[A/N: Whipped this up in three hours...say what?! Songs for the chapter:
- He Is We // Breathe
- He Is We // Tell Me]
After Tyler's successful try-out for the soccer team, I sat on the bleachers with Mona everyday for the next week and watched the team practice for their upcoming game. Since he had overcome two hurdles: befriending Blake and getting into the soccer team again, it only seemed fair that I do the same and do something I should have done the day I became friends with Tyler again.
Tell him about my father.
So on the first day of the new month, I sent Tyler a text, asking him to wait for me in the parking lot after soccer practice before I headed to the bathroom quickly to fix crazy curls. I didn't want them to be as knotted and as tangled as my thoughts were today. Not to mention the fact that my stomach was spinning like a washing machine planted on the fastest roller coaster in the world.
My rational thoughts were clouded by my sudden decision to face this lifelong fear. I couldn't even pick between juice or water at lunch until Blake snatched both and paid for them. My friends eyed me warily, but I just chewed my tuna sandwich slowly, hoping that I would be able to keep it down.
I leaned towards the girl in the mirror until we were inches apart. My reflection brought a frown to my face so I pulled off my glasses and splashed cold water on my face to chase away the tired expression but it was permanently etched into my skin like engravings scratched into stone. Pulling my hair out of it's ponytail, I let my natural chestnut curls fall into little bundles around my scarlet coat before scrutinising the rest of my face.
"Stop freaking out, it's about time he knows," I whispered to my reflection as I slipped my glasses back on. "He deserves the truth."
By the time I reached the parking lot Tyler was leaning against the hood of his car with his hands buried under his armpits. Little puffs of water vapour were huddled around his lips every time he exhaled before they disappeared into the air. His sea green eyes brightened up when he noticed me walking towards him.
"You ready?"
I nodded and hurried to the warmth of his car as he quickly slipped in and started the engine.
"So who's this special person I'm meeting today?" Tyler asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
"You'll see." I smiled discreetly, trying my hardest to keep my voice from wavering as I gave him directions to the cemetery.
**
"We're going to meet Mrs Henderson?" Tyler stared at the florist shop in disbelief.
His eyebrows were bunched together in confusion as I rolled my eyes at him.
"No! For goodness sake! Just bear with me and be patient."
"Fine, whatever." He grumbled as I clamped his wrist and hauled him inside the shop.
The tinkering bell overhead announced our entrance and Mrs Henderson bustled out of the storeroom with her usual warm smile before her azure eyes shimmered with amusement at the sight of the two of us together.
"Tyler and Ashley, what a pleasant surprise!"
Tyler smiled whilst I returned the greeting before asking for the usual order or a seventeen inched velvet red carnation wreath and white lilies accompanied by a single white rose. His ears perked up at the latter part of my order, mouthing "Taylor?" with one eyebrow raised with disbelief. He shuffled closer to him until his chest was pressed against my arm. I quickly pressed a finger to his lips to silence him as Mrs Henderson went to prepare my order. Only then did Tyler start bombarding me with questions, his lips moving a lightening speed against the skin of my forefinger.
"You said we were going to meet someone special? What's with all the secrecy if it's Taylor? Why are we going to see Taylor anyway? What's with the wreath as well? Taylor hated those. Why are you acting weir–"
Gently, I placed a hand on his shoulder and met his eyes, desperately wanting to quench the burning curiosity within them that threatened to scorch my already melted insides.
"Just be patient, okay?" I said, removing my hands away from his body when he nodded reluctantly.
Mrs Henderson returned with my flowers and I paid for the them before we bid her a swift goodbye.
"Mind if we walk the rest?" I asked Tyler as we stood in a huddle beside his car.
I looked up at him expectantly, caught off guard by the fact that he was already gazing at me with eyes so soft that I was sure my internal organs had melted completely. Smiling softly, he took my free hand and rubbed it between his cold hands and blew warm air on them to warm my numb fingers. Then, linking our fingers, he pulled me towards his chest and planted a soft kiss onto the tip of my nose. Stepping back, his eyes met mine with another smile.
"Let's go then."
**
We didn't stay with Taylor for too long; just long enough for me to whisper my fears about what I was going to do. I told her that I'd thought of a million ways to do this and came up with nothing. I spent the past three nights pacing my room, trying to plan out exactly what I was going to say to Tyler and how he would react. When I was done, I asked her the question that I feared the most by far.
"Do you think he'll be mad at me for keeping this from him?" I breathed quietly. "I don't know what's wrong with me, but lately, I keep fucking up and I'm scared this might be the last straw. What if he doesn't trust me anymore because of these lies?"
Turning my attention to the angel statue, I searched for answers when I heard Taylor's soothing, infectious laughter somewhere in the back of my subconscious. I almost laughed back before realising how crazy her brother would think I really am. Fixating my gaze back to Tyler's patient smile, my doubts instantly dissolved away. His serene face was enough to remind me that he wasn't the kind of person who wouldn't accept what I was going to tell him. Tyler, of all people, would understand. Understanding was usually the hardest for most people but when it came to their reaction to things like this, they either opted for the 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry this happened to you' act or the 'What kind of sick person are you to lie about something like this?'
The latter option was the most common which is why I had no choice but to keep up this lie. And now I wasn't quite sure where Tyler would fit in. I'd known him my whole life and I was perfectly aware that he couldn't control his emotions when being told something as big as this. He was impulsive and could lash out in fury and hurt.
He would understand my pain but would he understand my reason?
Tyler had experienced more misery in two densely packed years than most teenagers our age and I didn't want to add to his endless list of worries, but I also wanted our relationship to be one hundred percent honest.
Lies had brought Mona's family a great deal of suffering when her dad was unfaithful to her mom so I knew what they could do to a relationship. Even if my situation was far from cheating, the concept was pretty much the same. Lies drove a deep wedge between the two participants like an axe that strikes a tree, splitting the wood in half.
"Wish me luck Tay."
I stood up and retreated back to Tyler who leaned against the same tree trunk where we first spoke at the beginning of the year. Well, we did more yelling than speaking because I spied on him when he was talking to Taylor. But that's not the point.
"You done?" He asked, tucking a curl behind my ear and pulling my head closer so he could kiss me slowly.
When we separated, I nodded in reply to his question and just gazed at the swirl of green that was woven between the blue of his iris. Taking both of his hands between my own I exhaled sharply, trying my absolute hardest to listen to the rustling of the leaves above the roar of my heart.
"Okay, let's get out of here."
Tyler caught onto the uncertainty in my voice and frowned slightly.
Not waiting for a response, I pulled him away from the tree, tugging a bit too hard because he jerked forward and stumbled. I sent him an apologetic look when he regained his balance. All I received was a confused look as we passed other weeping willow trees and dirt covered monuments.
"Ashley, the exit is that way."
Tyler tugged at my hand but I kept moving, pulling him faster and focusing on keeping my breathing even.
One, I counted, inhaling deeply.
"Ash?"
Two.
"Ashley?"
Three.
"Where are we going?"
Four. Five.
Still I kept pulling him, too afraid to let go. I couldn't hear anything except the wailing of the wind as it rustled the leaves that were finally starting to clothes every branch again.
Six. Seven.
Finally, I spotted my father, surrounded by the final remnants of last week's decomposing flowers and stray twigs.
Eight.
"Ash, why are we here? Ashley..." Tyler trailed off.
Nine.
Exhaling one last time, I turned around.
Ten.
I watched his confusion transform into horror, his lips hanging ajar as he tried to form his next words. He scanned the eroding gravestone as he read the engraved name. His sea-greens swam with fear as his eyes flickered to mine. The brief look we shared confirmed his fear. It confirmed the lie that shielded my past and the truth that loomed over my future.
"No...n-no way. No. Way." He choked on each word, the terror in his voice rising rapidly. "Fuck, n-no...This can't be real. Please tell me this is some sort of sick joke."
Tightening my grip on his hand, I inhaled deeply before setting the wreath down in front of the base of my father's gravestone. Spinning around to face Tyler again, I watched the horror distort his lips into perfect o-shape. The sound of his quick, heavy breaths made little puffs of condensation form.
"I wanted to tell you, I really did," I kept my eyes on him, refusing to break the contact between us even though my bottom lip was quivering. "But there was never a right time to bring it up. At first I didn't think it was important for you to know but then I realised that I shouldn't have to keep this from you."
My voice wavered tremendously but I managed to keep my thoughts intact as Tyler's head whipped back to the gravestone. Reading the cursive inscription of my father's name again, he turned back to me.
"But I thought he was in the army. I thought that he...I-I don't understand. This doesn't make sense. Taylor said–"
Tyler stopped, struggling to string a coherent sentence together. A flush crept up his neck, tightening the muscles as he tensed at my slight nod.
"Taylor told you what I asked of her. I didn't want anybody to know." I hung my head shamefully.
"But why?" His voice broke, thick with emotion.
I glanced up, failing to meet his eyes so I focused on the crease between his brows. Frantic eyes met mine, flickering rapidly between them with disbelief.
"Why?" He repeated, this time in an accusing tone. "Why?"
The strings that held my heart intact started snapping painfully when his voice broke. It wasn't a quick process, it was as excruciatingly painful as it was slow - like somebody was using a blunt knife to cut each cord; and it hurt. It was agonising to watch the only guy I trusted in the world look at me as if he didn't recognise me.
My knees started to shake, clanking together as cold shudders rippled through me, chilling and numbing. I tensed my legs, hoping to cease the convulsive tremors but they racked through until my knees gave way, buckling beneath me. Arms shot out to steady me but by then I had regained my balance, yet Tyler's arms remained around my waist, keeping me grounded whilst more cords in my chest broke free like a string puppet getting cut off.
"It was a l-lie I came up with in elementary school when everybody was boasting about how s-successful their fathers were and mine was rotting six feet under because of m-me."
My voice cracked and the disbelief in Tyler's eyes increased, only now there was no softness around them. They were hardening and burning with such ferocity.
His eyes were burning me.
"You couldn't have told me that?"
Anger coated his voice making it harsh and sharp. I shook my head, struggling to piece together an explanation that would justify my choice to keep this a secret but Tyler was too busy vocalising his thoughts, connecting the dots that exposed my lie.
"So that's why Mrs Henderson always speaks about your father in past tense," Tyler's voice was hoarse.
The fingers around my waist tightened, prodding into my skin painfully but nowhere near as painful as the look on his face. His hands were shaking slightly, like mini convulsions were quaking through his arms as a result of his inability to contain his explosive anger. Tyler tried to use the breathing technique Dr Jillian had taught him but when his eyes snapped in my direction again, I knew none of the fury or hurt had disappeared. They swirled behind his irises, churning like a furnace, scorching my insides until I bit my lip to match the emotional pain within me.
His eyes were burning me.
"I'm so fucking stupid! How did I miss the obvious? You spent more time in this freaking cemetery than I did!" Tyler paused, studying my face with enough scrutiny to make my stomach squirm. "That's why I used to always catch glimpses of you here but I didn't think...I didn't think that..."
"Tyler please–"
He cut me off, "I always thought you were visiting just Taylor but you weren't!"
Tyler exhaled in short puffs and broke the blistering trance he had me under, allowing his gaze to skirt the ground as he tried to comprehend the information that my father was in fact dead. I let the one guy who poured his heart out to me and open himself up for me believe that my father was alive. What kind of sick, twisted girlfriend did that make me?
Silence was the only response I could muster when his gaze flicked back to me. He dropped his arms and backed away from me. Tyler roared, kicking up dirt in a bursting fit of anger. His shoulders shook, betrayal circuiting his haunting eyes and sparking an anger that reminded me of how I first found him at the start of the year.
I broke him. I really did that. I broke Tyler.
I uncoiled the anger that he had repressed all these months and now it was bubbling beneath his skin, eager to make an appearance. His fingers twitched like he wanted to punch something but instead he settled for pacing about, ridding the steam off his violence-craving fists.
I stood rooted to the ground, unable to move when my heart was getting butchered by his meltdown. And as he pieced the jigsaw parts together, a thunderous spark lit up in his eyes, scarier than anything I had ever witnessed before. Tyler screeched to an abrupt halt, spinning around to face me and his eyes blinded me like car headlights.
"Was this the reason why?" He hissed, storming forward until he towered over me like a skyscraper.
Except this particular skyscraper was about to crumble into a puff smoke like the Twin Towers and crush me under the debris of his pain. The question didn't make sense but his wavering, scorching eyes did and I wasn't sure if I could reply. The answer would break him even more, reduce him to tatters and I didn't have the energy to piece him back together.
He spent years chasing after me, hoping that his sister would see that he didn't intend to toss me aside the way he did with all his other flings. And even if the twins knew each other inside out, Taylor couldn't see it in her heart to trust her brother with mine. How was Tyler going to react to something like that?
"Answer me Ashley! I need to fucking know!" He let out a deep breath when I flinched at his sharp tone and cowered away.
My decision to leave his question hanging wasn't enough even though my silence pretty much answered everything. With an agonising amount of effort, I brought my head down and then up, managing one nod and only that one.
"I knew it! Taylor always said that you were going through a really, really hard time but refused to elaborate. I just thought it was some stupid girly drama and let it pass," Tyler's fingers curled around my arm, wrenching me closer until he could scan every detail of my pain-stricken features. His face was contorted with enough agony to make my eyes water. "We were close Ash. Even before all this bullshit, even before Taylor got ill, even before I broke your heart...we were close. Why didn't you trust me? Why didn't you tell me?"
Holding his gaze became too hard so I lowered my eyes and focused on my chucks, studying the sheen of dirt than discoloured the white canvas until the details became blurred. I blinked back the tears but my vision only sharpened for a second before it grew hazier than before.
"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" I croaked in a voice that was raspy and feeble.
"Now?" Tyler growled incredulously like he just couldn't believe that the trembling wreck in front of him was his girlfriend. "Even if you didn't trust me back then, we've been dating for nearly two months and you're telling me now?"
"I tried to tell you many times!" I cut in, clearing my throat to raise my voice to match his but it was like he didn't even hear me.
Releasing his hold on me, Tyler put some distance between us and pinched the bridge of his nose as he inhaled and exhaled heavily. The mere metre separating us shouldn't have felt so wide but it was larger than the Pacific Ocean, wedging a gap between us so large that I couldn't reach through to him even if I tried.
"No you didn't!" Tyler snapped. "You didn't try at all!"
Alarmed by his chilling tone, I tried to reach out and minimise the gaping space between us but he jerked away from my hand like I was a flame being held too close. Nothing weighed my relationship down as much as this secret did. It devoured my insides like poison and seeped into my dreams until Tyler started making a regular appearance in my nightmares.
He was right.
I didn't try hard enough but that didn't mean I didn't want to. Believe me, I wanted to tell him more than anything but I was scared he would react this way. I guess I had it coming.
"I'm sorry," I swiped away hot tears, frustrated that I couldn't keep my shit together when he had done that kindness for me. At least he still cared about enough to keep his bubbling rage inside for the time being. Although his face contorted with more fury when I quietly said, "But you just wouldn't have understood."
The words snapped at him like a brittle rubber band and Tyler's scorching gaze faltered when he doubled over with disbelief.
His eyes were burning me.
"I wouldn't have understood?" He yelled, making me jump as my skin prickle with fear. "I lost my god damned twin sister! What makes you think I haven't had my taste of grief Ashley!"
"I didn't mean it like that," I protested, struggling to articulate my point but Tyler wasn't having any of it. He was done listening to me.
"No, Ashley I know exactly what you meant!" He snarled and began to pace around in short, stiff strides; clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles threatened to pop out, discolouring his skin a sickly shade of milk-white. "I can't believe you right now, you know that? You came with me to all my therapy sessions and now you're the one telling me my grief wasn't valid? That I wouldn't fucking understand because losing a twin is nothing compared to the pain of losing a parent? Who are you and what the fuck did you do with the girl I spent the past few months giving all I had to give up?"
His words sent me reeling back.
I staggered back, tripping over the wreath I bought for my father and clasping the gravestone to stay upright. My entire chest caved in, pressing my heart back until it pushed against my spine, pleading to escape the agony that it suffered inside my body. I wanted nothing more than to carve it out of my chest and put it out of its misery.
But I couldn't. So I planted a hand on my chest. I felt it all, and it hurt.
"I didn't say that! I'm still the same person Tyler," I choked quickly, gasping for air that couldn't fill a chest that was collapsing in on itself. "Do you know how much effort it took me to bring you here today?"
"Yeah, a lot less effort than it would have taken you to tell me this ages ago!" Tyler yelled, his booming voice ringing for miles and miles.
"You're getting upset with me when I'm telling you the biggest secret of my life! This is why I didn't tell you! I knew you were going to freak out like this!"
"Stop making fucking excuses for yourself!" Tyler drawled viciously. "Just explain why, after all we've been through, you couldn't share this part of you!"
All the fire; the raging fire that fuelled his fury died down into embers when I drew back from the venom in his voice.
"I-I..." I started but Tyler cut me off.
"I gave you all of me Ash," His voice broke and he turned to the sky, shaking his head as if I had scammed him into falling in love with a girl he didn't know as well as he thought he did. With a harsh and hushed tone, his gaze snapped back to mine, broken and burned by my betrayal. "I gave you everything I had to give you and I thought you were doing the same. I guess, I shouldn't have expected so much from you."
Tyler's voice broke on the last word and if it wasn't for the gravestone holding my weight, I would have slumped to the ground and passed out from heart failure. My insides churned violently, like a volcano that was due to erupt soon because he was hurting. I broke him. I really did that.
The idea of telling Tyler why I kept my father's death hidden away like a dirty secret was enough to tighten my chest even more than before. Struggling to draw a breath, I cradled my head in my hands and dragged my fingers down my face, grazing my skin with blunt, bitten and bloodied nails. I felt like clawing off my face, gripping my hair and pulling hard enough to make me scream. Any physical pain was better than the pulsating pain piercing through my heart.
Telling Tyler the real reason behind all the secrecy would class me as a hypocrite. I was the one always telling him that his sister's death wasn't his fault and here I was, unable to follow my own advice. Guilt had shadowed me for eight years, hovering over me like a dark cloud that rained whenever I closed my eyes to sleep. He would hate me if he knew that I could have saved my father. He would despise me because I was too weak. I didn't think I could survive Tyler loathing my guts the way he pretended in junior year. At least last year it wasn't the real deal, but now? I shuddered to think what would happen if my boyfriend turned on me.
Meeting his scorching gaze, I gulped nervously and rubbed the tears away from my eyes. He trusted me with everything so now, for the first time in my entire life, I was going to let myself go and give Tyler all of me, exactly the way he did for me.
"I was there..." I started slowly, trailing off because the weight of my heavy tongue slowed down my words into incoherent slurs. Taking a deep breath, my voice shook when I spoke again. "I was t-there...when it happened and..."
Unable to continue, my broken sentences ceased to make any sense as I blubbered and broke down. Tyler's confusion increased, forming a crease between his brown and his lips tugged down into a tight lipped frown.
He made no attempt to comfort me despite the pained grimace he wore, distorting his beautiful face like a horrid mask. I sobbed into my palms, swaying back and forth violently in a struggle to stay upright when all I wanted to do was curl up on the ground and hug the soil that separated me from my father.
"God dammit Ash," Tyler growled, his gruff voice less harsh than before. I guess it was too painful for him to watch me break down when he had no idea what was causing me to sob convulsively. "What do you mean you were there when it happened?"
Suddenly the final string hold my heart intact snapped when he closed the distance between us with his hands clenched into tight balls. It plummeted to the ground and there was no saving it as throbbed painfully at my feet, bloodied and torn.
"I can't... I can't explain...Please, I c-can't do this anymore...just stop being so mad with me Ty," I whimpered, clutching my chest desperately to soothe the pain. "I h-hate it when you get mad at me. It hurts. All of this. It hurts too much. It hurts s-so much."
Cool palms cupped my cheeks forcing me to look at him through the sheen of tears that blurred the world. His features wavered as if my head was submerged in water and even when I blinked, all I could make out was his tanned skin and two sea-green blobs.
"I'm not mad at you Ash," Tyler's replied softly and despite the pulsating distress that radiated through him; his touch was so gentle, making me lean into his hands. "I'm just pissed off you didn't trust me with such a big part of your life. I always thought grief was something we had in common and that it strengthened our relationship. But now I don't know what to think. I don't know how to act. And I don't know what to do."
"It's more than grief," I choked on each word. "It's guilt and it's been eating away at me for eight y-years Tyler."
All the scars left behind my father's death were bursting open, oozing with a piercing pain that rocketed through my body.
"Guilt?" Tyler breathed, chewing the word as if it had a bitter yet familiar taste. "Guilt over what? Your father wasn't killed or anything...was he?"
Tyler's prediction wasn't entirely correct, but he wasn't far from it either. Jeremy Martin died because I shied away from the flames and left him to die in the engine explosion. My father would have survived the accident if it wasn't for the explosion. Sure, he would've never been able to walk again but my mom would still have a husband and I'd still have a father.
I killed him. I did that.
Tyler's sea-green eyes churned with horror and his next words made everything in my body freeze.
"Ashley..." Tyler's voice was tight. "How exactly did your father die?"
I tensed and he felt it through the hand on my cheek.
"T-Tyler, please d-don't make m-me–" I choked in a strangled voice, breaking off and sniffing in an attempt to make my voice sound normal. "I d-don't want to remember it."
"You don't really have much of a choice.
Tyler winced at my evident agony as if he was reassuring himself that the truth was worth the pain I was in. For a split second, I wanted to hate him for doing this to me. I wanted to pound my fists on his chest and sob hysterically until my eyes became raw and red but when I met his gaze, I knew that I could never hate this guy.
"It's okay," Tyler took my arms and ran his hands down their length. A river of tingles made me forget, momentarily, what I was about to do and I was grateful for the distraction but it wasn't enough. "Take your time Ash."
So I did.
Taking a mouthful of cold air, I filled my lungs and forced my heavy tongue to move. I retold the events that took place on my tenth birthday, gorging on each and every detail. I told him everything. And he stood there in front of me, squeezing my hand when I couldn't carry on.
I told him things I hadn't even told my mother. I told him about all the nightmares Dr Jillian had spent six years trying to coax out if me. I told him exactly what had happened up to the point where I was whisked away in the ambulance and diagnosed with severe concussion and had first degree burns treated. I told him that I had tried but not hard enough. I told him that the flames shouldn't have stopped me. I told him that it wasn't right that I had survived.
I told Tyler everything and when I finished I knew I had done the right thing in confiding in him even though the look in his eyes made me doubt myself. I expected him to see me for who I really was - a murderer. A passive murderer; but Tyler's eyes were shining with an understanding that I didn't know he had in him.
Talking about it out loud made the memory even more real and I was sucked into a vortex of grief with every single nightmare I had ever had flashing before my eyes. I could hear my father, screaming at me in those visualisations.
He was screaming so loudly.
"Make it stop," I whimpered, clamping my hands over my ears and doubling over. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
Clutching my temples, I bit back a scream and started mumbling the words over and over again, delirious with the exhausting nightmares that squeezed my brain until I felt like screeching with agony.
"Ashley!" Tyler's hands removed my own from my head and clipped my chin. "Ash! Look at me!"
I kept my eyes closed as he lifted my head. Four words rose up my chest, getting caught in my throat like a bubble that refused to burst.
My final bubble of truth. Then I was free. No more lies. No more hidden truths.
I struggled to choke out the words that my bereavement counsellors had always drummed into my head to resist - the same words that my mom told me were not true. God, I had tried so hard to believe them but I couldn't. I just couldn't.
"It was my f-fault!" My voice cracked from the immense struggle of forcing the words out of throat.
I opened my eyelids as if I had just woken up from the longest slumber, hazy and disoriented with agony. Tyler's gaze raked over my face, drinking in every contorted feature before they settled on my eyes. For the longest moment he just watched me, breathing heavily with that emotionless facial expression I thought he had finally gotten rid of. It made me squirm inside, but most of all, it made me sob.
And that was what I did. I sobbed whilst his hands roamed over my cheeks, catching every tear.
"You think I couldn't have understood all of that Ashley?" Tyler whispered in a heartbreakingly small voice.
I sucked in a breath, letting the cold February air sting my airways as fresh tears rolled down my cheeks.
"I couldn't r-risk losing you. Losing Taylor was just as bad as losing my father. I didn't think I'd be able to survive if I lost you too," I choked. "I just got you back Tyler. I just g-got you back."
Any grudge that he had been holding against me for keeping all of this from him suddenly disappeared. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed shakily. Angling his head to the sky, I watched him breathe in deeply, hold it and then exhale slowly. When he flung them open again, they shone with an overwhelming level of love that was intensified by the sun's glare as he looked at the sunset over my shoulder. His sea green eyes were bathed in a blood-orange glow that made them sparkle luminously when they zeroed back onto my face.
"I let go of you once before and I am never, ever letting that happen again. Do you hear me Ash?"
I nodded, feeling my heart soar back up off the ground as the broken strings begin to reattach themselves slowly.
"I'm so s-sorry Ty. I shouldn't have...I shouldn't have kept t-this from you," I hiccuped on my own words, letting them stumble over my tongue in a rush to get out. "Please, u-understand that I'm s-sorry."
I tried to swallow the bulging boulder in my throat but it hurt to even breathe, let alone feel the physical pain that my body was failing to fight. Tyler managed a small nod as his fingers ran through the curls surrounding my face before clasping my cheeks again. He slipped my glasses off and folded them before putting them into my jacket pocket. Then his thumbs were back to catching the tears as they fell.
When his thumbs couldn't hold back the dam that was bursting, his lips replaced his thumbs, lingering so lightly over my closed lids that I could have sworn they were lighter than a feather's kiss. Then his lips travelled down my face and I tilted my head up to the sky where a warmth spread through my lips when they met his, heating up the rest of my body. It was the most tender kiss he had ever given me, leading my knees to falter beneath my weight but it was okay.
If I was to fall, he would catch me. He would always catch me.
I exhaled sharply like I had been holding my breath for the past eight years. Every nightmare, anxiety and soul-crushing ounce of grief left my body and I felt incredibly light. Everything was going to be okay. I opened my lids just a fraction to feel Tyler smile against my lips before he whispered into them.
"You are truly the most remarkable girl I have ever met Ashley Rose."
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[A/N: Hi, double update today because I'm having a bad day therefore I am sad so I'm better equipped to write a chapter like this when I'm actually feeling everything I'm writing, if that makes any sense. Please, please tell me if you cried (or felt anything at all) because I haven't a written a chapter this sad since the Prologue and I'd like to know if I'm good enough to portray an emotion this deep.
I really do love you guys and I'm working hard to please you all and update as much as I can so please vote because writing two chapters (14 pages) in one afternoon is exhausting as hell.
I'm gonna wallow in despair and keep listening to Taylor Swift because she makes me so, so, so happy.
Vote, comment and fan.
- Kaddy]