Songs for this chapter:
• I.F.L.Y - Bazzi
• when the party's over - Billie Eilish
Chapter Fifty-Five:
Bryce's POV
"Bryce? Are you awake?"
I open my eyes and tilt my head to the side to look at Blossom.
God, she's beautiful.
We're both still naked after last night's festivities. and with her long, chocolatey hair fanning down her back, she looks like an angel.
She's already practically on top of me, her head resting on my chest, one arm draped across my abdomen, and her legs tangled with mine. When I bend down to kiss her on the lips, she meets me halfway, and as soon as our lips lock, she climbs all the way on top of me so that she's sitting just below my ribs.
She kisses me slowly, for a just a moment, before she asks, "Will you wait here for a minute?"
I raise an eyebrow at her. "Sure, I guess."
Blossom smiles at me, pecks me on the cheek, climbs off of me, and then skips out of the bedroom and into the living room, only leaving the door cracked open about an inch before she disappears.
I sigh and flop back on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
All I can think of is the way Blossom looked underneath me last night, the noises that were leaving her lips unlike any noises that she has ever made before.
And I fucking loved every minute of it.
I know that last night probably hurt her a little bit, as for the first time, I gave her all of me, without holding back in fear of hurting her too severely.
I could tell that she was loving every damn second of it too, though.
To my surprise, Blossom flounces back into the room. She gives me a shy smile before heading straight for our closet.
"I'm too naked. I need to put some clothes on," she informs me.
She disappears into the closet, and when she emerges, she's wearing one of my Columbia University sweatshirts with a pair of my boxers peeking out from underneath. She's holding another pair of boxers in her hand, which she tosses at me from across the room.
I catch the underwear in one hand. "What the hell are you doing, baby?"
Blossom purses her lips together. "You'll see. It's a surprise. Put those one. I'll call for you in a minute."
At that, she exits the room once again.
I can't help but to chuckle at her bizarre behaviour as I stand up from the bed and pull the pair of plaid boxers that Blossom had thrown at me up my legs.
Blossom's sweet voice suddenly rings out through the apartment. "Bryce! Come into the kitchen!"
Like a lost puppy, I hurry out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
I find Blossom sitting on one of the barstools at the island. On the counter next to her is a chocolate birthday cake with nineteen lit candles atop it.
My eyes threaten to tear up.
I grin at her as I approach the counter, pulling out the stool next to Blossom. I sit down beside her, kiss her on the cheek, and then reach down to take her hand.
"Happy birthday, Bryce. Make a wish," Blossom whispers to me.
Her eyes are twinkling when they meet mine, and it immediately brings a wish to my head.
No matter what happens when I tell Blossom the truth, I want to earn her forgiveness back one day, whether it take two years or twenty years. One day, I want her to fall back in love with me.
At that, I blow out all nineteen candles on my birthday cake in one breath.
The cake is round and fairly small, but I'm sure it'll take Blossom and I more than one sitting to consume it all. The frosting is chocolate, and I can only assume that the cake itself is chocolate as well. It also appears as though Blossom tried to frost a flowery design along the edges of the cake with a piping bag.
Even though she didn't do the best job by any means, I still think that this is the prettiest cake that I've ever laid eyes on.
Blossom slides off of her stool and to her feet. I part my knees far enough that she's able to step between them as I remain sitting.
She wraps her arms around my waist and I crush her into a hug against my chest.
"I love you, Blossom. So much," I tell her softly.
I feel her smile against the crook of my neck. "I love you too, Bryce. So much."
Eventually, when she breaks away from my embrace, she plucks all of the candles off of the cake as I go to retrieve a knife from one of the drawers.
Blossom grabs two plates from the cupboard and so I slice two generous pieces of cake, placing one on each plate.
Sure enough, the cake inside is just as chocolate as the frosting.
I grab two forks from the drawer, and once Blossom and I each grab our plate, I take her hand and guide her back into the bedroom.
We sit in bed and eat our cake, my back to the headboard as Blossom leans against me, tucked into my side. She devours her cake in record time, and with a sheepish smile, she tells me that she's going to go get another slice.
I kiss her on the lips as she moves to get out of bed, and this seems to make her notice that I've somehow managed to smear chocolate frosting on my forehead, as she giggles and uses her thumb to wipe the frosting away.
"You always talk about how I'm a messy eater, but you do the exact same thing," she says, a teasing tone to her voice.
I shrug at her, watching as she licks the icing off of her thumb. "Just another one of the many reasons why we're meant to be."
She stands up from the bed and begins to walk back into the kitchen. Just as she steps through the doorway, she turns to look at me over her shoulder.
"It's even more proof that we're soulmates," she says, biting her lip to contain her smile.
🌸🌸🌸
The two weeks following my birthday have been wonderful.
Blossom had fallen severely behind with school after her accident, but with a lot of dedication, she's managed to get herself caught back up, and I'm incredibly proud of her for it.
Even after I had finished my own schoolwork for the evening, I would sit with Blossom until she was done her reviewing. She's been drinking an unhealthy amount of hot chocolate over the past weeks, but since we were already in the kitchen, I made it a habit to make her a cup before bed each night.
The moment she closed all her books, I would lift her up off of her stool and into my arms before carrying her to our bedroom, her legs wrapped around my waist and her face buried in the crook of my neck.
No matter how normal it became for me to do this nightly, she never failed to let out an adorable squeal of surprise as I lifted her up.
As soon as we made it into the bedroom, I dropped her onto the bed and we both tore off each other's clothes before falling into bed in a tangle of limbs.
We've made love every single night since Valentine's Day, and it's become my motivation to get through the day.
And fuck, it's incredible.
Although it took some convincing at first, I managed to persuade Blossom to try being on top for once.
And now it's our new favourite thing.
Due to Blossom's insecurities, she was startled by the idea because it meant that I would have a full view of her body, After reminding her of how fucking gorgeous I think that she is, she agreed to give it a try, and so I laid down on my back with my head on one of the pillows, letting Blossom climb on top of me.
Seeing her move on top of me, discovering what feels good for her while also trying to figure out what drives me wild was pretty damn incredible. She looks so perfect as she rolls her hips against mine, her eyes squeezed shut as the smallest sounds of pleasure leave her lips no matter how hard she bites her lip.
And therefore, watching her on top of me is all that I want to do for the rest of my life.
But in my defence, I genuinely think that the best part is seeing how confident she's grown.
Afterwards, we fell asleep with Blossom still on top of me. She would always feel a little embarrassed for the first few minutes afterwards, but all it took was a few whispered words of praise and a kiss on the tip of her nose before she was happy and giggly in my arms, eager to tell me all about her day.
And every morning, I would wake up with her arms around me, which may have been a feeling good enough to rival the sex that we'd had the night before.
I've found myself cherishing every single moment that I've been lucky enough to share with Blossom even more than I usually do. I know that I have to tell her the truth soon unless I want my own guilt to swallow me whole, and so I've decided that today has to be the day.
I've been clinging to the excuse that I shouldn't tell Blossom the truth yet because she's still been healing from the accident, but now that she's caught up with school and back on track with everything else, too, I no longer have any excuse, dammit.
This means that as I sit on the couch in the living room, waiting for Blossom to come home from getting coffee with Kennedy, I'm so anxious that I'm considering taking one of my pills to help ease my nerves.
And I fucking hate taking those Goddamn pills.
I know that the longer I stall and avoid telling Blossom the truth, the worse she'll react when I finally am honest with her.
Yet at this point in time, I think that it's too late to save our relationship.
The sound of the apartment door opening startles me due to how deep in thought I am.
I glance towards the foyer to find Blossom wearing a massive smile on her face. She looks especially adorable today as she's wearing a long, baby pink knit sweater that's nearly long enough to be a dress on her over top of a pair of black leggings.
Seemingly oblivious to the anxiety that I'm certain must be radiating off of me, Blossom shuts and locks the apartment door after herself. "Hi, Bryce! How are you?"
I wait until Blossom slips off the pair of heeled black ankle boots that she's wearing and hurries into the living room to sit down on the couch beside me before I respond.
"Hey, baby girl. I'm good. How was your afternoon with Kennedy?" I reply.
Blossom's eyes are twinkling when she looks up at me. "I'm really good, and my afternoon with Kennedy was also really good!"
I almost throw my plan of telling her about Brittany out the window when I see that damn smile of hers, because I know that it's going to break me to take that smile away.
I reach for Blossom's hands, taking them both in my own hands before drawing them into my lap.
This seems to cause Blossom to realise that something is wrong because all of the joy immediately vanishes from her face. Her eyebrows furrow as worriedly, she asks me, "Bryce? What's wrong? Did something happen?"
I'm forced to look away from her for a moment as I quietly say, "We need to talk about something, Blossom."
I watch with a heaviness in my chest as Blossom's eyes fill up with tears as soon as the words leave my mouth. Her voice is quivering so badly when she speaks again that I'm barely able to comprehend what she's saying as she says, "A-are you going t-to b-break up with me?"
I open my mouth to tell her that no, of course I'm not going to break up with her, and that I love her with every damn fibre of my being, but before I get the opportunity to do so, Blossom begins to ramble.
"Please don't break up with me, Bryce," she whispers, a fat tear escaping her right eye and rolling down her cheek. "Did I do something wrong? Because I think we need to talk about it before you dump me. I love you so much, and so I'll do anything to fix this. I mean it. I'm willing to do anything to make you love me again."
More tears begin to escape her eyes, sliding down her cheeks relentlessly.
I don't know how I should feel about all of this. Knowing that she's so helplessly in love with me that she's willing to do anything to make sure we stay together causes me to feel very conflicted, but I know for certain that the fact that she thought that I was abruptly going to break up with her over something that she did makes me feel fucking terrible.
I give her hands a gentle squeeze. My heart is hammering in my chest, and it's becoming hard to breathe steadily.
"No, Blossom. I'm not going to break up with you. I never would. Never. I love you. So much. We need to talk about something that I did, sweetheart," I tell her gently. I try to keep my voice as calm as possible as to not scare her away already.
Blossom's expression instantly relaxes. "Oh. Well, I'm not going to break up with you either. What's up?"
Fuck.
I decide to take this moment to really look at Blossom one more time, just in case this is the last opportunity that I'll ever have.
Her hair is up in a high ponytail with no makeup on her face, another example of how confident she's grown. She's wearing her cherry blossom earrings and her cherry blossom necklace as well, of course, as well as her promise ring, her charm bracelet, and the ring with my name on it.
She's so beautiful, and I'm so fucking in love with her that I doubt I'll be able to survive this.
I squeeze Blossom's hands again. "It's about what happened before the accident."
Her eyebrows furrow all over again. "Didn't you say that nothing of significance had happened? Just that Scarlett had showed up and I was upset about it because you didn't tell me?"
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I let out a sigh, taking a moment to calm my breathing before I whisper, "That's not the entire truth."
Blossom's entire body goes rigid.
I can't bring myself to meet her eyes right now, and so I stare at where our hands rest in my lap, our fingers intertwined.
"What else happened?" Blossom asks.
Her voice is barely more than a breath.
Lexi's POV
I'm terrified. there are few times in my life when I've ever been more scared.
Because I have absolutely no clue what Bryce is about to say right now.
I'm squeezing his hands so unbelievably tight right now. I'm honestly sort of surprised that Bryce hasn't complained yet.
But by some miracle, Bryce looks even more worried than how I feel.
Bryce has been silent for one moment too long, and so, due to my paranoia, I say, "Bryce? Please just tell me. You're really scaring me. I sort of feel like I'm going to throw up."
In response, Bryce opens his mouth, closes his mouth, and then opens his mouth again to finally say, "Scarlett came for a particular reason, Blossom. She was upset about something that had happened when we were in high school, and she didn't have anyone else to talk to except for me."
I squeeze Bryce's hands even tighter. "What did she come here to talk about, Bryce?"
Bryce's face suddenly goes pale. For a moment, I think that he may be planning to just refuse to continue speaking to me, but thankfully, that isn't the case.
I fall completely silent as Bryce begins to speak.
"Anders had a sister," he says. "Her name was Brittany. Before you get ahead of yourself, I want to make it very clear that she was never my girlfriend, and I never even considered starting a relationship with her, but her and I were . . . friends-with-benefits."
My heart stops beating. "He had a sister? Had? What happened to her?"
A part of me is immediately upset that he hadn't told me this before, but at the same time, I know that it would be selfish to point that out at the moment.
Bryce purses his lips together and looks away from me. "She killed herself. Drug overdose."
Holy shit.
"Oh my God. That's terrible. I'm so sorry. I had no clue, Bryce," I whisper, even though my brain is still barely processing his words.
Holy shit. I had no clue and now I feel absolutely awful.
Bryce looks almost as though he's blinking back tears, and is therefore speechless, so I take it upon myself to ask, "I'm truly so, so sorry, Bryce. Will you tell me a little bit about her?"
Though it takes him a moment to speak, Bryce eventually tells me, "Brittany was perhaps the kindest person that I'll ever have the privilege of knowing. She had an incredibly huge heart, and she was sort of a hopeless romantic. Scarlett always talks about how she lit up every room that she entered.
"She was beautiful, too. Though she was a year behind us in school, she reminded me a lot of you, and I think that that's why I was so drawn to her. Her hair was really long, though definitely shorter than yours, and she was also a little bit taller than you."
I brush my thumbs against Bryce's knuckles. "Oh, Bryce. I'm so sorry. I just don't understand why you never told me this before. I would've been there for you, you know. Did you think I would be upset with you?"
To my complete and utter surprise, Bryce nods his head.
My body tenses once again. "But why would I be upset with you? That doesn't make any sense."
At this, Bryce's eyes flutter shut. "Because I didn't tell you why she killed yourself."
Bryce's eyes then snap open immediately, and when his eyes meet mine, I'm rendered silent.
At first, I consider not probing him any further, but I can't even stop myself when I ask, "Why did she kill herself, Bryce?"
Dammit, Lexi! Why would you even ask that?
Though Bryce is evidently reluctant to answer, quietly, he tells me, "She was pregnant. She died due to a self-induced abortion gone wrong."
Oh my God.
"But what does this have to do with . . . anything, Bryce? What aren't you telling me?"
It's clear in my tone that I'm becoming more and more distressed by the second.
And then, Bryce knocks all of the air out of my lungs when he says, "I got her pregnant."
Everything suddenly seems to be in slow motion.
I rip my hands out of Bryce's without thinking, instead folding them in my lap.
He got a girl pregnant, and she killed herself because of it.
Without thinking, I shoot up from my seat. "Oh my God, Bryce. Why didn't you tell me? I know that I sound selfish right now, but what the hell? Did you think that this is insignificant, because it isn't! It makes everything . . . make sense! No wonder that you freaked out when you thought that I was pregnant; you were scared that if I was, I would kill myself, too!"
Bryce is so incredibly still right now as he stares down at the floor with a sort of hollowness in his eyes.
"I still feel like shit about it, Blossom. That's why. And I was also fucking terrified of how you would react," he says, surprisingly calm.
For some peculiar reason, his tone makes me think even harder about the shocking information that he's just told me.
And then, I become mad.
"What the fuck, Bryce! This has second-handedly caused so many issues in our relationship, yet I had no clue because you hid it from me entirely! The way you reacted to the pregnancy scare was the one time in my life that I was genuinely terrified of you, and yet you didn't even consider telling me about this?"
Bryce opens his mouth to defend himself, but I cut him off.
"No. I'm not finished, dammit! The worst part is that I keep nothing from you. Nothing! And yet you thought that it was perfectly acceptable for you to hide something major about your past from me? I have poured my heart out to you about everything traumatic that has happened to me, and yet you kept this from me. I hope you realise that it breaks my heart to know that you've never truly trusted me as much as I trust you."
I watch as Bryce flinches upon hearing the words breaks my heart.
Bryce clearly has no clue what the right thing to say right now is, and so he remains silent as the gears in my brain continue to turn.
No matter how much I love him and how much I've trusted him, he's never truly loved me enough to trust me all the way.
A thought suddenly hits me.
"What does this have to do with the accident that I was in, Bryce?" I hiss.
Bryce stands up from the couch.
He reaches out to take my hands in his, and though I try to flinch away and yank my hands away from him, he holds on tight.
"Do you really want to know? You already seem upset. Maybe I should give you some time to cool down," Bryce says blandly.
Somehow, this just makes me even angrier.
"Of course I want to know! Stop treating me like a child, Bryce!"
And then he says the words that really break me.
"The reason you were hit by a car is because you were running away from me. You needed space, because you were incredibly pissed at me. Yes, it's true that you were annoyed that Scarlett showed up with no warning, but the reason that you ran away was because the moment that Scarlett showed up, she told you all of this. Everything. She told you about Brittany, the pregnancy, and the suicide."
At this, my heart feels like finally, it has completely stopped beating.
Because when you really think about it, this means that it's all Bryce's fault that I was in the accident.
"So you're telling me that the whole reason that I was hit by a car and in a coma for over a week was because of all this? Because I needed space and I couldn't think straight because your friend had to tell me a secret that you never trusted me enough to tell me yourself?" I ask incredulously.
Bryce gives me one, solemn nod.
And I burst into tears as everything hits me.
Tears are streaming down my face relentlessly. My shoulders are shaking with the force of my sobs, and after only a few minutes of wailing and whimpering, I feel sick to my stomach all over again.
"You're a liar. You're a dirty fucking liar," I sob.
Despite the fact that I want nothing more than to run away from the man standing in front of me, I know that my grip on his hands is the only thing that's keeping me stable right now.
"I didn't lie, sweetheart. I just avoided the topic. If you had figured it out before, I would have told you everything," he claims, pleading with me.
I shake my head frantically at him, trying to get the images and thoughts out of my head.
"I feel betrayed," I choke. "I don't know if I'll be able to trust you ever again."
Not that it matters, because you clearly never trusted me to begin with, Bryce.
Bryce looks lost, and so this time, he doesn't stop me when I tear my hands out of his grip.
I faintly become aware of the fact that my breathing has grown extremely laboured, and all I can think is that I need space.
I look Bryce directly in the eye. I now see that he's crying, too.
"I need space. From you. From everything. So I'm going to go lock myself in our bedroom and you're going to leave the apartment for a few hours. Understand?" I grit out through my tears.
I'm so incredibly upset. It's not just the fact that he hid this from me, but also the fact that he lied to me after the accident, when I was vulnerable and a mess and just desperate to piece my life back together.
He's screwed up like this so many times before, too.
This was his final strike.
Bryce nods. He doesn't try to say anything to make the situation any better because he's smart enough to know that nothing is going to make this situation any better.
At this, I turn away from him and I hurry out of the living room, heading straight into our bedroom.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bryce standing in the foyer, tucking his keys into his pocket as he slips on a pair of shoes.
It sort of feels like a goodbye.
🌸🌸🌸
Bryce's POV
It's past midnight when I return to our apartment.
Blossom isn't in the living room or kitchen, and so I automatically assume that she's asleep in bed.
Yet when I head into our bedroom, Blossom is nowhere to be seen.
All of her things are still scattered around our room, and so I know that she hasn't left for good.
Not yet, at least.
I exit the bedroom and instead head for the only other place in the apartment where I haven't checked yet.
Sure enough, I find Blossom curled up on the bed in the spare bedroom, her back facing the door.
She's wearing one of my sweatshirts and a pair of my boxers, her hair tied up in a messy bun atop her head. If it weren't for the way that her shoulders are shaking as she sobs, she would look just the same as she does every night.
Except usually, she's falling asleep next to me.
"Blossom?" I ask gently.
Blossom doesn't respond. She just continues to sob.
Trying to be as quiet as possible so that I don't disturb her, I make my way towards the bed. I sit down on the edge, not wanting to touch her as I know that at the moment, my touch is probably one of the absolute last things that she wants.
I'm close enough now that I can hear Blossom's pathetic sobs and whimpers, and the sounds shred my heart into a billion fucking pieces.
To my complete surprise, she eventually speaks to me.
"Where were you?" she asks. Her voice is scratchy as though she's been screaming for hours, yet her question seems genuine.
"I went for a drive to clear my head, and then I went to get something for dinner. Did you eat dinner yet?" I respond.
Somehow, it feels as though I'm talking to a stranger.
"No," Blossom replies blandly.
"Would you like me to get you something to eat?"
She shakes her head.
"Are you sure?" I confirm.
"Yeah. I'm not hungry."
She feels so far away.
Too far away.
Feeling brave, I lay down in the bed. I'm cautious to leave a few feet of space between us.
Blossom doesn't seem to mind this, but she's still crying. This seems to be the first time that my presence isn't reassuring for her.
"Blossom?"
"Yeah?"
"Is this it for us?"
She's silent for a minute or so before she replies to me.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you for this. You do realise that if you had just told me the truth from the beginning, I never would've been hit by a car and put into a coma, right?"
"Yeah. I know."
At this, we both fall silent.
After some time, Blossom elaborates by saying, "That's not why I can't forgive you, though. I'm not going to be able to forgive you because when I woke up from that coma, I was more vulnerable that I've ever been. And yet you still lied to me. I asked you what had happened in the time before the coma that I had forgotten, and you lied."
"I'm sorry, Lexi."
A pause. "I know you are."
Another pause, before she asks me, "If Scarlett hadn't broken the news to me, would you have ever told me about Brittany?"
Since I have nothing left to lose, I answer honestly.
"No."
We both just lay there for a moment.
In the same bed, yet somehow, it feels as though we're on different planets.
We've had fights before, but we've never lost that connection between us.
Until now.
And that lack of connection between us is what tells me that it's over, even though Blossom hasn't yet said the words.
Eventually, I work up the courage to speak again.
"Can I hold you for the night? One last time?" I ask in the dark. My voice is nothing more than a whisper, and it cracks on the last few words.
Blossom falls silent once again, and I'm worried that she isn't going to respond at all.
When she finally speaks, her voice is even quieter than mine; barely audible.
"One last time," she confirms.
With her permission, I scoot over in bed so that my chest is flush to her back. I wrap my arms around her small body and I hold her shaking figure tight, burying my face into her hair so that I can inhale her intoxicating scent of vanilla and coconut for the final time.
There's nothing more that I can do, and so I decide to be honest about one thing when I whisper, "I love you, Lexi Brooks. So much."
This time, I don't get any response.
A/N: The end!!!!!
Just kidding. Although this is chapter 55, and Stay There was only 55 chapters, so...
Nah. This book has barely begun. I have so much left to write and I'm honestly sort of scared. I've been planning the next half of this book out in my head CONSTANTLY for the past several months (since July!!!) and so though I'm excited for this all to finally be put into words, I'm also sad because I'll no longer have anything to daydream about during class.
I cried writing this chapter and I'm also crying right now, while writing this author's note. It just suddenly hit me that Bexi's journey is practically over, despite the fact that this book isn't anywhere near done. (You guys will understand what I mean by this as I post the following chapters).
Bryce and Lexi have just become such massive parts of my life (as silly as that may sound) that I won't know what to do once I'm done writing their story. I started writing Something There about 13 months ago, but I've had Lexi and Bryce's characters swimming around in my head for over four years now.
I really do love those two. So much.
Even though they're fictional, it's going to hurt so badly to say goodbye to them. I wish I could write 20+ books about them, but I know that I'd be crazy because nobody would want to read that much.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you guys again for sticking around. My books are nowhere near perfect, but that doesn't mean that I love writing them any less.
<3 <3 <3