Tempted (#Wattys2015)

Tempted:61:

"Ok, thank you."

"Of course. I'll see you both tomorrow."

I swallowed as Bella and I walked out, trying to piece everything together.

There wasn't anyway she was budging on the witness protection program, and I didn't blame her.

This was all my fault from the beginning. I couldn't ask her to never see her family again.

They told me they'd be offered the program too...they knew everything, but my brother didn't, my sister didn't.

I doubt they would do that, and obviously Sean wouldn't.

"Are you guys ready to go?" Benny asked, Bella's grip on my hand tightening.

"Yeah," I looked at Bella beside me, feeling a twist in my stomach. "We're ready."

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"I'm not going to be able to sleep." Bella said, looking around the new apartment with her arms crossed over her chest.

"It's ok, I don't think I'll be able to either."

"What are we going to do?"

"What do you want to do?" I asked, sitting on the couch in front of her and caught her by her waist. "We'll do whatever you want."

"No, then you'll probably end up hating me. This isn't how things were supposed to happen. We were never supposed to be offered this - I just wanted a normal life - at least where I got to work on my music and be with you -"

"We can still have that." I told her, slowly taking her hands from her chest. "We won't do the program. No witness protection program, but we can still leave. We always talked about that, didn't we? Now we can."

"But it was supposed to be later - I'm 18, you're going to be 20 and...No more New York."

"No, no more New York." I shook my head, pulling her down onto my lap gently. "That's if we move away. We have the option to stay."

"There's also a possibility of Manny getting away with things...all of his buddies. You know how they work a lot better than I do...if we stay, I don't think we'll end up together, somebody would- they would-"

"Alright, shhh." I coaxed, kissing her temple. "We can move. At least we'll be together. We won't be involved in the case. If Trent gives them everything on Manny, he's gone. Manny has done so much crap to everyone that works for him that I doubt they'd look for us when we're gone. We have a chance at normal Bella. We could go to school together at our new place. We'd have a house, eventually we could get married and have a family there. We'd all be safe. We could go to Huntington. We'd be by a beach, LA, Bella we could start a life together. A real life, and you know we could see our families whenever we wanted."

"This is just so fast."

"I know, and I'm really sorry." My voice came out as a whisper, my arms holding her as tightly as I could. "I'm not going anywhere without you. I want to be with you. Either way it's over. He didn't win."

"No he didn't."

"Here, I managed to swipe my laptop before we left. We can check things out for ourselves."

"Ok." She nodded, scooting off my lap and I went over to my bag, pulling out the laptop and plugged it into the wall.

"Where do you want to look at first? Beaufort might be close to your mom."

"But I don't think I could get anywhere with my music there...I mean I'm sure it's beautiful...I-I just-"

"No, it's ok." I smiled, sitting down beside her this time and opened up the computer. "What about Huntington? That was in California. I've never heard of it before."