Hate Me Love Me

25| Forgive Me 🙇‍♂️

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

"Expectation is the root of all heartache." --- William Shakespeare.

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

Unlike the last time, when I open my eyes, I find him staring at me.

We're in an odd sort of position.

One of his arms is beneath my head, and the other is around my waist. We're pressed together, legs tangled, and his indigo blue eyes have started to brim with emotion.

When I open my mouth to speak, he pulls me closer so my face is pressed against his throat and his chin rests on my head. I hear him inhale. Long and slow.

This is not how it's supposed to be.

This isn't what it looks like.

Someone tell me why why why we're cuddling like it's the most normal thing in the world.

And then it comes back.

Click.

Megan's pregnant.

She's going to make a family without me. Replace me.

How is it, that when I was in the most extraordinary amount of pain, a boy who isn't even my friend, helps me and brings me home? Calms' me down? Tells me that it's all going to be alright?

The world has a sick way of operating.

My tears well up again, and, noticing, Alaric pulls me tighter against him and runs his fingers through my hair. He doesn't speak. Just lets me use him for comfort, holding me like he's trying to pull me back together using sheer physical force.

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

The wind whispers in my ears and plays with my damp hair. It runs obstacle courses around the clouds and falls around us. Surrounds us. Makes us shiver and rub our arms. Seeking attention. Howling. Rustling. The wind is restless. Hyper. Never stays in one place.

I glance at Alaric standing beside me with his hands tucked into his pockets and eyes closed. His face is a mixture of pain, agony, terror and resistance. His chest rises and falls faster than the waves in front of us.

After calming me down this morning, bringing me my clothes, letting me have a shower and feeding me breakfast, I expected him to be annoyed. To be fed up with me. But he lay next to me for longer than an hour, telling me that the new baby won't be my replacement. That I still have a family.

It beats me why he's still here. He told me that the beach will help explain what he wants to tell me. The sound of the water will be there to fill in the silence, and the scenery will give him something to look at when he can't face me.

So, here we are. There aren't many people at the beach this early, in this weather.

'Valerie,' he says my name, and he sounds strangled.

When did he change?

Was it after Halloween?

Yes. Definitely. He hasn't done anything since then.

'Yeah?'

He turns to look at me, furrowed eyebrows and red eyes. It shocks me. His hair isn't even styled to perfection today, but he stills looks so inhumanly gorgeous.

'I'm... I'm so sorry...' he gasps, holding my eyes. 'You have no idea,' shakes his head a little. 'No idea how sorry I am.'

My eyes are wide and lips are parted as he takes both of my hands in his, and brings them up, pleading. The gentle way he touches me is surprising. The vulnerability in his eyes is alarming. The sincerity etched into his words make me question everything he's ever done to me.

'Tell me then. Why'd you do it?'

His eyes drop to his hands holding mine together, and I can feel the slight tremble against my skin.

'Why'd you stop me from having friends?'

'I knew it would... make you upset, I suppose,' he chokes on his words, and I realize that he's ashamed.

'Why did you want me to stay in the cafeteria. And not go to the library?'

'You would see people with their friends. You'd... Look. I'm - I'm a selfish idiot. I wasn't thinking... The food fight, that was because I was feeling bad about hurting you. I was feeling bad about being bad to you. And I couldn't have that. I'm not allowed to feel bad about anything.'

He's shaking. Grasping my eyes and begging me to understand and he says -

'I had to prove to myself that that's how I am. Bad. So I made people throw food at you, but every, every drop... it burned through my skin... I know it would've hurt you more. I know. I'm a cruel person, Valerie. And when you didn't seem affected... I guess I just... felt like I failed, somehow.'

It was all to see me cry.

'You hurt me the most when you spoke about my parents,' I pointed out quietly, and his head bows down again.

'Explain that,' I say.

'My father... he... I'm not allowed to speak to my mother without supervision. And he caught me sneaking into her room... and he... I just... The first person I thought of going to after that, was you. And you'd walk away from me, and because I'm an asshole, that was the only way I could make you stay.'

He has to be supervised when talking to his mother?

Dean Aldrois has ruined him. Taken away his freedom. This boy in front of me isn't allowed to feel. He can't be around his mother much because he'll get more connected to her, and his father is against that.

But that still doesn't explain why he wants to see me cry...

'I've never understood you. I'm starting to, now. Kind of. But you still haven't told me what caused everything. Because the only reason you've ever tried to make me cry is because you want to know something. Tell me what that is. I think it's about time you do.'

He sighs and looks at me again, and this time, his eyes are entirely tinged red.

It tugs my heartstrings.

'Valerie,' his voice is thick, deep, and shivers a little. 'The first time I saw you, you were crying.'

That was my first day of grade 6 at Evermoor Middle Institute. I was upset because my mother always wanted me to go there, but she had recently died, and so she wasn't there to see me go.

'And... it did something to me. I had this feeling... this feeling that I could kill anyone who made you upset. And it scared me,' he whispers. 'You scared me. What you made me feel that day... it scared me. And I'm not supposed to be afraid. Or scared.'

Oh! Oh, my god!

'Every student was paired at the start of the year. Buddies. Because it was all of our first time in the middle institute, and she wanted us to help each other.'

And I was his buddy...

'You were my buddy. You were supposed to be with me. We were supposed to help each other, but you made friends and ran off with them. I had friends too, but I... I was looking forward to being with you. And that made me angrier, because you were a girl, and, as I said, I'm not allowed to have feelings. So I tried to take your friends away, to teach you a lesson I suppose. I was young.'

I've forgotten how to breathe.

Alaric takes a deep, shaky breath, and steps slightly closer to me.

'But then on Mothers day... I realized something...'

I freeze and look at him with fear.

I remember that day so well. Like it was yesterday.

'I realized something, Valerie, and what I realized was so dangerous. For me and you. Especially you. Because if my father found out what I'd felt that day, he'd be after you...'

And then he starts telling me, from his point of view, what happened on Mother's day.

And it's the start, and end, of everything.

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍