There's The Cat and Then There's Me [boyxboy]

Chapter Twenty-Nine: What's So Good About Picking Up The Pieces?

The world around me seemed to fade into a realm of blank and void, shades of grey dulling the once colourful park. Life was being drained from in front of me. My hands turned cold, my palms sweaty, my breathing strangling my throat. It rasped shallowly when it broke from my constricted airway, fracturing the stiff air around me. My entire body was numb, rigid… dead.

“What?” I croaked desperately, my voice catching and breaking as panic twisted its claws into my gut. He’s lying… just this once… he’s lying.

What if he isn’t?

He is. He has to be. He just…. He HAS to.

I stared at the boy in front of me, almost wishing he was a stranger, a liar, someone I couldn’t trust, someone I didn’t know.

Anyone but who he was.

His body was so broken, his frame seeming to shrink into itself as he turned towards me, the most stunning, dangerous and captivating eyes I had ever known to exist piercing me to my core. I wished to tear myself away, to pull myself from this terrifying reality. To rewind conversation, to reverse time.

Why did I ask? Why? Why did I open my stupid fucking mouth? Why didn’t I just leave it alone?

Because you knew what the answer would be. Deep down… you knew exactly what the answer would be.

NO! No! Ace would never… he would NEVER. He couldn’t have pulled the trigger… he wouldn’t hurt me. He loves me. He fucking loves me! He told me, he showed me… we made love… He can’t hurt me.

How can you be so sure? You know what you saw Andrew. You know what you saw.

He just… he wouldn’t.

Words caught in my chest, my hands fisting tightly in the grass beneath them, the frail strands snapping and breaking, ripping away from the soft earth. Wind tugged at my hair, blowing it over my eyes and ruffling the raven strands of the beautiful boy in front of me. His gaze remained locked with my own, soft lips forming shapes, words that failed to reach my ears. I could only watch as he spoke, reaching slowly towards me, heart wrenching pain haunting the jade depths.

Ace?

Ace can you hear me?

Are you listening?

Why? Why?

Slender fingers traced over my cheekbones, rubbing at the skin and I flinched when I noticed a gleaming wetness coating the tips. Am I crying? My eyes flew between his hand to his face, the boy breathed in harshly, pure sorrow and guilt marring his flawless features. The pain bleeding across his body was unbearable to watch, my heart slowly tearing into shreds as the boy I loved screwed his eyes closed, teeth clenched and his hand balling into a fist, what sounded like restrained sobs breaking from his lungs.

We were being ripped apart by silent killers.

I forced myself to move, forced myself to swallow the paranoia seeping through my veins. How could this happen? How could he do this?

I’m so confused…

Does this mean he doesn’t love me?

The thought of him falling away, the thought of Accel turning away from me, of Accel laying broken and empty frightened me. It sent tendrils of fear so black and so dark into my mind that for a moment I stopped breathing. My world stopped turning, terror consuming every sane thought in my head. I couldn’t live without him, I wouldn’t be here without him… I couldn’t exist without him. He was just… We were just…