Love

Twenty One || New Me

a/n: !warning! sensitive topics are discussed in this chapter

"Good morning," someone whispers from beside me.

I open my eyes and turn my head to see Ada. Her face is free of makeup, eyes slightly swollen still from sleep. She smiles at me, eyes squinting up to nothing like mine do.

"Good morning," I say, my voice deep and raspy. I pull her into my arms and give her a soft peck on the lips. "Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year," she giggles. "Got any new resolutions?"

I chuckle, allowing myself to think. As I think, I simply look at her and take in her natural beauty for the first time. "You're so pretty when you wake up."

She rolls her eyes but her pink cheeks give her away. "Don't change the subject, Park."

I laugh and she rests her head on my chest. "Let's see...I want to try harder in our relationship."

"What do you mean? You're great."

"I mean, it's always you calling me. I want to be the one calling you. I want to have the same intuition you do for bad days. I want to be as thoughtful of you as you are of me."

Her lips leave an innocent peck on my neck. "You're too sweet."

"Not yet, but I'll do my best." We both laugh quietly and settle comfortably into each others' arms. "What about you? What's your new resolution?"

Ada sighs. "I want to be more open with you. About myself and my life. We've been together for three months and we know so much about each other, but it still feels like we're strangers. I think that's probably my fault."

I know what she means. I think back to the night before, to her hesitancy, like fear, of sleeping with me. There are things I don't know, things that influence her everyday, secrets we keep from each other. Me included.

"I promised you I would be patient," I tell her. "I don't need explanations if you're not ready to give them. I know it can be hard to take down walls around someone."

Ada sighs and pulls herself out of my arms. She props her body up on her elbow and gazes down at my face, lovingly touching the edges of my features with her fingertips. Her touch is so soft, it reminds me of cherry blossoms or snowflakes blowing onto my skin in the wind.

"I've already told you that my relationship with my parents isn't strong, that we haven't talked in a while."

I nod, feeling sadness fro her well up in my chest. As soon as I feel it, however, I try to fight it off. She doesn't want me to pity her, that I know.

When I was sixteen, I started dating this guy," she begins. "My parents didn't like him, and I really thought I was in love with him. I had lived a very sheltered childhood and he was...everything my parents didn't want. He was unlike anyone I had ever met before and it really drew me to him.

"We would fight over him, my parents and I. A lot. The always said he had a toxic personality and that I would regret getting involved with him one day.

"When I turned eighteen, I decided to take control over my situation and left with him. We ran away to start a life together and to live however we wanted. Which was a bad idea." She chuckles, but behind that I can hear her voice start to get tight and shake from pain. I sit up and pull her into a hug and she melts against me.

"Anyway," she says through sniffles, "once we got away, that's when the abuse started. He was controlling and did stuff like wouldn't let me leave the house, didn't give me any way to contact anyone...it was like there was something really wrong with him. It was just awful, but I was willing to do whatever he wanted me to because we had gone to such great lengths to be together. He was all I had."