My Heart Beats Faster

Chapter 24 - One Of Those People

“Anytime.”

He took me home that day. Yes, it's my home. There's nowhere else for me now, I don't have any more family. So this is my makeshift family. Where One Direction are like my uncles. Where I have four other siblings. This is family to me. In anything but the blood. I went back upstairs to my room. I burst through the door and smelt the familiar scent of myself. A layer of dust was collecting everywhere and it was exactly as I left it. I threw my duffel bag on the floor. I fell on my bed, inhaling my room I've missed for so long. It felt like home. But there was still something missing. I found it when I heard the all too familiar voice.

“Devin?” the voice said. Honey, like sweet sweet honey. It was like the first time I heard her say it in science class.

“Yeah?” I said. She ran up to me and hugged me. We were impossibly close. I was whole again. My world, my entire world was in my arms right now. Her perfume welled up in my nose. Secret Wonderland. I had given her that perfume for her birthday and she has been wearing it ever since. But it was not all Secret Wonderland, I could smell a hint of strawberry in the mix of it all. She smelt so good. The jingling of her millions of bracelets were music to my ears. Finally, I was home.

“I missed you, so much,” Alexandra whispered into my neck. Her breath against my skin sent shivers down my body. Shocks through my veins. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.

“I missed you too,” I whispered back. I forgot about not wanting to see her again. It was like being on top of the world. She started to cry, softly. It was the saddest sight to see in the entire world. Her body trembled, and her lips quivered. She didn't shut her eyes, but the tears came rolling down her face. I gently wiped the tears away. “Please don't cry, Lex. You know I don't like it when you cry.”

“But Dev, I've missed you. I've missed loving you,” she said. I let a small gasp escape my mouth when she said it. She loved me? But that wasn't possible, was it? “I'm so sorry,” she apologized softly.

“For what?” I asked.

“For running away. I'm not as strong as I make out to be.”

“You're the strongest person I've ever met. You don't get hurt by hate.”

“No, you're the one who makes the hurt go away,” she said like a small child. Was I really? “You're the one who always made me laugh when I didn't even want to smile. Dev, you're my sunshine, my only sunshine.” I chuckled a bit at the last part. Alexandra was always making lyric references.

“If I'm the sunshine, then your my world,” I said. It was so cheesy. But I didn't care anymore. She was my world. All I had left. Alexandra was there when I heard my family died. When they announced the plane my family was riding on crashed into the ocean and they couldn't find it. When my little brother, Darren, as annoying as he was. I missed him. When Emily was gone, I didn't have my older sister anymore. She always had my back. She even took the blame most of the time, when I did something wrong. I missed her a lot. And my parents. I don't have the strength to describe my pain of losing them. But Lex, she had me. She shooed that pain away. But when I first heard, I cried all day and all night, that time. And she was always by my side and never left it. When I left the past few weeks was actually the first time we were ever separated in years. And she was the only explanation to my emptiness. It sounds too much like the movies, I know, but that was how it was.

“Don't turn this into something cliché, Rossi,” she said. Alexandra had a serious look on her face, but I could hear the joking manner in her voice. Taking the piss? Maybe. “I have a song for you.”

“Let me hear it.”

“Maybe I'm wrong, you decide

Should've been strong, yeah, I lied