums right after spending a long time figuring them out.

They raced each other down the stairs, bumping into each other and laughing. When they reached the tree, they knelt down and they looked for the presents with their names on them like children. Clay reached over to the gift bag he had brought the previous day and he took out Hannah's gift, just as she handed him his. They took the gifts from each other, and they took the cards off first and before Hannah opened hers, Clay spoke.

"Please be careful with that, Han.", he said, as Hannah started to slowly slit open the envelope with her finger.

She removed the card carefully, and opened it carefully. Her mouth fell open when she saw the bills inside.

"Clay....", was all she said.

"That's for the counselling. A months worth. After that, I'll give you the money every single week for as long as you need it. I went to that counsellor for around 3 years, when I started getting bullied when I was 12 and I had really bad anger issues, worse than now. The gay rumours started then, would you believe, just because I had a friend then who came out as bi. He had to move away, at the start of the following year, and I haven't heard from him since. If he had gone to counselling, he probably would've coped better with all the homophobic comments, and all the notes in his locker telling him to kill himself and he wouldn't have moved. That's why I'm so desperate for you to go through with this. I can't lose you as well. If I lost you, in any way, shape or form, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I couldn't live with myself. So please Hannah, ring the counsellor and get the next available appointment in the New Year. It will really help you.", Clay confessed to her, pouring everything he had inside of him out.

Hannah was in tears. Now she knew why Clay was so desperate for her to get help. She wrapped her arms around him.

"Thanks so much for this, Clay. I'll call her as soon as I can. I'm so sorry about your friend."

"Its alright. I miss his company a lot but I have you so its not awful. Thanks for agreeing to call the counsellor. You need it.", Clay told her separating from the hug.

He noticed the present from Hannah was still in his hand, and Hannah looked down at the present from Clay. He looked up at her and smiled.

"Let's open them together.", he said, as Hannah nodded her head and smiled.

They ripped the gift wrap from their gifts and looked down at them. Clay had a portable CD player, a pair of black Beats, the deluxe version of The 1975's debut album, The 1975, and the Target edition of their most recent one, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it, which had the bonus track, How To Draw, and packets of batteries for the CD player.