I lay in bed thinking about the 2 weeks. It's been 2 weeks since I almost lost my best friend. Megan is doing a lot better and she is now out of the hospital and someone has been instructed to be staying at Megan's with her 24/7, well that's at least what I've been told. Megan is stubborn, probably forces them to leave. I haven't really left my room since going to Megan's place, the thought of the man telling me I have a high price on my head for just being around Easton scares me. Easton has been working lots, I think, so I barley have seen him this week. I've been missing his touch, and it hurts to not see him as much anymore.
I've known him for over a month, almost 2 months, and he is having this effect on me and I don't know why. I feel connected to him somehow, someway, and it scares me.
I'm wrap myself in a blanket and sit on my bed with my shoebox. I dump every single thing out of it onto the bed and sit it in front of me. I hear a soft knock and I tell them to come it. I see Easton's face pop in the door and he walks over and sits beside me. He stares down at the pictures in the pile on my bed.
"What are you doing?" He questions.
I smile at him before picking up a photo of me when I was younger and showing it to him, "I'm looking at my happiest memories."
I watch as he lays back onto the bed, "tell me about them." My smile must be a mile long, the only other person I have ever shared these memories with was Megan, and finally having someone else that brought me happiness was nice. Picture were how I hold onto people and memories that seem to fade with time.
I pick up a picture of my mom and I, I set it in his hands and I watch as he analyze the picture. The picture is of me and my mother at the airport. She had a scarf around her head and sunglasses on, "I was 5 there, my mom and I had just gotten back from from a trip to Spain. She had shown me everything that she grew up learning and every place that brought her happiness as a child, even though I was little, I still remember the city it was like a fairytale. I've always wanted to go back someday, I've just never gotten the chance."
I pick up another picture and handed it to him, "My mom and I at the park during a carnival, I was around 8. My mom was terrified of birds, and when I mean terrified, I mean absolutely petrified of them," I laugh thinking about it. "I wanted to hold the parrot so bad and I wanted a picture with her in it, so she stood as far as she could and someone took the picture of us."
As I kept going through the pictures he just sat there and listened. He let me talk about all the memories I kept behind a wall, caged in this box. I smile as I set the rest of the pictures in the box leaving only a few on the bed. I turn and look at Easton and he is already staring at me, I can tell he is trying to figure me out.
Before I can say anything I hear his voice, "Where is she, I'd like to meet her, she seems to be one of the people that make you the happiest, is Trevor her boyfriend?" He pulls me back into his chest and rubs my arm, drawing lines up and down waiting for my answer.
I can feel my chest tighten at the question. I let out a sigh and grab one of the photos I faced down on the bed and hold it while leaning into him. The picture, is me in a hospital bed with my mother, she barley had any life left in her eyes but her smile was wide as she held onto me. "When I was 12, my mom found out that she had cancer. She had cancer at 34," I say reliving the experience once again. I can feel the tears threatening to fall from my eyes.
"Her name was Iris, she was the happiest woman in the world and she died of cancer at 35. There was nothing the doctors could do except give her medication to ease her pain. I remember the day so clearly, it was raining, all day. I had spent the day within her hospital room doing puzzles with her, she seemed fine to 12 year old me. She asked me to lay in the bed with her and she stroked my hair with her fragile hands, she told me that she hoped one day I would find someone who loved me more than anything life could give. I saw her turn and there was a man standing outside her room, he was tall and had brown hair. He was wearing a leather jacket, with some black jeans, I watched as he gave her a sad smile and then walked into the room, kissed the top of her head, whispered something into her ear, smiled at me, then left. Moments later I felt her hand stop stroking me and then all around me beeping started to happen and the doctors rushed in, but there was nothing they could do. She had already left, I sat in the window of her room crying watching the rain fall, and in that very moment, the sun came out and I could feel it shine down on me."
I felt myself come out of my thoughts and I could feel Easton's thumb wiping away tears that I didn't realize I let fall. He embraced me in a hug and whispered how sorry he was, and how he wished he could've met her.
I pulled away from him and crawled to the other side of the bed and grabbed the photo off my night stand before going back to him, I showed him the picture, "This is the only picture I have with my dad in it, my mom used to tell me stories when I was younger how he was on a long adventure and when he was finished with it, he would come and find me. And still 19 years later he hasn't come to find me. But the love stories, they sounded amazing Easton. She was in love with him until she passed away. And since then, I promised myself and her that one day I would have the same love for someone as she did for my father."
I set the picture down, and straddle him. I lean my lips towards his ear and whisper, "I think I found the person who completes me, who makes me feel wanted, whose touch burns my skin and whose lips heal my soul."
I feel his hands run down my back and grip my waist, then I hear him whisper, "and who is that L?"
This felt right, he felt right. I slowly move my lips from his ear and softly kiss his neck. I trail my lips along his jaw before coming close to his and whispering, "you."
"Are you sure you want that Lyla?"
"Do you?" He silences my question with a kiss. "I want you all to myself."