Becoming (INSECURE SEQUEL)

Two: Evacuees

CATALINA

I never took myself for a person who loves as hard as I apparently do, but I am one of those people. You know the feeling where your heart beats so fast that it makes your stomach flutter because the person you love is so close to you and the joy consumes you. It's one of those feelings that you feel with your soul and not your heart, and then that's when the tears start coming-- the tormenting sensation of tears of joy.

Well that keeps happening to me, the stupid tears of joy thing, and even worse, it keeps happening during sex. One moment, all I know is that he's here with my soul in the palm of his hands, and before I even know it--mid climax, the crazy tears are coming down my cheeks.

"Are you crying?" Ashton stops and furrows his eyebrows at me. "are you—what's wrong?"

"You're so handsome." I huff and look at the ceiling trying to stop myself. "I just love you some much, oh my god."

"Okay." Ashton laughs and leans down to kiss me. "Should I stop?"

"No, don't stop." I pull him closer to me.

He kisses me again before he rolls from on top of me to beside me and I huff, looking up at the stupid ceiling and cursing myself from being so emotional.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not going to have sex with you while you're crying, that's weird." He smiles and sits up.

"but I'm only crying because you make my heart explode." I cross my arms and glare at him.

"I love you too."

"You know that tears are my default setting." I lean over to grab his shirt and put it on to cover myself.

It's been the first reaction to my emotions as long as he's known me, and just because it's crying, it doesn't mean that it has to be a bad thing. Ashton knows that, but I'm pretty sure that he has ptsd from when I used to wake up at 3am and have a mental breakdown when he and I first met, so everytime he sees me cry, it upsets him. I don't break down crying anymore; I used to when I had so much pain that it consumed me, and that's not a thing for me anymore.

Speaking of PTSD, I've gotten much better with that too. When Ashton and I first moved in our house, I used to check the door to make sure it was locked ten times because hypervigilance was this weird thing that I couldn't shake for a long time. The nightmares that I used to have stopped and I only fidget with my fingers sometimes, but nothing has made me that anxious in a long time.

"We have all day." He chuckles when he glances at the angry expression on my face.

"When our kids wake up, it's over. So no, all we have is the morning and the night, and you're getting scared of some stupid tears."

"Admittedly, seeing you cry is traumatic, but I'm not scared of your--"

Before he can finish explaining himself, the doorbell rings, followed by some intense knocking. I roll my eyes because now I'm for sure not getting any.

"Not it."

"Shut up." I roll my eyes."Hand me my underclothes."

I groan to myself as I lazily pick myself up off of the bed. I put on my shorts after I find them so I can be decent when I open the door. Despite his announcement that he's not opening the door, he gets up to follow me down the stairs.

"Do I look like I just had sex?" I turn to him before I open the door.

"No, you don't look like you started crying before we finished." He laughs and he brushes down my hair with his hand.