Set Free

Set Free Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

  Once I finally reached my house, out of breath and hysterical, I ran inside and up to my room, slamming and locking the door in one brisk motion.  My gaze swept the pitiful room I had chosen as mine. All around me were boxes of my things which I had never evenbothered to unpack. When I was ever in my room, I was either sleeping or out on my balcony, and, you guessed it, daydreaming about Justin. It was all I had been doing for the past couple of days since the dance.

  Absentmindedly, I kicked a few boxes around until I saw the label on one of them. I picked it up, and found it was the one labeled, "Justin". I willingly let out another batch of tears as I moved to sit on my bed and dumped out the box's contents. The I began to sort through everything, reliving the special, irreplacable memories within each item.

Remembering. What a wonderful and terrible human capability. I kept looking through the pictures of the two of us until I came across one of Jusin kissing my cheek while he held the camera up and took the the picture. It was kind of awkward and a little blurry, but it was my favorite by far. It always had been. I hugged the picture to me and laid back on my bed, tears still endlessly streaming down my face.

  "I'm sorry, Justin, I didn't mean to kiss him. I really didn't." I said brokenly between my sobs, "I love you more than anything, Justin."

I got up for a moment to turn on our song, 'The Saltwater Room' by Owl City. It was the song that was playing on my iPod when I first met him, and I felt like it fit us perfectly. It had become our song when I told him that I always thought of him when I heard it, and he agreed. Now it was like my lullaby. And just like a lullaby, with it playing in my room, it only took me only a few minutes to cry myself to sleep.

  I stayed in bed almost the whole day on Saturday, and my mom was thankful that now I was just grieving, but trying to live through it instead of trying to end my life. My mother didn't dare bother me the whole day, and just let me get my much needed sleep. I was thankful to her for that, though to my mom it was a commonly known fact that I didn't normally sleep much since Justin had died. So this indeed showed some kind of change, or improvement,  in me, that now I could finally sleep for longer than a few hours at a time.

  On Sunday morning, my mom grudgingly knocked on my door and called out, "Amber, we're leaving for church in an hour. You need to get up and get ready to go or we'll be late and Dad will be ticked."

  "Mom, isn't it enough that you're making me go to school?" I whined. "What more do you want from me? You know I don't even want to be here in the first place!"

  "Well honey, I'm not gonna leave you alone. You're going to get up to get ready for church on your own, or I'm gonna send your dad in. You pick."

  An hour and TEN minutes later, the three of us finally arrived at church, and I was pouting in the back seat. We hadn't come early enough for Sunday school, so I was at least thankful that I didn't have to go through most of the "What's wrong honey?"s and "Why the sad face?"s. I could just sit still and wait an hour to leave this unwanted trip through memory lane.

  Although, I reminded myself sadly, Nick will probably be here. Great.  Another train wreck waiting to happen.

  We had been almost late, and I once again kept my head down. The church was full of people, and I kept getting my eardrums about blown off since the elderly lady next to me could NOT sing at all. I tried hard to tune out the sermon and the elderly lady, and thankfully the time passed by quickly, since I had made myself daydream of Justin again the whole time. Funny how now it was something that more and more lately, I was having to make myself do.

  After it was finally over, I tried to get out of the tight-spaced sanctuary as fast as I could, but it was no use. I felt the all-too-expected tap on my shoulder, and I whirled around to, of course, face Nick. He wasn't smiling today. But why would he? I'd done a terrible thing, running away from him right after he'd kissed me. And then there were also all those terrible things I'd said...I wouldn't have blamed him if he didn't want to talk to me anymore. In fact, I was quite surpised, yet in a good way, that he was talking to me.

  "So you came. I thought you wouldn't" He said softly.

  " My parents made me, or else." I said back in the same soft tone of voice he had. "But, look, I'm not interested in you that way, okay?  I just want to be friends with you. It's better that way."

  "Yeah," he said, and as he paused I did a double take.

Is he really giving up this easily again? I thought. Well, I certainly won't make the mistake of questioning him this time.

But unfortunately, he wasn't finished.

 "But I want you to look me in the eyes and answer one question for me real quick, and, if you can do that, I won't mention this whole thing ever again. Okay?"

  He hesitated, waiting for her answer.

 "Fine, what is it?" I sighed, just wanting this encounter to be over already.

Then he surpised me.

  He stared deeply into my eyes and asked, slowly, "Are you sure, and I mean absolutely positive, that you don't feel anything, anything at all, for me?"

 The question caught me so offguard, even though I'd thought I was ready for anything he could throw at me. Actually, I should have expected this. But I didn't.

  And I was sure by Nick's expression that the true answer passed through my eyes even before I could begin to try to get the word "Yes" out of my mouth. I was too mesmerized by his eyes that seemed to be everywhere at once. They were watching me, taking in my unsure expression. They were taking in what was now the obvious truth. Tears sprung to my own eyes as I realized saying yes would be a complete lie, and without a another word to him I walked away, and he let me. I knew that he now knew the truth. And now, I knew the truth that I'd fought to deny. I'd known the second I'd failed to even say yes.

And I knew deep inside he'd never let me live it down. He would never give up on me.

And honestly, right now at that moment, I wasn't even sure if I wanted him to, even after everything.