You Are My Heaven On Earth - Fletcher/Jones - Standalone
Title: You Are My Heaven On Earth
Author: valquiris
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: You’ve always loved that about him.
Sequel: You Don't Have To Wear That Dress Tonight
A/N: Being a prequel, it can be read on its own. I found a love in writing in second person. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it in return! ♥
You click off the phone in your hand, eyes still slightly asleep, and you throw it indiscriminately on your bed. You wonder what he meant when he urgently requested you come see him at the park; not the one near Melissa’s house but the one right next to the old, run-down university just outside of town. Where you first met. But you shake your head. He sounded serious, so you don’t try to question it.
You move over to your closet, not having the energy to walk all the way to the light switch and flip it on, and you try to look for a nice jacket for the long journey there in near-total darkness. You don’t mind; you’ll do anything for him, you said it yourself. A big promise, you knew when the words left your lips, but instead of retracting it, knowing that you can’t possibly keep to it for the rest of your life, you try to make it happen. And you do, most of the time. Sure, there were times where you just couldn’t no matter how hard you tried, but the smiles on his face told you he understood otherwise.
You find that nice jacket at the far end of the closet, inside, and you take a step inside to retrieve it. You don’t bother changing your clothes; your t-shirt will be hidden, and nobody will think of looking at your pajamas in the dead of night. No one’s probably awake anyway. You slip the jacket on and walk quietly down the stairs. Making even the tiniest noise will wake your parents up, and you don’t want that. They’ll order you back to your room the moment they see you, and it’s a given that they won’t at the least attempt to listen to your arguments. Not that you have any; they don’t know about you and him, you never told them.
When you reach the bottommost step, you remember something, and you immediately turn on your heels and bound soundlessly back up the stairs, clamping your teeth on your tongue to stop the gasp in your throat when you miss a step.
You make your way to your parents’ room, and you thank God that the door is open. You stoop low when you enter, making soft little steps as if treading in a swamp full of hungry crocodiles, and you stop when you reach the bureau. In the darkness, you can just make out the items littering the top, but you don’t stop to look at all of them. You immediately spot your father’s wallet sitting on a pile of folded-up papers and you grab it after looking behind you. Still asleep. You flip it open and grab a few pounds, stuffing them quickly and messily in your jacket pocket. You slip outside after closing it and replacing it in its original position. It’s if he wants to eat after telling you what’s up; he’s always hungry in the most unexpected times. You’ve always loved that about him.
Again, you run down the stairs, a little more loudly this time because you wasted so much time already, and when you reach the floor, you don’t hesitate to sprint. You speed across the living room and grab the keys dangling from a hook jutting from the wall beside the door. You let yourself out after putting them in your other pocket.
The night air is cold, and you shiver a little before tightening the jacket around you. The moon is the only source of light, save for the occasional headlights of cars passing by your house, which you find odd. Who drives at two in the morning?
You make your way down the sidewalk, speed walking in your furry bunny slippers he’d gotten you for Christmas, and you huff frigid breaths with every step. The bus stop is just around the corner a few houses off, and you get there in no time, no less than five minutes. You settle yourself comfortably in one of the seats and, after making sure the money and the keys are still inside your pockets, you wait.
You hate taking the bus because of the incident with the two burly young men and the cut on your face, but for Tom, you reconsider. Although it’s not all for him; there really isn’t anything you can do otherwise. No taxis in sight, no car of your own, friends too asleep to give you a ride, so you settle for this. Beggars can’t be choosers.
The bus pulls up after ten minutes, and you walk inside. It’s a full service bus, and you marvel at the diligence of the drivers; driving strangers around in the middle of the night, not knowing if something bad’s going to happen. You smile at him before taking your seat at the back.
The bus is empty, and you’re quite relieved. No altercations to occur. You stare out the window, watching the blurry outlines of houses and parked cars and trees as they speed past, and, once again, you wait.
You’re a very patient person, Tom told you himself, and that’s what he loves about you. You’re willing to wait when others can’t, and you do it without complaining or whining. You just can’t stand to see him disappointed, really, that’s why you don’t say anything, that’s why you do it. Not even to go to the bathroom when he wants to snuggle up in your bed when he’s having a bad day, because that’s how much you love him.
The bus stops and you exit. Waving goodbye to the driver, you walk along the empty road, past the university, and into the park. It’s too dark to see anything, even the power of the moon is not enough to shed a respectable amount of light, but you’re glad to see the streetlamp beside the swing set shedding luminescence around its immediate area. It is because of this illumination that you see someone swinging in one of the swings, and the unmistakable blonde head makes your heart beat quickly. It’s Tom.
You run over to him, keeping your hands inside your pockets to make sure everything’s secure, and you slow to a walk when you see him look up.
“Hey,” he says hoarsely the moment you stop, and you look at him in confusion at why his voice is that way. And your eyes widen at why those bruises are splashed across his cheek and his neck, why that area under his left eye is a deep shade of purple.
“What happened to you?” you ask as you kneel down in front of him, hands immediately searching for his to provide some sort of comfort. He laughs, and you draw your eyebrows closer together, still as bemused, if not more, at his indifference about the situation. But when he sees your narrowed eyes, he stops, and you can see the beginnings of tears merging along the corners of his beaten eyes. You draw closer.
“I can’t live like this, Danny,” he says hoarsely, his voice cracking, and you tighten your grip around his hands. “I just can’t.”
“What did you do?” you ask him, allowing a tear fall from his eye because you don’t want to let his hands go for anything. “Did you yell at them or…? Why did they do this to you, Tom? Tell me.”
He shakes his head, another tear falling right in the center of the back of your hand, and you hold him tighter, waiting for that answer that you desperately want to know. He takes a moment to compose himself, and you keep your eyes to him, ignoring anything and everything around you.
It takes him a while to answer, his frozen guard up, the one that he always puts up whenever he thinks himself vulnerable enough for people to take advantage of him, and you’ve always hated that about him. Being with you should mean that no harm would come his way, that he’s comfortable enough and trusting enough for him to relinquish his self to you without questions, without doubts. But no, it’s always like this with him; he never lets anyone in, no matter the gravity of the situation seems to weigh down those close to him. Not even for you, and this is why you wonder sometimes if he really does love you. You know you shouldn’t think these thoughts, but you can’t help it; his detachment sometimes makes it seem like he doesn’t care. Deep down inside, though, you know that he does, and it’s for this reason that keeps you coming back to him.
“They came home drunk again, doing fuck knows what, and they decided to use me as they plaything for their sick games,” he answers scathingly, and he turns away to hide another tear from rolling down his battered cheeks, but you see it anyway, and you jump to your feet and envelop him in an embrace, digging your face in the crook of his neck, keeping enough mind not to press with force, remembering his state. You feel him tense up at the suddenness of your action, but he relents, and you feel his arms coming around your neck and pulling you closer despite the protests of his nerves.
“I’m tired of it, Danny,” he whispers in your ear, his breath caressing your skin in the softest way, it feels like he’s brushing you with a feather fallen from the wing of an angel. “I’m tired of them. Lived my fifteen years of life unappreciated, treated like I was just another piece of furniture in that damned hellhole they call their house, that I’m just there. I want to be loved, Dan, is that too much to ask?”
You shake your head and tighten your hold, fingers softly wafting along his back in a slow dance.
“But I love you,” you assure him, and you place a kiss on his neck, a part undamaged. You hear a wet chuckle emerge from his lips, and you kiss him again.
“I know you do,” he says a little louder, though still bordering on a whisper, and you smile. “And I love you too, I hope you know that.”
“I do,” you reply, and you lift yourself off to face him, disregarding the ugly marks on his face and just seeing him. Tom.
“But forgive me, Dan,” he says sullenly, deviating from the feeling of happiness running through your veins, and you look at him with creased brows, once again confused. “I just know that I have to do this.”
“What are you talking about?” you ask, and he folds his lips in his mouth, trying to hold back the tears that have begun rolling down his cheeks but failing without any let-up. You bring a hand to wipe them away with your thumb, and you do so carefully, the big bruise making your job so much harder, because they just keep on coming. You know something is wrong. “Answer me, Tom. What is it?”
He stands up after one last wipe, and you stand after him half a second later. He kicks something next to him and you follow the sound, eyes falling immediately in a coarse, brown suitcase with sleeves and hems of shirts peeking out after being packed in evident hurry. You turn back to him with equal swiftness, and you begin shaking your head at the realization of the nature of his comment.
“Danny, I have to do this,” he repeats, and you shake your head more aggressively, wrapping your arms around his neck in the purpose of making him reconsider. But this time, he doesn’t return the action, and this only makes your embrace tighten.
“Danny, please,” he pleads, but you ignore it, and you ignore his efforts at liberation. You don’t want him to go; he’s the only one you can ever love in that way, you know this as a fact. You’ve tried before he came in the picture, and all of them ended up in catastrophe. But something about him eradicated the feeling of faithlessness after so many failed attempts, and for the first time in your life, you know you loved somebody, and he loved you.
“No, you can’t leave me,” you say in defiance, but you know whenever his mind is set on something, he doesn’t think twice about it, and you start to worry even more. Worry that it’s beyond your power to make him stay.
“Dan-” he starts, but he falters when you begin sobbing in his neck. You never cry, nor hinted any sign that you’re capable of it, in all the time you’ve been with him, and it surprises you more than him that you decide to break that wall of strength in this time that you know you’re supposed to be comforting him, not the other way around. Surprise turns to self-loathing when you feel his arms come around you, because it’s supposed to be you who is comforting him; it’s always been your job.
“Danny, enough,” he says firmly, pushing your shoulders for his freedom, and you look at him with tear-stained eyes, glassy and desperate. “Before I go, I just want you to know-”
“No,” you say in the same manner, wiping your face with a forearm. “You’re not going anywhere but with me.”
“Danny, don’t be ridiculous,” he says, and you can see his eyes welling up.
“You’re being ridiculous,” you snap, and you snatch his hands before he can absorb what’s happening. “Why can’t you stay with me? I’ll let you stay in my house, Tom, it’s better than finding your own in a world you don’t know.”
“This is my problem, not yours!” he snaps back, and you recoil subtly at his unprecedented iciness.
“It is!” you retaliate, and you step closer, hands interlacing with his in the softest manner, defying the angry tension falling over you both in great quantities like a heavy sea of fog. “No matter what happens, you’re involved with me! And it’s my job to tell you when you’re not acting yourself!”
“This is me, Danny, and I’ve my mind set.”
“So you’re throwing away all our memories for something that you can fix in a heartbeat?”
“This is not something you can fix unless you have a magic wand or a fucking wishing stone! I thought you’d understand!”
“Understand what?” you say, your voice echoing around the empty park in a repeating sequence. “How on Earth do you expect me to understand that you’re leaving me?”
He falls silent, and you heave out your exhales in frustration.
“I’m sorry, Danny, I really am,” he says softly, and he attempts to slide his fingers from yours. But you hold on. It only makes him pull harder, but you match his action with your own inverse reaction, so it looks like you’re playing a game of tug-of-war. “I love you, I really do. More than you can ever imagine; even if you say that you have an idea, because you don’t. You don’t know how much this hurts me, and I just don’t have it in me to try to explain further. So please, Danny, let me go. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
You’ve heard that line spoken so many times, you’ve trained your ears to block its meaning out. The only one making everything harder is him, and you want to open your mouth to tell him so, but you can’t for some reason. You only stay silent, fingers slipping off and dropping lifelessly on your sides. It finally dawns on you that there’s nothing you can do; you’ve run out of arguments and it hurts you to yell at him. Even if he is going to run away from you.
“Don’t be discouraged, Dan,” he says after what seems to be an eternity of silence, breaking the orchestra of crickets chirping in the distance and the whistling of the wind. He places a hand on your face, and you reach up to press it deeper, savoring the feeling of his skin against yours. “You’ll find someone. It’s going to take some time, I know, but you can’t keep your hold on me forever.”
You will your mouth to stay closed; you only want to hear his voice.
“I love you, Danny, and this is for all the times we’ve shared, memories we’ve made, love we’ve given.”
With his other hand, he grabs the front of his necklace and tugs it off, the loose ends swinging in the air before halting to a stop. He pulls the bundle in his fist and he grabs your hand, fingers outstretched to create a space he can drop it in. The metal is cold, but you close your hand right before his left it, and you kiss it a million times.
It is then that you realize that brooding over a matter already predestined is futile; crying and whining about it never made it better. And with this knowledge, you muster a smile, and you dig in your pocket for something to give him in return. Your hand reappears with the folded bills, and you place it in his hand.
“In case you get hungry,” you say, maintaining that smile, and it widens when you see him smile in turn. One final hug of goodbye, and you watch him as he runs in the direction you came from, the suitcase bobbing every which way with each step.
You didn’t say goodbye because he didn’t, and this gives you hope. Hope that once again, you will be reunited, no matter how long it will take. You look at the necklace, and you can still feel his warmth emanating from it, his love. And when you turn back to him as he clambers into the bus, you smile, because you feel in your heart a strong flame burning in its deep recesses, and you know you will not stop loving him until that flame burns out.
Author: valquiris
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: You’ve always loved that about him.
Sequel: You Don't Have To Wear That Dress Tonight
A/N: Being a prequel, it can be read on its own. I found a love in writing in second person. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it in return! ♥
You click off the phone in your hand, eyes still slightly asleep, and you throw it indiscriminately on your bed. You wonder what he meant when he urgently requested you come see him at the park; not the one near Melissa’s house but the one right next to the old, run-down university just outside of town. Where you first met. But you shake your head. He sounded serious, so you don’t try to question it.
You move over to your closet, not having the energy to walk all the way to the light switch and flip it on, and you try to look for a nice jacket for the long journey there in near-total darkness. You don’t mind; you’ll do anything for him, you said it yourself. A big promise, you knew when the words left your lips, but instead of retracting it, knowing that you can’t possibly keep to it for the rest of your life, you try to make it happen. And you do, most of the time. Sure, there were times where you just couldn’t no matter how hard you tried, but the smiles on his face told you he understood otherwise.
You find that nice jacket at the far end of the closet, inside, and you take a step inside to retrieve it. You don’t bother changing your clothes; your t-shirt will be hidden, and nobody will think of looking at your pajamas in the dead of night. No one’s probably awake anyway. You slip the jacket on and walk quietly down the stairs. Making even the tiniest noise will wake your parents up, and you don’t want that. They’ll order you back to your room the moment they see you, and it’s a given that they won’t at the least attempt to listen to your arguments. Not that you have any; they don’t know about you and him, you never told them.
When you reach the bottommost step, you remember something, and you immediately turn on your heels and bound soundlessly back up the stairs, clamping your teeth on your tongue to stop the gasp in your throat when you miss a step.
You make your way to your parents’ room, and you thank God that the door is open. You stoop low when you enter, making soft little steps as if treading in a swamp full of hungry crocodiles, and you stop when you reach the bureau. In the darkness, you can just make out the items littering the top, but you don’t stop to look at all of them. You immediately spot your father’s wallet sitting on a pile of folded-up papers and you grab it after looking behind you. Still asleep. You flip it open and grab a few pounds, stuffing them quickly and messily in your jacket pocket. You slip outside after closing it and replacing it in its original position. It’s if he wants to eat after telling you what’s up; he’s always hungry in the most unexpected times. You’ve always loved that about him.
Again, you run down the stairs, a little more loudly this time because you wasted so much time already, and when you reach the floor, you don’t hesitate to sprint. You speed across the living room and grab the keys dangling from a hook jutting from the wall beside the door. You let yourself out after putting them in your other pocket.
The night air is cold, and you shiver a little before tightening the jacket around you. The moon is the only source of light, save for the occasional headlights of cars passing by your house, which you find odd. Who drives at two in the morning?
You make your way down the sidewalk, speed walking in your furry bunny slippers he’d gotten you for Christmas, and you huff frigid breaths with every step. The bus stop is just around the corner a few houses off, and you get there in no time, no less than five minutes. You settle yourself comfortably in one of the seats and, after making sure the money and the keys are still inside your pockets, you wait.
You hate taking the bus because of the incident with the two burly young men and the cut on your face, but for Tom, you reconsider. Although it’s not all for him; there really isn’t anything you can do otherwise. No taxis in sight, no car of your own, friends too asleep to give you a ride, so you settle for this. Beggars can’t be choosers.
The bus pulls up after ten minutes, and you walk inside. It’s a full service bus, and you marvel at the diligence of the drivers; driving strangers around in the middle of the night, not knowing if something bad’s going to happen. You smile at him before taking your seat at the back.
The bus is empty, and you’re quite relieved. No altercations to occur. You stare out the window, watching the blurry outlines of houses and parked cars and trees as they speed past, and, once again, you wait.
You’re a very patient person, Tom told you himself, and that’s what he loves about you. You’re willing to wait when others can’t, and you do it without complaining or whining. You just can’t stand to see him disappointed, really, that’s why you don’t say anything, that’s why you do it. Not even to go to the bathroom when he wants to snuggle up in your bed when he’s having a bad day, because that’s how much you love him.
The bus stops and you exit. Waving goodbye to the driver, you walk along the empty road, past the university, and into the park. It’s too dark to see anything, even the power of the moon is not enough to shed a respectable amount of light, but you’re glad to see the streetlamp beside the swing set shedding luminescence around its immediate area. It is because of this illumination that you see someone swinging in one of the swings, and the unmistakable blonde head makes your heart beat quickly. It’s Tom.
You run over to him, keeping your hands inside your pockets to make sure everything’s secure, and you slow to a walk when you see him look up.
“Hey,” he says hoarsely the moment you stop, and you look at him in confusion at why his voice is that way. And your eyes widen at why those bruises are splashed across his cheek and his neck, why that area under his left eye is a deep shade of purple.
“What happened to you?” you ask as you kneel down in front of him, hands immediately searching for his to provide some sort of comfort. He laughs, and you draw your eyebrows closer together, still as bemused, if not more, at his indifference about the situation. But when he sees your narrowed eyes, he stops, and you can see the beginnings of tears merging along the corners of his beaten eyes. You draw closer.
“I can’t live like this, Danny,” he says hoarsely, his voice cracking, and you tighten your grip around his hands. “I just can’t.”
“What did you do?” you ask him, allowing a tear fall from his eye because you don’t want to let his hands go for anything. “Did you yell at them or…? Why did they do this to you, Tom? Tell me.”
He shakes his head, another tear falling right in the center of the back of your hand, and you hold him tighter, waiting for that answer that you desperately want to know. He takes a moment to compose himself, and you keep your eyes to him, ignoring anything and everything around you.
It takes him a while to answer, his frozen guard up, the one that he always puts up whenever he thinks himself vulnerable enough for people to take advantage of him, and you’ve always hated that about him. Being with you should mean that no harm would come his way, that he’s comfortable enough and trusting enough for him to relinquish his self to you without questions, without doubts. But no, it’s always like this with him; he never lets anyone in, no matter the gravity of the situation seems to weigh down those close to him. Not even for you, and this is why you wonder sometimes if he really does love you. You know you shouldn’t think these thoughts, but you can’t help it; his detachment sometimes makes it seem like he doesn’t care. Deep down inside, though, you know that he does, and it’s for this reason that keeps you coming back to him.
“They came home drunk again, doing fuck knows what, and they decided to use me as they plaything for their sick games,” he answers scathingly, and he turns away to hide another tear from rolling down his battered cheeks, but you see it anyway, and you jump to your feet and envelop him in an embrace, digging your face in the crook of his neck, keeping enough mind not to press with force, remembering his state. You feel him tense up at the suddenness of your action, but he relents, and you feel his arms coming around your neck and pulling you closer despite the protests of his nerves.
“I’m tired of it, Danny,” he whispers in your ear, his breath caressing your skin in the softest way, it feels like he’s brushing you with a feather fallen from the wing of an angel. “I’m tired of them. Lived my fifteen years of life unappreciated, treated like I was just another piece of furniture in that damned hellhole they call their house, that I’m just there. I want to be loved, Dan, is that too much to ask?”
You shake your head and tighten your hold, fingers softly wafting along his back in a slow dance.
“But I love you,” you assure him, and you place a kiss on his neck, a part undamaged. You hear a wet chuckle emerge from his lips, and you kiss him again.
“I know you do,” he says a little louder, though still bordering on a whisper, and you smile. “And I love you too, I hope you know that.”
“I do,” you reply, and you lift yourself off to face him, disregarding the ugly marks on his face and just seeing him. Tom.
“But forgive me, Dan,” he says sullenly, deviating from the feeling of happiness running through your veins, and you look at him with creased brows, once again confused. “I just know that I have to do this.”
“What are you talking about?” you ask, and he folds his lips in his mouth, trying to hold back the tears that have begun rolling down his cheeks but failing without any let-up. You bring a hand to wipe them away with your thumb, and you do so carefully, the big bruise making your job so much harder, because they just keep on coming. You know something is wrong. “Answer me, Tom. What is it?”
He stands up after one last wipe, and you stand after him half a second later. He kicks something next to him and you follow the sound, eyes falling immediately in a coarse, brown suitcase with sleeves and hems of shirts peeking out after being packed in evident hurry. You turn back to him with equal swiftness, and you begin shaking your head at the realization of the nature of his comment.
“Danny, I have to do this,” he repeats, and you shake your head more aggressively, wrapping your arms around his neck in the purpose of making him reconsider. But this time, he doesn’t return the action, and this only makes your embrace tighten.
“Danny, please,” he pleads, but you ignore it, and you ignore his efforts at liberation. You don’t want him to go; he’s the only one you can ever love in that way, you know this as a fact. You’ve tried before he came in the picture, and all of them ended up in catastrophe. But something about him eradicated the feeling of faithlessness after so many failed attempts, and for the first time in your life, you know you loved somebody, and he loved you.
“No, you can’t leave me,” you say in defiance, but you know whenever his mind is set on something, he doesn’t think twice about it, and you start to worry even more. Worry that it’s beyond your power to make him stay.
“Dan-” he starts, but he falters when you begin sobbing in his neck. You never cry, nor hinted any sign that you’re capable of it, in all the time you’ve been with him, and it surprises you more than him that you decide to break that wall of strength in this time that you know you’re supposed to be comforting him, not the other way around. Surprise turns to self-loathing when you feel his arms come around you, because it’s supposed to be you who is comforting him; it’s always been your job.
“Danny, enough,” he says firmly, pushing your shoulders for his freedom, and you look at him with tear-stained eyes, glassy and desperate. “Before I go, I just want you to know-”
“No,” you say in the same manner, wiping your face with a forearm. “You’re not going anywhere but with me.”
“Danny, don’t be ridiculous,” he says, and you can see his eyes welling up.
“You’re being ridiculous,” you snap, and you snatch his hands before he can absorb what’s happening. “Why can’t you stay with me? I’ll let you stay in my house, Tom, it’s better than finding your own in a world you don’t know.”
“This is my problem, not yours!” he snaps back, and you recoil subtly at his unprecedented iciness.
“It is!” you retaliate, and you step closer, hands interlacing with his in the softest manner, defying the angry tension falling over you both in great quantities like a heavy sea of fog. “No matter what happens, you’re involved with me! And it’s my job to tell you when you’re not acting yourself!”
“This is me, Danny, and I’ve my mind set.”
“So you’re throwing away all our memories for something that you can fix in a heartbeat?”
“This is not something you can fix unless you have a magic wand or a fucking wishing stone! I thought you’d understand!”
“Understand what?” you say, your voice echoing around the empty park in a repeating sequence. “How on Earth do you expect me to understand that you’re leaving me?”
He falls silent, and you heave out your exhales in frustration.
“I’m sorry, Danny, I really am,” he says softly, and he attempts to slide his fingers from yours. But you hold on. It only makes him pull harder, but you match his action with your own inverse reaction, so it looks like you’re playing a game of tug-of-war. “I love you, I really do. More than you can ever imagine; even if you say that you have an idea, because you don’t. You don’t know how much this hurts me, and I just don’t have it in me to try to explain further. So please, Danny, let me go. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
You’ve heard that line spoken so many times, you’ve trained your ears to block its meaning out. The only one making everything harder is him, and you want to open your mouth to tell him so, but you can’t for some reason. You only stay silent, fingers slipping off and dropping lifelessly on your sides. It finally dawns on you that there’s nothing you can do; you’ve run out of arguments and it hurts you to yell at him. Even if he is going to run away from you.
“Don’t be discouraged, Dan,” he says after what seems to be an eternity of silence, breaking the orchestra of crickets chirping in the distance and the whistling of the wind. He places a hand on your face, and you reach up to press it deeper, savoring the feeling of his skin against yours. “You’ll find someone. It’s going to take some time, I know, but you can’t keep your hold on me forever.”
You will your mouth to stay closed; you only want to hear his voice.
“I love you, Danny, and this is for all the times we’ve shared, memories we’ve made, love we’ve given.”
With his other hand, he grabs the front of his necklace and tugs it off, the loose ends swinging in the air before halting to a stop. He pulls the bundle in his fist and he grabs your hand, fingers outstretched to create a space he can drop it in. The metal is cold, but you close your hand right before his left it, and you kiss it a million times.
It is then that you realize that brooding over a matter already predestined is futile; crying and whining about it never made it better. And with this knowledge, you muster a smile, and you dig in your pocket for something to give him in return. Your hand reappears with the folded bills, and you place it in his hand.
“In case you get hungry,” you say, maintaining that smile, and it widens when you see him smile in turn. One final hug of goodbye, and you watch him as he runs in the direction you came from, the suitcase bobbing every which way with each step.
You didn’t say goodbye because he didn’t, and this gives you hope. Hope that once again, you will be reunited, no matter how long it will take. You look at the necklace, and you can still feel his warmth emanating from it, his love. And when you turn back to him as he clambers into the bus, you smile, because you feel in your heart a strong flame burning in its deep recesses, and you know you will not stop loving him until that flame burns out.