Set Me Free// L. Staley

25. New & Fiery Beginnings

Layne was restless, utterly and undividedly restless. 

He paced around the room the whole time Rowan left, considering what on earth was going through his mind. He concluded that he was merely overthinking it, and Rowan didn't have any inferences to what happened the previous day.

So he brushed it off his shoulder, moving to where his guitar was and picking it up. He played and played, but his mind drifted as he did so. Just as Rowan couldn't shake him from her mind, he couldn't shake his from her, too. 

No matter what he did, all he could think about was Rowan. 

Rowan Rowan Rowan. 

He expected to grow tired of constantly thinking about her, but he was horribly mistaken. In fact, the more he thought about her, the more butterflies erupted in his stomach.

"Dammit," he muttered, halting his playing to place his face in his hands. "I'm fucked."

So, he placed his guitar down and started to pace around once more.

"Fuck this," Layne whimpered. "I've got a goddamn schoolboy crush-"

He knew, though, that it wasn't a crush. He knew with every ounce of him that it was more than a crush. Dare he say it at all, but it was love. 

Layne hadn't loved someone since Demri, and that didn't turn out the greatest in the end. It traumatized him truly, to see the only person he ever unconditionally love, leave him. 

It made him absolutely sick to think that he was in love again, just as he had sworn to himself to remain solo throughout the rest of his existence. Sorely so, he was mistaken. 

He couldn't deny the fact that even if he held up his oath, Rowan broke every promise he owed. Rowan was the exception to everything he swore off. 

He despised being sappy because he wasn't one of those people, but he couldn't help but feel that Rowan was the leading cause for his change of pace. It was Rowan that made him hit the breaks, prompting him to sit and think.

He couldn't help it, no matter what he did. Everything about Rowan infected Layne with such adoration that even when he wasn't thinking about her, he was still thinking about her. 

He loved it.

It had been a long time since he felt alive, and like a jolt of resurrection, Rowan made him live again. 

He felt like his heart beat again, like his lungs needed air for him to survive. He wanted to wake up in the mornings again and make breakfast. He wanted to watch tv as he ate his food, looking out of his apartment windows into the city of Seattle. He missed the rain and the sound of car horns and street life. He missed walking through the city and looking at trees. He missed hanging out with his friends at bars and shows. He missed going to sleep in his bed. He missed feeling the coldness of Seattle in the winter or the hot, unbearable heat of the summers. He missed the most mundane things. 

Most of all, he missed living. He just missed it. What made it worse was that he wanted to experience those things with Rowan.

He wanted his heart to beat in sync with Rowan's, breath like Rowan, too. He wanted to make breakfast with Rowan and eat while they watched tv. He wanted to walk through the city and explore nature with Rowan. He wanted to walk through the drizzle of rain with Rowan, running when the sprinkle turned into a storm. He wanted to go to bars with his friends, and he wanted Rowan to tag along with him. 

He wanted to fall asleep with Rowan right next to him. He wanted to experience the harshness of the icy Seattle winter with Rowan as they put up their Christmas tree. He wanted Rowan to meet his family and eat Christmas dinner with them. And when the snow got too heavy, he wanted her to stay with him, so she didn't have to go home.