"Who was it?!" He yelled in my face and my breathing began to grow fast. I stared at him not sure how to respond.
"Both of you will go to prison if you don't tell the truth!" Tears flooded my face and I twitched, "It was—"
"Lei! Hey!" I blinked my eyes opened and muttered 'me'. "Are you okay?" He held my cheek looking at me.
"Y-yea" I slowly nodded and pulled away from him.
My stomach began to rumble. It aches like I hadn't eaten in days. "How long have we been walking?" I asked and he shrugged. "Maybe a day or two."
"How long was I out?" I asked and looked at him in the eyes.
He looked at the sky and looked back at me, "About an hour."
That was the weirdest dream. An hour? I feel like it would have been longer than that. It felt longer than that.
"Are you okay?" He asked, I could hear the worry in his voice. He gently pushed a loose hair strand behind my ear and slowly caressed my cheek.
"I-I'm uh." I gulped and felt my head getting dizzy again. "I'm okay."
"When we were walking I found this like old cabin things in the woods yesterday. Maybe wanna go back there and rest up better. I know you say you're okay, but I noticed a change."
A change? I noticed the heightened paranoia. I noticed the excessive worrying from both of us. I've heard you crying at night.
Of course there was a change. We did something rather regrettable. We did something that was going to alter how we lived our lives forever.
Yes there was change. But let's pretend there isn't. Let's become new people and live together.
Let's build each other up from the ground and become someone better.
Let's be the people that didn't wallow over our mistake.
That was going to be hard. The sound. The scream. The image. It was already burned into my memory. Burned into the core. I couldn't stop seeing it.
I let him do this, why did I let him do this?
"Lei?" He held my face to look at him and wiped away tears I didn't know were falling.
"Let's go to that house." I managed to get out slow.
He kissed my eye gently and helped me up.
"Want to ride on my back? I mean you are tiny. Your little legs must hurt" he smirked at me playfully. I rolled my eyes and giggled jumping on his back.
The moment was so lighthearted, but still so dark. It was nearly sunset; the trees created random rays of sunlight through the woods.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs wrapped around his waist. I laid my head on his back and smiled.
In that moment I had forgotten everything and remembered everything all at once.
He was my best friend. I loved him more than anything else on this planet.
That was never going to change. Not even after what happened.
I still have him.
I pulled his ears, "Onward!" He chuckled and jumped over a log.
"Woah! Are you a ninja?"
He laughed lightly and nodded, "Well of course."
We didn't have to walk that far to get to the old house. It was abandoned, that's for sure and it was big. An old cabin in the woods always gave off uneasy vibes, but it would be nice to stay inside tonight instead of sleeping on the ground.
He put me down and I stepped onto the porch. I ran my hand along the rotten wood. It was rough under my fingers and smelled of sap and rain.
I moved away from the porch and sniffed the air. The rain was coming from the air, not the porch.
We were lucky to find this or we would've gotten soaked.
Allen and I walked into the house to observe the surroundings and take note of the place we were sleeping in.
It was very creaky and old. The inside walls of the cabin and chips in the wood and some of the creaks so dusty that you would sneeze walking past it.
I walked up the stairs slowly, and carefully not knowing the safety of the steps yet. Allen slowly followed behind me, his eyes wondering onto every detail.
We both glanced around upstairs and looked at each other.
"Alright, boss. How ya feeling about this
place?" He smiled at me.
I loved his smile. Even in the darkest of times it was one of the most amazing things to see. It was like a warm hug. I couldn't look away. I smiled back at him and nodded.
"You did good." He took in a deep breath and
looked around.
"Maybe I can find some old curtains that we can use as blankets."
"Excellent creativity, Allen." I chuckled and went to one of the rooms to create a clean area.
I sat next to a window slightly broken and stared down at the ground.
The cabin looked so small from afar. But being on the second floor was pretty high. I gulped lightly and looked away as Allen walked into the room with torn up curtains.
"How long will we stay here?" I asked as my stomach began to rumble again.
"You sound hungry, maybe we can spend one night then try to clean up and go to town tomorrow." I bit my lip trying to analyze the outcome of actually going out in public tomorrow.
I don't know if that would be such a good idea. Letting people see us. Not to mention the town we'd go in would be completely alien. We've never been here before.
"I guess we can try." I shrugged. We didn't have any money though, so how were we going to pay for it.
Allen sat gently on the window seal and smiled at me. "I love you. You know that?"
My cheeks grew bright red. " Of course I know."
"No like I really—" I saw it as it was happening. I went to grab his hand, but his fingers lightly grazed mine as he fell backwards.
My breathing grew heavy as I began to panic.
I ran downstairs and out the door to him.
His mouth filled with blood and he was having trouble breathing.
"It's going to be okay." I wiped his mouth and my eyes watered as I looked down at him.
