After You... (1st Draft)

Chapter 16 - The Getaway

Hello followers old and new! Firstly, thank you so much for your patience! 

Secondly, yes I take forever to update. And my reasons are never the same as before. For some reason, something ALWAYS happens in between updates. I get busy or some shit just goes off...I'm super sorry about that.

Thirdly, (and randomly), I am at one with The Force and I am at one with the Nerdiverse right now. Yes, watching The Force Awakens trailer...? Not gonna lie, it was emotional lol. But a year to wait? *In my Darth Vader voice* NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! *drops to knees, fists to the sky* Damn you Abrams! (Just don't let me down and we're good. Thanks!)

Forth, I get the feeling that with the way this chapter ends, somebody is gonna ask me "is this the end?". So, I'm gonna say right here; NO. There's 20-something chapters in total. If I even see that comment, I'm not answering you because it's been answered.

Fifth, This chapter was gonna be in two parts, but for those who want to see Darius in particular, it's better I put the whole thing up.

Sixth, I really hope that you guys understand why this chapter unfolds the way it does. I wrote it this way because I believe there's something raw and honest and self-sacrificing about love, and I think that's pretty amazing! I always wanted to explore it for these characters because I think it's true to them. It just felt right. And after this chapter, we move ahead even further plotwise, which excites me!

Seventh (finally), Thank you all for sticking around with this story despite my update intervals, and for all the support you have given this story. It means so, so much you have no idea. :D Many blessings every which way, 

-Blu :)

                               Chapter 16 - The Getaway

We'd left the sounds of anger and violence in the front yard. We'd deafened ourselves with the volume of our loud thoughts to drown them out. My head could do nothing but scream the words my mouth couldn't sound out.

Every time I'd ever thought he was really hot, or incredibly sexy or super good-looking or a walking turn-on, or...all of those things, there was just something about seeing him this way that instantly stripped away all that superficial bullshit and made him so heart-stoppingly beautiful.

I swear my heart forgot what it was meant to do, how it was meant to function. I'd likely missed several beats in this moment.

But his pain also tore pieces of it away that I'd have gladly given to him to mend whatever had at one time broken his. Because it was obvious; something had.

Thoughts ghosted around him, and he used the ones that haunted him to withdraw a little right now. He'd spoken with fists earlier, but not this time. This time he struggled to hide the fact that the hidden place that breaks free once our tears finally fall reveal that through everything else we see, there's always something else hiding beneath it all. Something a little painful.

Who falls for someone's tears? Why all the added feelings that came from seeing them no matter how subtle they were? Maybe it was the vulnerability that lay beneath them that caught me...I don't know...

Even when I'd hugged him earlier, every little emotion that had hitchhiked a ride on this journey with him was magnified. He'd left those subtle tears on my skin, and I felt they'd sunken into me, passed through every vein and led themselves fast into my heart.

There was no point in pretending this thing I was feeling for him was just a reaction to this. That it was some irrational fear of the inevitable. That this thing that tugged at my chest, seized my emotions, and created havoc in my tummy like a prison for butterflies, was not what I thought it was.