Love-Love || OLD DRAFT

eleven - eleven

A/n

Guuuuys, I got an honourable mention in the Open Novella Contest where Nicoismysenpai wrote a lovely review for Love-Love and I'm still crying!!! Thank you so much, again. Means a lot. Aaaaaaadhhxh

....

Whatever I had with Aspen, whatever thing was going on between us, I knew it was an illusion. It had to be. Happiness, after all, was fleeting.

He was soon going to realize it too; realize how, at the end of the day, I was a criminal and a murderer while he had sworn his allegiance to the law and to the city. There was no way anything between us could last.

So, I watched him get prepped for war without a word or a helping hand. He didn’t say anything, either. Perhaps he knew, like so many other things he already had knowledge of, that I was not going to fight my friends.

Linden… well, I was ready to fight him, but after what Aspen said (Was that decision really yours to make?), I could not bring myself to face him. My reality was built around that truth and to have your whole reality questioned, I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

I began wondering if I had ever loved Linden in the first place. Was it just two lonely souls seeking company? Or maybe it was love, but somewhere down the line, we grew blind to what it actually meant. Lin wanted big things, while I just wanted to hold on to the happiness that we already had, fearful of letting go, of letting him go.

Happiness was fleeting and you had to hold on to it whenever it came, rarely as it did.

After Linden was gone, it was just Roux and I. His charm that had contained all our happiness was replaced by the two of us planning a heist for weeks, fighting Super Storm, attending lame parties and Roux studying to get into uni. It was mundane, but I loved it. Oh Satan, did I love it!

So much so that I did not want Linden to come back and take away whatever normalcy I had attained in my life. I did not want him to come back and take Roux away from me.

Clearly, I must’ve done something terribly wrong because I managed to arrive at the exact scenario I had been dreading. Roux was back with Linden and I knew there was no way I was going to get my friend back.

So I wanted Aspen to stay. I didn’t want him to go out there against two of the most powerful Supers, both of whom wanted him dead, but I also knew how I had no right to ask anything from him, let alone ask him to stay. He was the Hero and the city needed him. The city which was burning and I was the one who had ignited it.

“I’m going out there,” Super Storm said once he was all ready and geared up.

I stared at him, not knowing what to say. He was going out there to clean up my mess and for the umpteenth time in my life, I was realising how awfully selfish I was.

“What are you gonna do?” he asked, but there was no trace of accusation in his voice.

I said the only truth I was capable of accepting. “I’m not gonna fight Roux.”

“Then don’t,” he said. He flicked his wrist and a packet came floating in the air towards him. He caught it and took a few steps towards me, closing the distance between us. My guilt forced me to take two steps back but he caught my hand and placed the object on my palm. “You don’t have to fight her. Just win her trust back.”