start over | dreamwastaken x reader (sequel to split)

25 | APPROVAL

NAMELESS POV

You my love, are the greatest gift I've ever been given. I cannot hate you. Even in the greatest of pain. Even when thoughts of you leaving me again roam rampant in my mind. I still love you wholeheartedly. Because you are my love.

I look at you and I feel fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy. I feel complete. I feel the way I think my parents felt when they looked at each other. Even though it's been years, I can still remember the way my parents looked at each other.

Photos would never do the two of them justice. But the image I have of them burned into my mind is enough for me to know that's how Clay and I look at each other. I wish I could ask them if they had the trials and tribulations that Clay and I have. If they broke up and hurt like we have. I don't have anyone to ask. I wish I did. But I don't.

"Clay?" I say softly breaking the empty quiet air between us.

We're cuddled up on his bed. He's been trying to get me to spew what's on my mind but I don't even know how to question. How to rely the whirlwind of what's going on inside my head. I can't even wrap my head around it myself.

He ushers me to continue on. Not filling the room with words, waiting for me to fill it with my own. "Do we look at each other like your mom and dad?" If I can't ask mine, maybe Clay can fill in my answer with his own.

"What?" He shakes his head and though I don't see it, I know he does it by the shake of his body. The question is a shock to him. He stops his aimless fidgeting with finger swirls and twirls and his movements seize as my words replay in his mind.

"I've been thinking about how in love with each other my parents were. Like even at my young age I knew that they were in love. And I wonder if we look at each other like they did. I wonder if they were actually as in love as I have painted in my mind." I sigh. "I wish I had pictures of them to just... prove their love to me. But it's all gone."

"Baby," Clay continues his fidgeting by a simple touch. He runs his hand up and down my arm. It's not rigid. It's gentle and soft. Slow and comforting. "There is no doubt in the world that your parents were as madly in love with each other as we are."

"But, did they fight like us? Is our relationship really healthy? Like—" I stumble around in my mind over words. I don't want to hurt Clay by saying the wrong thing. "I want their love. The love I saw in them even if it wasn't the truth. That's what I want."

"How about this..." Clay starts to say and trails off as he reaches for his phone. He begins to speak as I hear the line begin to ring.

"Oh my god is everything okay?" Clay's mom's panicked voice takes over the line.

Clay chuckles at his mom's panic. It's warranted though. We are calling way into the night. We've probably woken her out of her sleep. She has every reason to worried.

"Everything is good. I just have a question. An important question that couldn't wait." Clay looks down at me as he speaks. My eyes looking up at him as he speaks to his mom.

"So, you knew her parents right?" Clay questions. "Like you were good friends with them since you kind of had to be because of us. Right?"

His mom answers simply with one word, "yeah".

"Were they madly in love?" Clay asks hopeful. I don't feel like he's ever looked at his parents as madly in love. I'm sure they were but since his relationship with his dad was toxic. I think there was always a bitter taste there. Not anymore, but back growing up there was. He didn't see the love like I did in my parents.