The tart silence, broken by their own heartbeats, was eliminated by Jason's voice. "We're here." His voice was strained. as if uttering even a single word was draining him. Back then, he might have spoken with force and conviction, but now, he was void of either. In a moment, as reality had sunk, as his aversion to New York had sunk, he's realized that he was losing Alyssa.
And he felt the urge to sink back into his own dark depths.
Alyssa nodded towards him, opening the door. Stepping out. Each step sealed her away from him.
In a moment of wild panic, Jason stretched out his arm, shattering the seal, grabbing her hand. "Alyssa," he said, despite the choke and constriction building in his throat. "When are you ... leaving?"
"Flight at 3 pm tomorrow."
It felt as if blocks of lead had been dropped inside him. He stuttered, so unlike his smooth and empty voice. "But ... that's tomorrow. In the afternoon. You could've stayed with me tonight."
"Jason, I don't want to make this worse for us. The longer I stayed..."
The remaining unspoken words hung in the air before them. As a final reminder that heartbreak was inevitable, to the already broken birds, with scars that kept appearing in their hearts.
He let go of her hand.
For now.
But not for ever. She was the one who's made him happy, she was the one who motivated him without even uttering a word. And he knew she would come back to him.
She had to come back.
His only fear was that he might not be able to handle it long enough for her to return. She might come back a day too late.
Alyssa rushed away from the car. When she was finally near the gate of her hostel, she saw him drive away. Only, he was driving towards the opposite direction - towards the town area, not the suburbans were he lived. Alyssa frowned, her eyes feeling stingy. He was probably taking a long road or something...
She went round to the back of the hostel, where the cars were parked. Luckily, she had her key in her bag, for she had forgotten to keep it in her room when she had gone there in the afternoon.
Soon enough, she was out in the road, determined but definitely not ready for a six hour drive to Winchestor. She was driving past a dingy street in town to take the shortcut to Willingdon Street, when suddenly, her car sputtered. Oh, come on, she screamed in her mind. Not now.
It bumped up and down and dipped down one end. Alyssa frowned. She got down only to find a tire flat as a paper balloon. She gritted her teeth. What should she do now? It was half past midnight and not a soul could be seen.
In a way, Alyssa couldn't help feel glad at the emptiness of the street, because it did not look like the kind of place where any decent person would come. Small, dark and suspicious-looking buildings loomed over the small street. And the place definitely reeked.
She and her Challenger were definitely out of place, and she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
Alyssa got a tire out of the back seat of her car and got down on her knees. She hadn't changed tires in months, but she knew she still remembered how to. After all, this was one of those few skills that Ander had taught her with his own hands.
She was almost done when she heard loud, raucous and definitely male, drunk voice, shouting and laughing and cheering. Alyssa's heart skipped. She wasn't sure if they were the kind of people she would want to come across.
Almost one in the morning, dingy street, sneaky buildings. A lonely girl. Couple of unsteady drunkards. Didn't sound like a very tempting offer. Suddenly, her breath felt too loud. Alyssa slowly rose up from her crouching position and peeked over her car.
Around hen boys were hooting and cheering, bottles in their hands, their steps unsteady. And one of them was bullying a small, scraggy boy. She could not well make out their profiles, but she could see that they were all well-built and tall, except that one boy.
"What's up with you, kid? Lost your mummy or has she been turned to a dummy?" a raspy voice hissed at the boy, while the others were overtaken by peals of loud laughter at the lame 'joke'.
The small boy backed away but the bully followed. "Why'd you come here, huh?"
The boy only shook his head, shaking like a dry leaf.
"Don't be scared, kid. You wanted to be a man, didn't you? Well, I learnt to be a man the hard way, too. What do you say, guys? Shall we teach him?" he roared the question, only to get cheers in return.
"They agree," the man said, his voice getting harder.
Somehow, his voice was familiar, but Alyssa could not place it...
The little boy whimpered, as the man grabbed his head, slamming it into a wall. The boy cried, as the others laughed, as if they were watching a comedy show unfold.
Alyssa whimpered instinctively. And a bit too loudly. One of the boys, who was farther from the crowd, and nearer to her car, had heard her.
"Who's there?" he boomed, turning towards her. The others stopped in their tracks, at the signal that an intruder was present among them.
A/N:- Me be like... "I'm sweating. Alyssa, RUN!
You be like XD?
YOU ARE READING
When Trouble Comes ✔️ (Republished; Completed)
Teen Fiction---A mistake that went way before she was even born. A mistake that started it all.--- Alyssa wants to escape her past, but what she doesn't know is - you can never run away from it. After her family's murder, Alyssa Taylor is forced to move to Mel'...
