ᴍᴜɢɢʟᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇᴏʀʏ

➳ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 ~ 𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

This chapter is dedicated to Dee because I didn't realise I hadn't already dedicated a chapter to you? mental? anyway ily and I'll get round to dedications for everyone that asked for one!
DeeQuinn28 ♥️♥️♥️

(26th December 1977)

'Will you stay with me? Just for the night?'

That's what she'd said to him before he fell asleep, drowning in dreams of her. The last thing he'd seen when his eyes finally lulled themselves shut was the ardent green of her eyes, pools of inky black stretched across her irises, twinkling under the starlight. She had been smiling softly, a smile that looked like a promise. Her lips had been slightly pinker from their kiss, which he could still feel on his own lips now, tingling with electricity.

'I'll stay as long as you want me to, love.'

Is what he had said back, and he'd meant it at the time. He'd wanted to stay his whole life, but now he was awake, and her eyes were closed, not sparkling with red wine and sultry adoration. Now her lips weren't tinged like they had been, instead they were slightly parted with blissful sleep. Now he looked at her and realised it had been a lie. He couldn't stay, he couldn't trust himself not to be so dangerously in love with her.

He traced circles on her arm, so gently the pads of his fingers barely grazed her freckles, but he wanted to be touching her. He watched her face as she sighed in contented delight, still not waking up and James was almost glad, because when he would eventually build the courage to climb out this window, she wouldn't be there to stop him.

James didn't realise there were tears in his eyes until they began to cloud his vision; the freckles on her arm melded together and the red waves of her hair bled into the pillow like they were being dissolved. His tears gently hit the fabric, he hoped they would be gone when Lily woke up, so that she wouldn't notice the woe and heartbreak he'd left behind in the clouds of cool blue in her bedroom.

He felt like he was drowning with the sight of her. So much feeling. So much emotion. Too much everything.
Water felt like it was filling every crack in his resolve, crowding him and suffocating him. The room smelt something sweet, like cinnamon and sleep, like her and him. James wondered if she'd notice the smell when she woke up. If the pillow would still smell like him or if the open window would swallow the intimate aroma.

Lily's breaths were shallow, impervious and beautiful while he cried. She was so delicate when she slept, like she might break in her dreams. The thought of leaving terrified him almost as much as staying. But staying meant loving, and loving meant no going back.

Closing his eyes for a moment, James leant down to place a kiss to Lily's temple, his lips deft and delicate on her skin. She tasted like lavender shampoo and the tears that his lips had caught.