Her Safe Haven

Chapter 26 - Beauty In The Dark

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello! I'm back from my holiday with another update HEHEHE.

First of all let me congratulate Kiki5523 for correctly guessing about 80% of Rohan's past before I revealed them! Wow! Though I have to ask, was the mystery too obvious? :') Hahaha anyway, this chapter is dedicated to you, Kiki5523 !

Previously on Her Safe Haven: Winter managed to confirm the scars she saw on Rohan's back. She chased after him to the cemetery. He was kneeling and crying, and she couldn't take it anymore so she hugged him from behind to comfort him. For the first time in his life, after too much thoughts and delays, Rohan reached out and touched her back.

With the change of wind and ceasing of the rain, it was a first step towards something they could not turn back from.

After that moment, everything noticeably changed. It was better than even before they had fought. He stopped avoiding her, and slowly, surely, he returned to himself. The real him this time. He talked to her, smiled at her when he saw her.

Touched her.

The touches were light and always so fleeting, but she could always feel them. And though she could feel the obvious hesitation before each one of them, and could see him noticeably shiver each time he made a contact at her, she could sense him getting better along with the feel of new touches from his fingers on her forearms, her shoulders. Her cheeks. She stuck by him through all of his attempts of testing the waters of the new dynamics of their relationship.

The Garrisons' father only stayed for one week, and the man disappeared as quietly as he had come. Rohan improved exponentially after he left. There was more colour to his skin. More life in his eyes.

And he told her everything. This time the truth.

She listened to all of it. Late at night. She would stay up with his insomnia — sitting on the couch in his living room with him on the floor by her leg, Schwarzenegger on her lap. The night wind would sweep around them but she sat warmly under the same blanket they shared. The clock was quiet even as it chimed three, four a.m.

Rest could come later when she returned to Lakeside because while she was still here, she found that she preferred to keep him company. Preferred to listen to his stories throughout the night, and to tell stories of her own — just the two of them as the rest of the world slept.

He was slowly going back to himself, and even better. She only had three more days in Dews, but that was okay. She could leave him peacefully now.

+++

Saturday was the last day of the Spring Sports Festival, and as was the custom of the closing ceremony, fireworks filled the sky that night. The thunderstorm of the last week had passed, and the weather for once was even better than its usual cold state. Flowers of red, green, blue, and yellow were sparkling in the black sky above her and the buzzing of students could be heard all around her, with musics from Dews High's bands playing in the background.

Winter was standing in between Seth and Rose, who was sipping on their cup of vending machine hot chocolate, near the bonfire in the middle of Dews High's field. She was enjoying herself, watching the exploding colours in the sky, surrounded by her friends and the dancing crowd. Though she admitted that she would had been able to enjoy the festivities even more if not for the fact that the taller people around her were blocking her view of the fireworks.

She kept trying to tiptoe to make herself taller and see the sky better, but her attempts kept coming back futile. She sighed after a while and just shook her head at her height, trying hard to ignore Seth who was giving her snorts and snickers and just settled to subtly glare at him. Tonight was just not her lucky night, she decided.