It felt like hours before the car finally stopped and the engine was cut out. The silence was welcomed, so welcomed in fact that I swear my heart sighed.
My mind was screaming, screaming at me, and I couldn't tame the darkness that pounded against my skull.
I just needed to curl up somewhere, breathe, and think about the shit I'd gotten myself into.
Levi has told me he loved me. He loved me.
No, I shook my head, of course he didn't. He was in love with the idea of me. He thought he loved me but that... That was impossible.
The click of Levi's door as he stepped out of the car shocked me from my own self-induced haze. I quickly scurried out my seat before Levi could make it around to my side.
The cool, night air spun around me like a chaste kiss. The sweat which had beaded on my forehead, slowly dripped down my eyebrow and I used the back of my palm to swipe at it.
"Come inside." Levi was right behind me, his head lowered to my ear.
We were at his house.
As much as I wanted to step back into him, let his arms wrap around my waste and hold me until all the darkness shrank away with the rising sun, let his heart beat against mine, for mine, I couldn't. Because I needed to think.
So out with it, I had thought. "You're wrong." I whispered.
Levi stepped around me so I could see him. His eyes shone in the darkness, a beacon, much like a lighthouse in the open sea.
"About what?" He asked.
I looked to the ground. I couldn't say what I needed to if I looked him in the eye. "You said you love me-"
"I do, Laken. I do." He stepped forward, his hand reaching up, presumably to touch my face, but they fell away at my next words.
"No you don't!" I shouted. "No you don't, Levi! Don't you understand? You can't. You just fucking can't!"
"And why the hell not?" He shot right back.
"Because this is why!" I screamed, my hands waving about in front of me. "I'm a fucking mess! How the hell could you love me? You're not supposed to, this isn't how it works!"
"Tell me how it's supposed to work, Lake! Tell me, goddamit!? If what I feel for you is impossible, then angels are falling from the damn sky. I. Am. In. Love-"
I covered my ears so I couldn't hear him. I couldn't take it. If he loved me, he'd leave me. That's how this fucking worked. But could I really go as far to tell him that? Tell him that, my true fear, the one reason I couldn't have him near me was because I was scared he'd leave me?
My hands were on his chest then, gripping his shirt. "Please," I whispered. "Don't. You don't understand, okay?"
His voice lowered, his hands covering mine. His chest continued to rise and fall heavily with his laboured breathes. "Then make me."
My forehead lowered to his chest without thought. I couldn't help it. Levi... I needed him to breathe. He was everything, and I fucking hated myself for doing that to us.
"I'm my own enemy, Levi. I'm not the sort of person you love. I can't... I won't do that to anyone. It's me who beats myself up, me who creates the monsters inside the closet, it's me who tears away any shred of a relationship I could have. I do that to myself, and fighting that would be fighting me. There's no way of winning." I closed my eyes.
"If you love me, you'll end up leaving me." I couldn't even hear own voice over the blood roaring in my ears. I'd said it.
There were seconds of silence. The most agonising silence I'd ever encountered. I felt his hands, so warm and delicate, yet calloused and large, press to my cheeks, pulling my face to look at him. "I'm here until you don't want me, sweetheart." He said. "I've been here from the start, and I'm not going anywhere."
My heart grew about 3 sizes, the sincerity in his words making me ache.
"But you can't help it. Maybe, one day you'll just stop loving me. Or you'll... You'll get sick, like my dad, get hit by a car, like my brother. What would I do then?" I took a deep, wavering breath. "I can't do that again, Levi. I can't watch that happen again."
His lips pressed to my forehead feverishly. "You can't be afraid of what you can't control. You'll go crazy, baby."
I almost laughed, a bitter sound. "I think I already am."
"You're not." He said without pause, his chin resting on my head. "You're not. You're so much more."
I stilled. I knew what my heart wanted, and, to a point, what my mind could give. "You love me?" I whispered.
"So much." He nodded against my head.
"Then show me." I heard his intake of breath. "I need this, now. Just the two of us. I need all of it."
Slowly, I pressed my lips to his, his heat traveling through my body. The reality of what I'd just asked him for had me almost spinning. It was not just physically i had offered myself to him, but by doing this, I was willingly giving him myself, my whole self, and with that knowledge, I knew what I had to do.
The kiss was different entirely to what we had shared before. It was desperate, like the need to get closer than skin to skin was so powerful I would tear my own heart in two to get there.
Levi kept kissing me, kept loving me, just as he had from the very second I'd met him, until we were in his house, in his room, wrapped around each other, and he showed me, with the most deepest affection, how much love could heel.
But it couldn't be enough. Could it?
~~~~~~
Wow, so long since I've updated. I'm really sorry, guys... It's been months, I think? I've just been really snowed under with school work, and I haven't really had any motivation recently to carry on... But I woke up this morning and just had the urge to write, and so i did. Pretty short chapter, I know, and not my best, but I'm still a little dodgy because I haven't done it in so long, and this literally took my like, 20 minutes without editing it aha... Well anyway, if you're still reading this, then I absolutely love you so much, because you've actually bothered to keep going with it! It means so much to me, I can't even explain, that people actually want to read my work! And can I just say, 2.5K... Like WHAT?!? Oh my god, you guys are the best wattpaders EVER! I love you all, thanks for reading, so yeah haha!! (Sorry this was so long) ~ XxFanFixX
