Swiping Right | Completed

Twenty Seven

          The less than five minute walk across campus felt like half an hour as my heart raced inside my chest, every second becoming more anxious as to what would happen. I'd broken his heart, as he had mine. He'd have every right to turn me away, especially with the amount of times I did that to him. My stomach let out the butterflies before knotting itself, making me feel nauseous. 

"It's in here." She smiled at me, seeming to sense how uneasy I felt. I gave a small smile in response as I followed her into the accommodation block. I briefly glanced around, wondering why Brodie had never mentioned that his friends lived on campus — or that he had any college friends at all. But that was a matter for a different day. I shoved my hands in my pockets as we walked up a stairwell, into yet another corridor with more rooms. "Wait here." Laila put her hand up to stop me as I hung back by one of the other doors, hoping to God they opened inwards and nobody would be hitting me with a door anytime soon. She walked forward, knocking on a few doors and muttering something to the people in the room before I saw three very scary looking guys leave. Those were Brodie's friends? "There you go," Her smile had dropped as she turned and left the accommodation block, the same concerned look on her face as Jordan had.

          I walked forward, slowly entering where the person I loved waited. He opened some curtains as I entered, letting the light shine into the previously dark room. A game was paused on the flatscreen TV which had been neatly perched on the wall, looking as though it would fall down any day. The room was how I expected every boys dorm room to be; with clothes thrown anywhere with old food deliveries scattered and just generally a mess. It really didn't help the nausea.

Brodie sat on the bed. It had been a few weeks since I'd last seen him, but it felt like longer. How broken he looked on the day he told me of the depression was gone, and replaced with, well, nothing. He just looked tired. And distant. It was like the whole world had escaped him and he was back, locked inside of his head. The place he was when he lost Nyla. And I had put him there. I had put him back into the cage he had only escaped from when he met me. 

He motioned for me to sit beside him, but I took the desk chair opposite. No matter what had happened, we still needed our space. There was no denying how I felt about Brodie, everything in my body was longing to hold him in my arms, to reach out and touch him, but I resisted. It even felt like my heart was reaching out, every beat calling his name and my brain was screaming at me for ignoring it. 

"How have you been?" I murmured, my hands shoved palm to palm between my legs. It was a pathetic start and not the reason I had walked for half an hour after school. My bag was still slung over my shoulder, I daren't put it down, the risk of rats carrying it off being too high. I noted to myself that Brodie had barely looked at me, only glancing when offering me a seat, other than that, his eyes would not meet mine. 

"Yeah, great." His voice was cold, and all I wanted to do was reach out and grab the Brodie I knew. This person sitting in front of me was just a ghost of the boy I knew. 

"You seem it." He looked up at me, a small smile playing on his lips at my sarcasm. I couldn't help but return it. "I just need to talk, and you don't have to reply just let me speak or I never will and then I'll go." I searched his face, only receiving a small nod in response. "I made a mistake, I should have believed you. I know you, I know you'd never do anything like that to me and I miss you. I miss you so much, Brodie. I just want you back, please. I'll do anything." The distant look in his eyes changed to a look of sadness and my heart leapt into my throat, my heart racing as I said the words for the first time, "Brodie, I love you." My eyes dropped to the floor instantly, my heart was ready to burst out of my chest at the rate it was beating, the blood had raced to my face, my hands were clammy. This love thing was terrifying. 

His lips found mine quickly, bringing my head up with his. The feeling was nothing like I'd ever known before, the feeling of longing that I'd been pushing down for so long had resurfaced and I couldn't help but grip the front of his t-shirt, pulling him as close to me as possible. He pulled an inch away, his face still close enough for me to feel the heat radiating off him.

"I love you, too." He muttered before crashing his lips back against my own. 

We sat there for about half an hour, speaking, laughing and kissing — mainly, kissing — before we heard the footsteps pounding up the stairs and along the corridor. We heard the doors being kicked open, just seconds before our one was. The police stood in the doorway, screaming incoherently about a raid.

I shot a look at Brodie, fear replacing the happiness I had felt only seconds before. His face mirrored my own as our hands went into the air, following the police out the dorm where Brodie's friends stood. He tried to ask what had happened, but instead got yelled at by yet another police officer, one who was shoving people into the cars. 

A crowd had formed as Brodie and I were thrown into the back of a car and very quickly, my fairytale dream reunion of riding off into the sunset became a reality of driving off to the police station.