My heart, my mind, my breathing, and my being.
Everything vanishes the moment his lips touches my cheek. Everything around me literally stops, I can no longer hear him, or even hear my thoughts, I can't feel my heart beats and I can't grasp on anything to bring me back to life. I can't see anything but his blue eyes that stare right back into mine. Everything I see is blue, I can't avert my eyes and I can't blink.
How can all of that happen from a small, simple kiss?
How can I lose my attention because of that?
My heart slowly starts pounding heavily against my back and rib cage, going forward and backward. My mind seems fuzzy and unclear as I try my hardest to snap back to reality. My hands start shaking slightly, and I'm happy, at least I can function.
I'm overreacting. Why am I overreacting?
Because, I have watched that man every single morning, doing absolutely nothing. I have watched him and analysed him, admired him and fell in love with him, I laughed when he laughed and I felt my heart shattering when he seemed sad or down. I stayed the past year doing nothing but watch him and falling in love with him every day.
I was in pain every day, and I still am in pain. Pain of knowing that I can never have him the way I want to, pain of the fact that we are not like each other's. Pain of the fact that I can't stand lying to him, and there's no way to talk to him and get to know him except by lying to him.
I never had a trouble with who I am, I never wished to be someone else, and I never even questioned it. But the moment I laid my eyes on him, that insanely beautiful human, I started questioning everything. Who am I? What am I? Why are we hiding? Why can't we have a connection with humans?
And I hated that I didn't and I still don't have a single answer to any of these questions, and the other million questions that is inside my mind. I hate that it took me over a year to break a single rule and talk to him, I hate that I break millions of rules for him but I never got the courage to break that rule except for yesterday morning.
And the day I finally picked up my courage and strength and went to him, heard his voice for the first time and had him so close to me, I discovered that it wasn't the first time for him to notice me, that he saw me more than once. And above all of that, he kissed me.
He simply kissed me and it was such a beautiful, gentle cheek kiss, but I can't recover from it now. Here I am, standing still, not knowing what to do or how to react.
"I'm... s-sorry." The moment the words leave his mouth, I snap back to reality. "I know that I wasn't supposed to do that, b-but I just... I couldn't help it. I-I'm sorry."
"You apologise a lot." I smile faintly as I say quietly.
"I know," he laughed nervously. "So, I guess I'll see you soon?"
With a nod, I grip the hem of my shirt and ball it inside my fist tightly, "Yeah, sure."
"Okay." He nods.
I take a deep breath and a few steps back before slightly waving, "Bye."
"Bye."
And with that, I turn around quickly and once I'm out of his sight, I run. I literally run and pass Alfredo, not taking a breath and not looking back, I don't even wait for Esme and Wren, I keep running and running until I know that I reached the middle of the forest.
What am I running away from?
Everything; I am running away from everything. I'm running away from the fact that Louis kissed me, I'm running away from the fact that I actually spoke to him, I'm running away from the fact that he told me that he saw me before, I'm running away from everything. I'm running away from the person that I am, and the fact that I'm something else.
My legs give up underneath me and I collapse near a bush of trees, resting my back on them. My breathing is slowly returning back to its normal state, but I know that my heart won't follow these actions, neither will my mind. I know that I will not sleep; I'll stay up trying to empty my mind from all of these thoughts, trying to find answers to all of the questions inside my head. I'll stay inside my room, trying to calm my heart a little bit before I lose it and it explodes.
When my breathing finally returns back to its normality, I take a deep breath and force myself off of the dirty ground. I keep walking for about five minutes or so before I hear Esme's and Wren's voices from behind me.
"Damn it, Tallulah," Wren starts as they near me. "Where the fuck you have been? We're two hours away from the fucking sun!" She hisses, obviously flaring in anger.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't leave!" I try to protest but Esme just glares at me as Wren copies her actions.
"That guy is going to get your ass busted one day." Esme says as we continue walking towards our village, our footsteps faster than usual.
"He is not," I clench my jaw. "We are not going to get busted."
Esme huffs and rolls her eyes before she speaks, "Anyway, did you know what happened with him?"
I bite my lip in hesitation before replying, "No, I didn't."
"So, what were you doing all of that time?" Wren questions, raising her eyebrow at me.
"We went for a ride." I sigh. There is no point of lying to them, and why would I lie anyway?
"What do you mean?" Esme asks, clearly confused.
"We went on a ride on his motorcycle." I say, feeling oddly proud of having the courage to do that.
"What?" They both gasp and Wren continues. "As in a real motorcycle?"
"Yes." I say, grinning from ear to ear now.
"Holy fuck, that's awesome!" Esme gushes. "That's crazy."
"How was it? Was it cool?" Wren asks, grinning, too.
Feeling my heart pounding against my chest, just from remembering it, I smile and reply, "It was perfect. I felt absolutely free."
"Oh Lyara, I wish I can do that." Wren whines.
"He kissed me." I mutter, very slowly. I try to avoid their gazes as we walk more into the forest, only forty five minutes away from the village now.
I wait impatiently for their response but I get nothing, and I am greeted by incredible silence around me. No footsteps or breathings can be heard. I stop and turn around slowly, only to find two statues in front of me.
Wren is like a stone in her place, with her mouth agape and her eyes wide open. Esme has both of her hands on her mouth as she stares at me with wide eyes, too. I shift uncomfortably on my feet and look around me in nervousness.
"What?" I barely whisper, questioning why they are so surprised like that. It was just a kiss, it's not like he proposed to me.
You were just as surprised, Tallulah. I remind myself.
"He kissed you?" Wren is the first to speak as a wide grin slowly break its way to her face.
"He did." I say, a soft, small smile appearing on my face. "Only a cheek kiss, though." I feel like I might just swoon, from everything. Especially, from the way his soft, pink and thin lips touched my cheek.
"Aw!" Esme breaks out of her position and runs to me as she engulfs me in a big hug. "Oh, Lyara! Finally, something happened."
I weirdly chuckle in confusion as Esme backs away a little and Wren reaches us and we continue our way to the village. Should I tell them that he saw me before? I feel like I should but I don't want to, because I simply don't want to have all of my thoughts that I tried so hard to get away from, get back to me.
"You owe me ten bucks, Wren." Esme smirks as she says and my eyes widen.
"You guys bet on that?!" I question in disbelief.
"Her idea, not mine!" Wren raises her hands up in surrender as a chuckle escapes her mouth.
"Which was a very good idea, seeing as I already earned myself ten bucks." Esme continues smirking.
"Fuck you." Wren laughs as she says.
"You guys are so fucking weird." I shake my head, a small smile creeping its way to my face.
"That's why we're best friends." Esme shrugs as she hands me the Cheetos for Cronan. "Here."
"I forgot about it. Thank you!" I thank her and take it.
After a few moments of silence and us nearing the village, Esme speaks up again as she says, "You guys ready for the training next week?"
"I'm scared as shit." Wren admits, shuddering.
"I'm just nervous, I guess." I admit, too.
"Why are you scared, butt-head? You'll have Harry training you. What's better?" Esme scoffs.
Coming to think about, I really think that having Niall and Harry will make things a bit less nerves wrecking, though I have no idea if they will the ones who are going to train us or not, or how do they act when they are training. I just hope it is not too bad.
"True," Wren replies back to Esme. "But I haven't seen the training side of him. So, I can't judge." She finishes and shrugs.
"I can't argue. But," Esme's smirk returns and I have to suppress a grin because I know that she's going to make a sarcastic remark. "You're his oh-so-sweetie-pie precious baby girl. So, I'm sure he won't be hard on you."
"I hate it when he calls me sweetie pie." Wren cringes and scrunches her nose in disgust.
"It's not like he loves it, too, he's only bothering you." I laugh as I say.
"Don't talk, so soon you'll have someone to bother you, too." Wren says to me and winks, making me give her my middle finger.
"And I'll just rot single. Wow." Esme sighs and I laugh.
"And you'll die one, too." Wren states, sticking her tongue out for Esme.
"It's too early to think about that." Esme winks and we both chuckle.
The rest of the walk back to village is filled with conversations about our training next week, and what will happen then.
Basically, training is like a university that you sign up to, though the only difference between them, is that you have no idea what are you signing up for. Esme and Wren were supposed to sign up earlier, but they waited for me, and I'm beyond grateful for that, I would be a mess without them, especially in something like that.
I have no idea what will we be trained to do, and I think that what actually scares me the most and sends me over the edge. I hate not knowing what is about to happen, exactly like everything with Louis. Never, ever, have I thought that he might have noticed me before. I would have never thought that he might kiss me, and I absolutely hate that. I hate not knowing what is about to come.
We finally reach the village; The Midnight Gate, and just like every time, we climb over it, and land carefully and silently, knowing that we will be in deep shit if we ever get caught.
It is kind of ironic how we have never been caught before. We have been doing that for over two years now, and we have never been caught, and it scares me. It absolutely frightens me, because what if one time we got caught? And worse, what if we got punished?
I rip these thoughts out of my head as we sneak behind the cottages.
Wren stops immediately as our cottages come to our view. We immediately turn to her to question about her stop but we are silenced when she raises a finger to her lips, hushing us.
"What?" Esme whispers.
"I think someone's around." Wren answers and looks around her.
Did you really have to think about getting caught today, Tallulah?
I suck in a deep breath and look around me, too; searching for any sign that someone is around but find none. Just as I'm about to turn around to assure them that we are clear, a deep, raspy voice stops me.
"Ladies." My blood turns cold inside my veins as my lips open slightly.
My heart – for the millionth time in the past twenty four hours – beats so fast against my chest, but this time, it's not out of nervousness, or love, it's out of complete and utter fear.
Slowly, the three of us turn around to face him; Esme's father.
Our chieftain.
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