Caius (OLD VERSION)

Chapter Four

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been up to my neck in homework. Here's chapter four! Enjoy lovelies! Not edited sorry :/ Please vote! :) 

Previously:

Glancing over, I see Caius standing there with his hand pressed up against the glass. A sleeping Emilia hung off his shoulder, curled into his neck. I pushed myself up from the floor, making my way over to the door, careful not wake my father from his slumber I clambered over the broken glass and wooden stools before standing in front of the door. I gently rested my hand over the spot where Caius' was and finally released the tears I've been holding back for the past two years.

CHAPTER FOUR

I don't remember much form the day my mother died. I guess I was forced into a state of shock. The weeks following her death I fell into a depression. I didn't eat or sleep. I distanced myself from the world, taking days off school, making excuses not to go out with my friends. None of them understood. They didn't understand to have someone kiss you on the cheek in the morning, biding you a good day at school, to return that evening and have an empty place set at the dining table. Even I never truly understood how deep the hole in my heart had gotten. My father lost it too. We didn't speak, or interact. As soon as he walked into the room, I would walk out. Like clockwork. Emilia was just too young when it happened. She didn't understand either. I was afraid she never would.

I found myself becoming numb. I would sit and stare at her bedroom door all evening, listening to my father break down and weep. Emilia would be in the next room crying for attention. I was trapped. The coffee shop was my only escape. The coffee shop is my only escape. Standing with my hand pressed against the window of the coffee shop as Caius watched me from outside, I came to realize how scared I was. How lonely. How broken. I never had anyone there to hold me. I never had anyone to care. As soon as I saw his hand connect over mine through the glass, I fell. I fell again and I fell deeper than I ever had.

My sobs were muffled by my other hand as I gasped through the tears. Last time I had cried like this I was a baby. My tears were wrangled and loud; I was scared I would wake my father, who lay on the ground towards the back of the shop, dried tears staining his face. I couldn't imagine how hideous I looked; my hair had fallen from its pony tail, my eyes puffy and red.

Snow has started descending on our small town by now. The dimly lit gas street lights shone in the musky evening. Caius clutched Emilia closer to his body to keep her warm, her little hands clenched around his neck as if he was her lifeline. She hadn't been held like that in a while. My father see's too much of my mother in us to care. The last time my father had held Emilia was the night my mother died. He was reading her a story book when we got that daunting knock on the front door.

My hand slipped off the door as Caius pushed it open, sliding through the crack of the door and into the warmth. Scattered snowflakes melted into his trench coat, as the warmth covered him. He took my hand and pulled me into his chest. We slid down the window, his arm firmly holding me to him until we hit the floor. I wept into his shoulder.

I was completely crazy for trusting him. A stranger I met a week ago. But while he was holding me, all I thought was how perfectly I fit there, how great he was with Emilia, how warm his soul was. Even though he didn't know me, he had held me when I had most needed it. I don't know why those men were chasing him the night I met him, but in that moment I was grateful that they had led him to me. In his arms, I soon fell into slumber.

When I woke, it was pitched black. The candles had gone out and a small buzz of silence matched the pace of Caius' soft breaths. Emilia's head was tucked in his other shoulder, her little eye's open.