You're My Strength (A Nathan Sykes FanFic)

Moving

I straightened up, wiping the sweat off my forehead and stretching my back. I looked around the lounge which was in a state. Who knew moving was such hard work?

A knock on the door.

“I’ll get it!” shouted Karen from upstairs. She was clearing my room.

I started taping up the boxes and labelling, but I could hear them all in the hallway. My pulse quickened. I missed them, but how could I face them?

“Where is she then?” came Max’s voice.

“She’s in the living room, but,” and then whispering voices.

I rolled my eyes. “I can hear you talking about me, you know.”

“Hey!” came shouting and they all piled into the room and Tom was the first to wrap his arms around me. I flinched slightly, but succumbed and hugged him back. “That’s more like it,” he smiled, then kissed my forehead before releasing me and stepping back so the other boys could come in for a hug. It was Siva next who told me I looked well, Max said “Hiya chick”, Jay laughed and pulled both me and Karen in for a hug and ruffled my hair, and then it was just one left. Nathan. He stepped forward, looked at the ground, and then finally met my eyes.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” he answered.

“It’s been a while,” I stated.

“Yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. My heart sank.

“Shall we get started then?” asked Max, a little more loudly than he really needed to, but he caught my eye and I knew he was just trying to diffuse the situation a little. I gave him a look that I hoped said ‘thanks’. He smiled in return. That’s when Karen jumped in, giving orders, telling everyone where to go. Max went with Jay into the kitchen, Siva in the bathroom, Tom with me and Nath upstairs with Karen. As he went past, Max gave me a squeeze on the arm and a small smile. I sighed, but knew I couldn’t expect him to forgive me. At least he was civil.

I took a deep breath and looked at Tom.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked, with a smile.

I smiled back. I’d always loved his smile. “How about moving the boxes into the hall so they can be put on the truck? I just gotta label these first.”

“Sure,” he said, and I taped up the boxes and wrote on them.

I looked at my snowglobe collection in the glass cabinets and wondered about throwing them. They just gathered dust. I opened the glass door and picked up my favourite one. It was quite big and heavy, but had three beautiful dolphins swimming around in front of a large oyster shell with pearlescent painted on the inside. I gently shook it and watched the glitter sparkle in the sunlight.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Shit! Nathan! I almost dropped it!” I gasped, grasping the globe, feeling my heart pound in my chest, “You made me jump.”

“No kidding,” he replied. I gave him a small smile before putting it back in the cabinet.

“I don’t know if I should bring these with me. They’re not really useful. But I’ve spent my whole life collecting them, there’s some from all over the world and back again.”

“You should take them with you. You can’t just leave them.”

I sighed, “I dunno.”

He put his hand on my arm, “Hey. I’ll help you. I don’t like being up in that room, I don’t know how Karen does it. She’s a trooper, that one.”