Tempted (#Wattys2015)

Tempted:61:

"Yeah, let's look at that." She nodded, leaning her head on my arm.

"Alright," After I pulled up a few things, I looked down at her, kissing her temple. "It's right outside of LA, and it's pretty close to the beach too."

"What about schools?"

"For us or for our kids?"

"Us." She smiled, slipping her hands around my arm. "But it's probably smart to look at the other schoolss too, for future reference."

"Of course."

We sat there for a while, laughter shared between us as we looked around.

"We're not even married yet. I just wasn't expecting us to look at houses, let alone on the west coast."

"I understand...do you want to get married?"

"I mean eventually I do. That's just - I'm 18...you're not even 20 yet, there's so much I want to do first. I don't want to take any chance of - I don't know."

"We have time. I'll go wherever you want to go, and I hope you know I you, and I'm so sorry that this happened, I never wanted..." I trailed off, trying to find the right words to say, but I don't think that was possible at this point. "I thought we were going to be able to stay, I wanted us to have choices and I never wanted you to have to give things up for us to be together-"

"I want to be with you. Nothing is ever going to change that. Sure, it sounds like I'm leaving New York, but we're going to be safe, we're going to be happ, and we'll be together. I don't even know if I'd be able to go back to NYU anyway...I might...you know. It would be too much to handle."

"We're really doing this, aren't we?" I asked, sitting back farther into the couch.

"Yeah, I think we are."

"Bella, this means...you literally give up everything."

"I know," She said softly, resting her head on my shoulder again.

I sat there quietly, looking forward and sighed.

Her scholarship...the music base she had started...she loved the city.

"I'd rather be with you over anything else." She whispered, pressing her lips on my cheek.

"This is all my fault."

"No, Justin. You've done everything you can do. I'm not the only one giving up something. You're going to have to leave your family behind when you were at a point everything was so good between you guys, and I'm so sorry- You've gotten everything back just to give it up again and I-"

"Hey, shhh," I lifted up my hand, cupping her cheek as she took a deep breath to keep herself from crying. "It's ok. I know I want to be with you too, and nothing is going to stop me from doing that. They'll understand, we're going to be in touch with them. It'll be like that time we ran away together."

"But this time it's actually permanent."

"Maybe not forever." I shrugged, setting my laptop aside and pulled her onto my lap. "But this way our kids will be safe, you'll be safe. We're getting our fresh start."

"Where are we going to go for our coffee dates? And no more little diner. We should pack those in our suitcases and take them with us."

"I'm sorry." A frown formed on my face, my arms tightening around her. "We're going to find our own place to call ours wherever we go."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You should really get some sleep, sweetheart."  I told her, running my fingers through her hair.