Proud

Chapter 19

I woke up in an unusual place, but for some reason I felt completely at home. Finn’s arm was draped around my waist and my head was resting on his chest. I lift up to take a good look at him. His eyes are closed and its obvious that he is in a deep sleep.

Memories of the night before flash in my mind. I can practically feel his lips on mine. I smile at the thought and plant a little kiss on his soft lips before attempting to struggle out of his grip. I softly remove his arm and put it on the pillow next to me. He doesn’t seem to notice. Slowly, I stumble out of bed and head to the bathroom. I close the door behind me quietly and am faced with a shocking reality. I look in the mirror and am confronted by my looks. My eyes  are red, obviously from the previous nights crying session. And to my surprise, my lips are swollen. I lift my fingers up to them and examine the damage. They feel as bad as they look and I automatically feel bad for kissing Finn this morning. What if he felt this? I mean, what a way to wake up. It would be like a kissing a cactus.

I shake my head sadly. When did I look so gross? I mean, I know I’m not the most attractive of girls in the first place, but I never saw myself as this bad. The longer I stare at myself, the more I hate myself.

A tear suddenly streams down my face as I become more and more self conscious. I feel myself start to shake as I become more and more overwhelmed. I begin recalling the fight I’d had with my mother, and my father telling me to run while I can. Soon enough, I find myself sitting on the toilet sit with my head buried in my hands. I can’t take this. I mean, what am I even doing? And who am I even kidding? Like how am I going to survive the real world?

A sudden knock on the bathroom door breaks me from my negative thoughts. I’m suddenly bought back to reality. My eyes fly wide open in panic. Finn. He can’t see me like this. I look like shit. Absolute shit.

“Ana...” He says worriedly through the door.

I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out. What the hell do I say to him?

“Are you alright?” He persists.

“I’m fine” I weakly manage to say. I scold myself for sounding so unconvincing. God damn it.

I hear him take a deep breath, “You don’t sound fine to me”.

I squeeze my eyes shut. For lack of better words, I reply, “I’m fine, I’ll be out in a minute”.

“Can I come in?” He asks.

I take a minute to think about it. As much as I want him to comfort me, I don’t want him seeing me like this. Not now, not ever.

“No” I reply simply.

He plays with the door anyway, “I’m coming in Ana”.

He opens the door and I once again scold myself mentally for not locking the door.

The moment he sees my face he immediately runs to my side.

“Ana, what the hell? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” he questions me.

I squeeze my eyes shut to prevent more tears from coming out.

“Ana, why are you at this hotel room? Why aren’t you at home?” He pushes futher.

I bite my lips closed, obviously refusing to answer.

“Ana, it’s okay. You can tell me” He encourages me.

I look at him with sad eyes and say, “I need to leave”.

He nods his head, “It’s okay, I can take you back home”.

I shake my head, “No, you don’t understand Finn. I can’t be here. I can’t be in this neighbourhood. I have to go, now.”

He rubs his hand up and down my back, “Why do you need to go?”

“Because she’ll find me” I tell him softly.

He looks at me confused, “Who will find you?”

“My mother” I whisper out.

He looks at me worriedly, “what did she do?”

I look at him. He almost looks as if he doesn’t want to know. I hesitate before telling me. He lifts up his eyebrows as if to tell me to hurry up.

“She hit me” I cry out. I suddenly fall into his arms at the confession. He’s surprised but catches me right on cue.

His arms circle around me tightly and I’m not sure if that’s because he is angry or because he needs the strength to hold me up.

“She hit my dad too and I didn’t even know. And now I’m so scared for my little sister. What if she takes it out on her? And my dad told me to run but how can I leave them? And where do I run to? I barely have any money and I don’t know anyone to go to because the people I would’ve gone to all know my mum.” I ramble to him.

I don’t look up at him but I can tell that he is taken back by surprise.

Finally, he speaks, “Ana, it’s alright, we can get through this”.

I hear the word ‘we’ and I immediately pull away from him. There’s no way in hell that I am letting him get into this.

“No... No. No. No. No” I repeat over and over.

“No what?” he asks me.

I reply stubbornly, “You are not getting involved in this. No freaking way. You have enough problems of your own and...”

“And I want to help you” He interrupts me.

“I’m running away Finn, you can’t help me” I tell him.

He gives me a know it all face, “Sure I can”.

I shake my head, “You can’t.”

“Why not?” he tells me.

“Jack...” Is all I say back to him. The realisation hits him and his face falls. He can’t leave Jack and he knows it. He is literally as Jack has. If he were to run away with me, then no one would be there for Jack.

Finn’s mouth moves as if to formulate some words but I stop him.

“No! I won’t let you choose. You are staying here with Jack. No arguments.” I say stubbornly as I stand up. He goes to follow me but I just pull back even further.

“Don’t go” He tells me as I start to walk away.

I grab my things in my arms as I reply, “I’m sorry, but I have to”

“No. Come stay with me. You said it yourself, you can’t stay on your own. You can’t run, you need someone with you. You need me.” He tells me.

“And you can’t leave Jack” I counter back at him as I approach the door.

“So we won’t. You’ll just live with me Ana. We’ll get our own place here. She won’t know where to find us. She will have no connections to us whatsoever. I won’t tell my family where I’m going so they won’t be able to pass that on to her. Just stay Ana. Stay with me” He proposes as he walks towards me.

The thought seems good, in fact too good to be true. But I know it’s just too simple to work, “Finn... she’ll just track you down through Jack”.

“but I’ll...” he tries to argue it out but he knows I’m right. It is too good to be true. And it wouldn’t work.

I turn and face him for the last time. I take a deep breath, “Look, I’m not saying I’ll be gone forever. But for now, while she’s still pissed off... I need to lay low Finn. And you are the first place she’ll go to. I’m sorry”.

A tear streams down my face. Before he gets the chance to reply, I quickly run out the hotel room and out on to the street. 

Authors Note:

I can’t believe I just updated. Your comments on the last update were seriously so sweet. And in all honesty, I wasn’t going to update at all up until about half an hour ago. I don’t really know what motivated me to update, but I kinda just did. Either way, I’m so sorry that I like never update. I would like to promise regular updates but I don’t want to get your hopes up.  But I’ll try my hardest to do weekly ones. Once again, I’m so sorry for not updating in ages. I guess I’ll keep this fanfic going for a bit more. Lots of love xx