Through The Storm

40

Estella

He's kissing me so passionately I feel I'm gonna run out of breath and pass out from the interaction. He pulls me closer with his hands on my hips, and I hadn't realized we could get closer than we were. He leaves my lips and a small whimper escapes me until he places kisses along the bruises on my neck. The bruises he gave me.

What am I doing? I can't keep giving in, I can't keep letting him walk all over me. Isn't he the one who told me to stop letting my sister bitch at me?

I pull away from him. Stepping back as far as I can before he can say anything.

"What's wrong princess?" A small look of concern appears beneath his eyes. It's all fake though, he told me that.

"This is fake right?" My voice chokes as I say the words. Realizing my mistake again was believing anything with him to be real. His eyebrows furrow at my question, just answer it. For the sake of my sanity please Cade put me out of this misery.

"I don't understand what you're asking princess." Don't play dumb with me now.

"You said before, it was all a plan. So this is fake? Just like everything else?" Oh god, his apologies. He was lying. It's what he does.
"The apologies, the hug. It was all f- fake." I whisper mainly to myself but loud enough that I'm sure he can hear.

He drops his head to the ground, answering my question without using his words.

"I'm gonna go find a ride home." I say quietly, my voice felt so small compared to him. I felt so small.

"Estella let me take you home." The desperation in his voice made me want to deny that it was all a fantasy. He made me want to believe in the fairy tales I had come so accustom to hating. He made me want to go back to the treehouse in a princess dress and continue my make believe story. He made me want to believe in the lies of the world, to believe that there was happiness for me somewhere out there.
"Please." I had forgotten he was there. Still awaiting my answer.

"Okay." Is all I say before climbing back into the car. This would be a quiet ride, one I wasn't truly prepared for.

He climbs into the driver side keeping his head hung low. Maybe he regretted it, the lying. Maybe it was real. No, I can't do that to myself. I can't continue to live in the fantasy world created by my own sorrows.

"Do you want to turn on music?" His deep voice pulls me from my thoughts.

"No. I'm okay." I turn my head back to the window and continue watching the leaves as we drive past them. It was a starry night out, unlike usual. It should be raining— after all we're in Seattle. But no, as if the universe was telling me it didn't support my emotions- the sky was clear tonight.

I used to think the stars were so beautiful when I was a kid, I would stare at them from the backyard lying there with my sister and brother. Dylan always said he'd become an astronomer when he grew up, he would buy me a star and fly me there in a space ship. I never took the promise seriously, but I think it was the first promise someone broke in my life.

When he went missing, I would trail out to the backyard and pray to the stars, I would look to them and wait for an answer. I'd search for him in them, I'd search for a sign that he was out there and he'd come back for me. I never told anyone of the times I'd sneak into the woods behind the house hoping whatever took him would do me the mercy of taking me too.