~Please, Say You Won't Let Go~ Clouis

Chapter Five: Tell Me I'm Enough (Clem's POV)

I woke up in Louis' bed. We had been together so much since the boat, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Yesterday, Aj asked me what had happened, and I reluctantly explained it to him, not wanting to tell him everything.

I decided that because Louis needed me to be there more now, I'd give AJ more independence. After all, we were in a very safe environment and as long as he promised not to leave the school grounds alone or get into any serious trouble or danger, I had no problem letting him go a little. He needed to have his own experiences and coddling him wasn't the right answer- especially for a boy growing up in the middle of an apocalypse. 

On the other hand, yes, I cared about Louis- Louis kept me happy, but Aj was family since I was eleven, so Aj would always have to come first. Now Louis just followed... shortly behind him.

We made a deal at dinner last night: he would talk to me whenever I wasn't with Louis unless it was an emergency. I agreed but also assured him that I'd be there to talk regardless of who I was with and at what time he needed me, I didn't want him to "give me space," I Moreso just wanted him to understand that Louis also needed attention now. He had friends too, so he had them to pay attention to them too, or at least that was how he saw it, which was good for him growing into his own person but bad for me because... well, my "not" child was growing up, and I was scared that eventually, he wasn't going to need me anymore- I mean, you all know my story. Everyone that took care of me died somehow and that taught me how to be self-reliant- that was my biggest fear for AJ.

Louis being cuddled up behind me seemed to soothe both of us and rid us both of our horrid nightmares at night. He would stop tossing so much, and that ended with me getting a lot more sleep.

As soon as I moved from his grasp, he shot up as well, asking if everything was okay. After I assured him, he just stared at me with a smile on his face. He seemed like he was perfectly content with watching me all day which, admittedly creeped me out a little bit but I guess he thought I was pretty, and I wasn't complaining about that- it's nice to feel pretty. Especially when you're a teenager that had never had a real relationship besides the ones I dreamed about.

"We're spending the day together. I owe it to you; today is just about us." I said, grabbing his hands and staring intently into his eyes.

He hugged me back.

We managed our way down to the library, and as soon as we entered, he went to sit at his piano, motioning for me to sit next to him.

He scooted me closer. Weirdly, he seemed like he didn't want to play, so I reached my hand over top of one of the keys and lightly pressed down. Him repeating my motion with a different key and soon enough, wouldn't you know it? We had a song...

...and I finally got him to smile at something other than me.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm here for you all the time. But I just want you to try to feel safe telling me things, especially about the other night. I know with Aasim... it can't be very easy to not talk to anyone. Besides, he makes fun of us together so it's practically shared trauma at this point." I laughed.

I secretly wanted him to vent to me. I wanted to make him feel better. I wanted to feel like I could fix him. In the end, it's not something I could do, and I know that because trauma isn't fixable but it feels good to think you're doing something nice for someone else, even if it does virtually nothing in the end.

He signaled a piece of paper and pencil again. I raced to get the things and set them down in front of him, giving him a hard surface to write on, too.

"Find something to do while I write this all out." His first sentence read before he flipped the large paper over and went to sit on one of the couches to work.