Can A Song Save Your Life? (An Adam Levine / The Voice FanFiction)

Chapter 14: Secure

After a while, my sobs turned to cries and my cries turned to these pained, whimper-type things. As I tried to slow down my breathing, I began to feel the mortification settle in—I had just bawled on Adam Levine.

I was terrified to lift my head from his chest for fear of seeing the water damage. After a while, though, after I’d managed to quite down, I finally had the courage to dislodge my head from underneath Adam’s chin. I kept my head down, unraveling my arms. As I let go, he slowly released me, but he didn’t step away. I turned away, wiping my eyes in order to rid my face of the worst of the mascara tracks. “I’m sorry,” I said in a broken voice, still turned away. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I won’t accept your apology,” he said from behind me, and judging from the clarity of his voice he hadn’t moved a step. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

“I’m sure I ruined your shirt,” I sniffed. “Which would bring the total of shirts I’ve ruined within the last twelve hours to three.”

Adam made an indignant sound. “C’mon, Annie. If I can afford to get a hotel room at the Four Seasons, I can afford a new shirt.”

“That’s not the point,” I said.

“I know,” he replied. “You don’t need to be embarrassed. You’ve been through a lot tonight. I would’ve been more concerned if you hadn’t had a breakdown. You’ve already proven you’re stronger than most.”

I finally built up the courage to face him again, trying one last time to rub the worst of the smudged mascara away. He looked at me, his gaze concerned and troubled. His shirt was damp, but I was glad to see that it wasn’t a mess of mascara stains and snot. “Thank you,” I said. “For being here. I know this is kind of crazy, for you and me to be meeting again in these circumstances, but…I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there at Belly’s, or if you hadn’t stayed with me afterwards. If he’d gone through with what he was doing, and there’d been no one there—”

“Don’t think about it,” Adam said. “Because you’re okay now.”

“Because of you,” I reiterated, and I offered him a watery grin. “This is kind of crazy, isn’t it? Of all the people in the world…it was you.”

“You know, maybe it is good you picked Blake as your coach,” he said, returning the grin. “If you’d picked me, the rest of the team would have felt plain terrible, because you would have been my favorite from the very start. I’d never be able to eliminate you.”

“Nah,” I said, trying to get a last sniffle in. “You’d have hated me without the traumatic back story. I’m kind of boring.”

“There is no way I could’ve hated you,” Adam laughed. “And you’re a lot of things, Annie, but boring isn’t one of them.”

“Sure I am. I was an English major.”

“Being well-read makes for good conversation,” Adam said.

“I’m a barista,” I tried again, slowly feeling a heaviness lift off of my heart.

“That’s kind of hot.”

“My best friends are my sister and a paralegal,” I tried again.

“That…is a little boring,” Adam conceded.

I gave a genuine laugh, my smile lingering for a moment after I'd fallen silent. The tears had almost entirely dried up, and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a nearby window, I was surprised to see that I didn’t look so bad. My eyes were a little red-rimmed and there was a bit of smudged mascara, but for the most part I wasn’t too rough. The laughing had painted a healthy glow on my face, and even though a part of me was still crushed, Adam was making me feel better.