"If it's too hard, you don't have to."
I completely ignored that sentence and started at the beginning. "I was born completely healthy. Despite being a week early, I didn't have any problems. For the first nine months of my life, we were the picture perfect family. Then mum went to a doctor's appointment, because she was three weeks pregnant. I have a brother or a sister I never got to meet, how weird is that? My dad was going to meet her there after work, while I stayed at my babysitter's house. They're not sure what happened, but I guess she got stuck in between two cars. One stopped suddenly, she didn't notice, so she ran straight into him. Then another was trying to avoid it but ended up pummeling into the driver's side. She didn't even make it to the hospital."
Zayn reached out his hand to place it on my thigh. I smiled at him.
"From what I heard, after that my dad tried to take care of me but he just couldn't. He put me up for adoption, not being able to handle the reminder of his dead wife and dead baby. He didn't even give me to a relative, he needed me out of his life for good. The Parkers are amazing and I never felt any different than any of them. I am Joelle Parker through and through, it's just hard that my dad didn't want me. He never tried to get ahold of me, and the Parkers signed a paper on how they aren't allowed to contact him whatsoever. I guess it's better that way, because he's probably a real deadbeat. He was a great guy, I assume, when my mum was alive. But he invested so much of himself into his relationship with her that he couldn't even begin to think about living without her. So how is that different from you and me? What if one day, we are so undeniably in love and something happens? Would you give up a baby if it meant being reminded of me?"
It was the sting of not being wanted. If I wasn't good enough for him, how was I ever supposed to be good enough for anyone?
"See what I meant, Zayn? I'm not good enough for you. Obviously there's something wrong with me, and there's too many dents for me to be a good girlfriend. I never really should have said yes to that first date." I sighed, staring at his hand and tracing his hand with my finger.
"You are more than enough for me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you," he said. He then paused for a couple seconds. "Okay, there is something wrong with you."
I glanced up to look him in his eyes, because that's not the kind of thing he would say to me. Maybe he finally realized the truth, that he could find a girl who was so much easier to deal with than me.
"You don't seem to see how incredible you are, how beautiful you are, how smart you are, how talented you are. So you're right. There is something seriously wrong with you if you can't see what the rest of the world sees." The sincerity in his voice was astounding, he meant every single word he said and that might be why suddenly I was wiping away the start of the tears that wanted to fall. "There is no one I would rather be with than you."
"It's not too late to ask you to forgive me, then?" I asked.
"Never," he leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. I smiled into the kiss because I didn't realize how much I missed this. This perfect feeling, as if I was a fully whole human that had nothing wrong with her. Chapped lips against chapped lips. Who knew that such a simple thing could bring such happiness? Eventually he pulled away. "And I guess you wouldn't mind becoming my girlfriend once again?"
I stopped for a second before smiling. "I don't think I ever really stopped, you never gave up on me."
"I'm stubborn." Zayn laughed before digging into his pocket to hand me a crumpled of piece of paper. My eyebrows crunched in confusion as I slowly unfolded it. It was lyrics, with some words crossed out and half of it was pen and half of it was pencil. My eyes slowly scanned over each letter, piecing it together.
When your tears are spent on your last pretense
And your tired eyes refuse to close and sleep in your defense.
When it's in your spine like you've walked for miles
And the only thing you want is just to be still for a while
If your heart wears thin I will hold you up
And I will hide you when it gets too much
I'll be right beside you
I'll be right beside you
When you're overwhelmed and you've lost your breath
When the space between the things you know is blurry nonetheless.
When you try to speak but you make no sound
And the words you want are out of reach but they've never been so loud
If your heart wears thin I will hold you up
And I will hide you when it gets too much
I'll be right beside you
I'll be right beside you
I will stay.
Nobody will break you,
Yeah.
Trust in me, trust in me.
Don't pull away
Trust in me, trust in me.
I'm just trying to keep this together,
Because I could do worse and you could do better
If your heart wears thin I will hold you up
And I will hide you when it gets too much
I'll be right beside you
Nobody will break you
"I'm not leaving you, Jo. I don't care what might happen, I will protect you from this crappy world. Even if something terrible happens, I won't let it change how I feel."
Heyoooo, that was the last official chapter of this story :O I'll be posting the EPILOGUE sometime this week, hopefully. Depends on how my work/school schedule works out. BUT I WILL BE DOING SOMETHING TO HELP YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND THIS STORY.
Leave a question for me below. ANY question. It can be about my writing, it can be about the story, it can be about Joelle, it can be about me. I don't care, just post it below! I'll be posting a Q&A segment after the epilogue. So LEAVE A QUESTION :)
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Chapter Twenty-Seven
Start from the beginning
