Hot & Heavy (Eren x Reader)

Chapter 44 - delay

You could see his eyebrows raising, even in the shadow of the moonlight. You remembered his long, shaggy hair that always seemed to cover his face. Now that he had it tied in the back, there was nothing that could prevent you from admiring just how much he had grown. It reminded you of Thanksgiving, of when you tied it back for him as he hovered above you to make love.

You shook your head internally, cursing your mind for bringing you there.

"Actually, I wanted to apologize for Thanksgiving," he said, oblivious to your attempts at forgetting that night. You realized that many of the memories that were cursing and plaguing you must have been floating through Eren's mind as well. "I know I treated you terribly that night."

You wondered if he had truly held onto that burden over the years. You knew that you had forgiven him all on your own. You had tried to move on, Colt was one of the main sources of healing.

"It's okay, Eren, you were being truthful and I was being immature," you began, finally saying the words you had harboured in your heart as you learned to live life without your best friend. "All I wanted was to be with you, but I couldn't see that it would never work out like that. You knew that."

Eren's eyes were half-lidded as they sadly looked to the ground. You felt like you were putting words in his mouth, making assumptions that you had told yourself were true all this time.

"It's what I needed at the time, to grow up. Right?" As you dug deeper into the subconscious of your mind, you found bitterness and scorn. Wounds that manifested into fuel propelled you to keep moving forward. "You told me to let you go. And I did." You could feel yourself choking up as if your voice didn't want you to say those last few words.

You could see that Eren's eyebrows were knitted together tightly as he regained the courage to look at you again. "It seems like you have it all figured out now," he stated plainly. As you grew up together, you always saw Eren as someone who was always a step ahead of you. It seemed like he could predict the future. He struggled to lift the corners of his lip as he began to blink rapidly. "I'm happy for you." Eren's fingers began to circle around your fingers. You could practically read the conflict in his eyes.

You found yourself feeling incredibly raw and open. There were things that you had hidden that you had yet to come to terms with. Somehow, Eren's presence made you remember everything.

"You know, I was so broken after you." The words you spoke stung in Eren's chest like a spear. "You were everything to me, even if you were busy or gone or just straight up avoiding me, I still would have loved you the same."

Eren's head hung low, in shame and in regret and in resolve. "I know."

You swore you could hear the same levels of deadpan in his voice that you found in his mother.

He continued as you did your best to grasp any amount of air for your suffocating lungs. "I couldn't let you love me anymore because I didn't want you to ruin your life by staying with me." Eren's grip around your hand was tighter now. "I think if we had tried to salvage what we had when you moved, the both of us would have ruined everything. Shit like that happens all the time."

You thought deeply for a moment as he paused. There were parts of what he said that still resonated a little too true. You had seen it before in other relationships. Zeke always mentioned how much he wondered what life would be like if he wasn't still with Pieck. Your own mother stuck with your father for years just for the sake of being together for the family. You even saw it with Jean and Mikasa when they failed to hide their codependent tendencies.

You wanted to scream out to him, to tell him that your relationship was different than all the rest.

Knowing just how hard it was for you to maintain any connection with your friends in Shiganshina as you attended university in Marley, it was hard to tell if that was true. After all, it was due to Eren breaking your heart the second time that you cut everyone off.