through it all, there was you ↠ conrad fisher {2} (on pause)

f i v e

Conrad's point of view:
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

sweetheart 🩷
apples.

       It's all she says. That simple message causes me to let out a groan. The guilt claws at me as my stomach twists, even more then it already was just a few seconds ago.

       I have been ignoring Claire's calls for the last hour because I stopped at home to grab the rest of Claire's stuff and do some laundry while I was there when I overheard a call left to the house phone. It was a call from a relator about selling a house, and not just any house — my mothers beach house. I didn't think, I just left and started driving. Now that she's texted me that, I can't not call her back.

        I was going to call her as soon as I got here and explain everything, but just as I'm about to pull into my driveway I notice a car that looks very similar to Claire's blocking the entrance. I pull to the side of the road, parking my car. I jog over, and sure enough Claire is sitting there on her phone. I knocked on her door, and watch as she startles. She sees me and relaxes, but she places a hand to her chest.

       I'm momentarily distracted by the reason I originally came here when I see the trembling in her hands that isn't just from me scaring her, when I look at her face I can see she really had a panic attack and wasn't just texting me that to get me to call her. I feel like an ass for thinking she was spam calling me for anything other than an emergency, she never spam calls me like this. My heart drops when I notice her face is all blotchy and she has puffy eyes.

I open the door quickly, just wanting to touch her, comfort her. She climbs out of the car and practically falls into me. I didn't realize how much I missed her until this moment. I've been so hyper focused on school, and trying to keep myself distracted I forgot about the one person I should have been focusing on and working to get through this difficult time together. I do this every fucking time. I let my own sadness pull me away from everyone.

        I wrap my arms around her, not needing to know why she is feeling this way — just wanting to use everything in my power to bring a smile back on that beautiful face of her.

"It's okay," I hum. "I got you. I'm here. You're okay," I murmur into her hair.

       She smells like her rose shampoo and I'm immediately comforted. She smells like home. I place a small kiss on her forehead. She isn't crying, not even a little bit. But she still won't let go. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize it's been almost three months since we've seen each other in person. Yeah, we text and FaceTime like always but with senior year for her and just college in general for me it was hard to visit one another.

       "Baby what happened?" I ask gently.

        Her eyes flick to something behind me, before she looks at me again and there's so much sadness in her expression I just can't handle it. I cup her cheeks in my hands, just needing the skin to skin contact.

"I didn't want to be the one to tell you," she mumbles out. "I can't say it, just turn around." I do and I see that fucking for sales sign.

        "I know already," I say. "Why do you think I'm here?" I ask and watch as she face falls. That was the wrong thing to say, "I'm sorry," I quickly say. "I just mean I overheard the voicemail from the dads call about the house being for sale and I just came. I forgot you were coming down today. I haven't seen your messages since last night."

       "Oh," she says quietly.

        We just got past this a couple of months ago and we're right back to being distance with each other. Mom passed and everything went to shit. It's completely my fault, but with everything that happened I just feel so incredibly numb that everyday is just trying to make it to tomorrow — sometimes I don't even remember what happened the next day, all I know is I somehow made it. I forget I have another person who deserves my time and attention. She is fighting the same thing I am. We can be on the same team and I can't fucking Brel I eve I keep on forgetting this.

         "Why aren't you at your house?" I ask.

         "Parents rented it out for the summer. No one told me. I was just going to leave when I saw the sign. Just wanted to make sure you knew."

          "I'm sorry," I frowns down at her. "I'm sorry for not answering your calls, I was just driving."

         "I know," she says.

        She doesn't say it's okay and I'm glad, because it isn't okay. I ignore her calls often, and this time it resulted in her having a panic attack and I wasn't able to help. She probably called me before and I was just a prick who was too blinded, once again, by anger and sadness that I took it out on the one person I love the most in the world.

        "I missed you," I say suddenly and her eyes flash up to mine. I can see the hesitation there, her vulnerability, and my heart wants to shatter on the spot.

"I really missed you," she sniffles, wrapping her arms around me again. "I missed you so much."

       Well tackle the house being for sale in a second. For now I'm just going to hold my girl.

authors note:

how do we feel about Conrad's pov? Do we want more of these??