WHAT COMES AFTER THE END OF THIS

Chapter 65

Chapter 65

Chase's PoV

I lay in bed, staring into space as Nicole lay in my arms. I idly traced my fingers up and down her smooth, bare arms all the while thinking about Yrene. When I turned my head to the side I figured out that she was awake and examining me; sitting up, wrapping the covers around her body she turned to me and to my surprise she beheld sorrow in her brown doe-like eyes. I cocked an eyebrow at her as if to ask her what she wanted to say but she got up and started to put her clothes back on.
"Hey, where are you going?"
Having tugged up her jeans she walked towards the edge of my bed and set next to me, resting a hand on my stubbled cheek,
"I'm leaving Chase. Forever."
"What are you saying Nicki? What do you mean you're leaving?" I was genuinely shocked by this revelation. Why was she leaving and why now?
"Chase... Honey... I know you like me, but you don't love me. I know that and I was well aware of it before I got into this relationship but I thought I could change it; yet I cannot. I know you're a man respectable enough to not have used me only as a fuck buddy, a friend with benefits, but even as your girlfriend... I.. I can't help but feel like sort of your rebound. I know you don't think of me that way but I really do love you and I feel like this relationship is not going anywhere; you're looking for something else, someone else, and I'm not that someone, I can't give you what you're looking for."
Hearing her words made me feel guilty but it also made me realise that she was right; it wasn't fair on either of us and deep down I knew that I could never be able to love anyone else. I hung my head low in shame and she raised my chin to make me look at her,
"Hey... It's not your fault. We both know that we tried to make it work between us and that's all that matters and think of it this way: we will still remain good friends no matter what and who we love. So I'm leaving tomorrow, I'm shifting to the US."
She smiled understandingly at me and I gave her one of my own as she kissed my cheek, waved at me and left.
~*~
I had just fallen asleep when I was awoken by the obnoxiously loud ringing of my phone. Cursing, I answered it without having looked at the caller ID.
"Hello?" I spoke groggily into the phone and to my utter shock and horror, on the other side was Ross Jones.
"Ch-Chase?" He whispered, crying, on the other end. And immediately I became alert as hell.
"Ross? What the hell? Why are you crying?" I questioned, although inside through my connection, I already knew the answer to that question and the one I asked after that, "Is Yrene okay?" The way Ross was crying it only meant that something was wrong, he had only called me in this state once before and that time Jason had died. My thoughts went wild as I waited for him to answer me.
"I don't know, Chase! I've been knocking on her door for the past almost half an hour but she isn't opening the door! And out of all the days it had to be today that she pulled this stunt!" His words were confusing me.
"What do you mean Ross? What do you mean by today?"
"It was supposed to be Jason's twentieth birthday! And she isn't opening her door, the whole night I heard bottles clanking in her room and I was worried so I went to check up on her and well now she isn't opening her damn door!" He was full blown crying from the panic as he pounded on the door over and over again. My entire world started to spin about me as the possibilities of what could have happened to my baby. My body shook rapidly as the dark scenarios played out in my head.
"What?" I questioned in a shaking voice, "can you not open her door with the master key?" I thought of every way in which I could save her.
"No, she got her lock customised so that only she could open it with her key had it been locked from the inside unless you knew. The password and none of us know it!" I could hear the exasperation evident in his voice, "stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" He continued to scream and I heard movement behind him so I knew the rest of Yrene's family had woken up.
"Chase can you come over? Please!" He begged me and I could barely bring myself to deny him,
"Me? What will I do?"
"You fucking love her! And she loved you too! She still might hold some of that love for you! She might open the fucking door if it's you! Please Chase! Just please! Come over!"
His words hit home and instantly the love I felt for the girl locked in the room revived inside of me and I rushed to her house. Not caring that her family might be there or what they might say if they found out about my feelings for their daughter.