Cliché with a player

Chapter 24 - Ask away

I don't know where my reality starts and my mind ends. It's too much for me.

"Sweetie," my mom calls out. She followed me outside.

I'm clutching the snow between my fingers in my fist — the cold helps keeping me focused.

I refuse to believe that my mom is dead. Although she isn't, is she? My mom is right next to me, rubbing my back and comforting me like she has done my entire life. The woman who gave birth to me would be in her place, had it not been for...I don't even know what.

"How...why...what happened?"

A shadow of fear leaps over my mom's face. The same shadow that has been present for the past few years. I couldn't miss it, I recognise it immediately. That's our demon.

"Laken..." she starts and I cut her off.

"Please, Mom. I need to know."

"Let's move inside first."

We stand up but none moves. For a moment only us and the pain exists, only something we both know and share.

I snap out of it and she holds me close as we walk inside.

Not even two steps in, Matt is already waiting for us with a serious expression and his arms crossed over his chest. He switches from worried to defensive in a split second.

"Are you okay?" His eyes are checking me up and down, making sure I'm not hurt.

Mom pulls me closer to her.

I've always answered to that question with yes, I'm fine, but not this time.

"Not really, no," I say and give up for the first time in my life. I've got nothing more to lose.

I don't see his reaction, because Mom is leading me into the living room already.

It's cozy.

All of a sudden I become so tired; I feel like my temples will explode and that my energy is draining from every single pore. And the pillows are so soft and tempting...My head is down before I even blink.

Matt sits next to me and gently strokes my hair. He smells like wet leafs, trees and chestnuts; he smells like fall.

"You want to sleep here?" he asks quietly, so not even Mom can hear him.

"I'll sleep wherever you will," I mumble, half asleep already.

When I slept with his arms around me it was like finally finding a place I belonged to. I always felt trapped in my town, among these people, never having the privilege of feeling calm or at peace. And I know it sounds cliché and sappy but it really faded away with him. So I wanted to sleep in his embrace and be in a peaceful state of mind. I wanted to feel at home.

~~~

I wake up a couple of hours later. It's four in the morning, the outside is still as dark as a chasm and I am covered with a blanket.

"Good morning, angel."

Matt's rough, sleepy voice startles me at first. I look around and only now do I remember I fell asleep in the living room. He must've stayed with me.

I blush at the nickname, turning my face away. It is dark but he could still somehow see me reddening up like a tomato.

"You didn't have to stay here. You could've went upstairs."

"But you weren't there."

Fuck me, god. How is he so smooth?

Matt stands up from the floor, where he was apparently sleeping, and squeezes himself behind me somehow so I am now sitting on his lap with my head leaned on his chest.