“I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“I don’t understand.”
Steven’s gaze is calm, almost kind.
“I’ve changed. She changed me.”
I’m certain that my pain can be heard all the way from the moon.
“We’re getting married. In two months.”
I can’t even hear my own laboured breathing anymore.
“And I’m…happy.”
I can’t avoid it; I can feel my heart breaking again. And I leave it lying there, in pieces, in the exact place it fell.
I don’t know what to do with it.
I don’t want it.
I can’t suffer like this anymore.
I sit in my car, staring through the window at the gate. The rain is hammering so hard against the windscreen that the wipers can’t work fast enough, can’t give me a clear enough picture of the scene in front of me; or maybe all the tears I’ve cried have clouded my vision from everything else. I glance at my phone, sitting on the passenger seat, my unanswered message still flashing on the screen:
I’m outside.
The gate opens ahead of me, and I jump out of the car, both feet landing on the gravel as I jog towards his front door through the rain. When it opens in front of me, I don’t say a word; I slide my hands down his face and press my mouth against his. Niall stands there, frozen, his hands on my arms, trying to pull me away – but I won’t let him. He wants an explanation that I can’t give him. I press my wet body against him and kiss him harder, slipping my tongue into his mouth and pushing him against the outside wall. I finally feel him give in to my touch.
His hands are on my face, keeping me close to him, as my own hands slide frantically over his shirt.
“Fuck, wait.” He pulls away from me and looks at me, confused. “What the hell…?”
I try to kiss him again, but he grabs my wrists, stopping me in my tracks.
“What are you trying to do, Jordan?”
“I thought that was obvious.”
He studies me for a moment, waiting for me to give him a reason for my behaviour; but tonight, he’s getting nothing other than my pure desperation.
“I came here to be with you.”
Niall’s gaze falls onto my lips.
“No agreements or contracts.”
His breathing grows heavy on my skin.
“Just us. Just tonight.”
* * *
I throwmy hoodie onto the ground and we fall into the hay, which sticks to my clothes.
“You could’ve called me, I’d have come to yours. I live with my parents, for fuck’s sake,” he breathes anxiously into my neck.
“I didn’t plan it.”
