One String Attached

40.

.James.

James.
Bare with me.

I know you're worried about me. I am too. But I need you to be patient. To take the time to understand me. You already know me more than I know myself, I just need you to wait. There isn't much you can do to help me when I get like this but just having you be there is enough.

You and I have been through so much already, conquered so many things together and helped one another through thick and thin.
I know that it seems like I'm the only one who's hurting and like I'm the only one suffering from the pain of this entire situation but deep down I know this is having its own impact on you too.

Do you really think I haven't noticed you stood in the bathroom en suite, your hands clenching the sink while you reminisced over everything? Do you think I haven't heard you walking around the bedroom in the middle of the night while you tried to process everything going on? Do you think I haven't felt you looking at me in the middle of the night, your hand lightly placed on my stomach as you watched me fall asleep, worried that something might happen to me at any given point?
I know this is hurting you just as much, James, and I'm so sorry for that. I really am.

The night before our wedding day, I took your hands in mine as we sat on the bed. Aaliyah and Asher were already sleeping but despite it being eleven in the evening and the pair of us having to wake up incredibly early the next morning, I couldn't get to sleep just yet.

You gave my hands a squeeze and you looked into my pupils with those deep brown chocolate brown irises of yours and you asked if I was okay. I nodded and I looked up at you while you gazed down at me like I was the only thing that mattered. Like you cared about no one and nothing else in that moment but your fiancée; the female you were supposed to be marrying the next day; Me.

I asked you if you were ready to commit. I told you that I was just damaged goods and the last thing I would have wanted to do was bring you down. I told you I loved you but I wasn't sure if you could ever love me that much and then I sat in silence and waited for you to respond. To say something. Anything.

Deep down inside my heart, I had the strongest feeling of despondence. The thought in my brain said that you were considering everything and you were about to throw it all off: the wedding, our marriage, the children. I thought you would have given it all up.

But then you shook your head and you kissed my lips lightly, holding it for one extra moment longer before you pulled away and begun to speak. 

You told me that no matter what, you would always be committed to me. You said you would always be the thief who stole my heart, just like I'd always be the buried treasure you dug out from deep beneath the sand.
Alone, we were two locked chests yet to be found, but together we were like gold - precious and something I'd never want to give away.

I was a closed book before I met you but when I did, you chose not to judge my cover. Unlike all the other guys who saw me walking down along the streets with kids in my arms despite how young I was. Looking young didn't help either. People would look at me in resent, stick their noses up at me and I would produce the bitterest taste in their mouths. Even my own two parents were in dissent when I told them all about Bryson and Aaliyah. I wasn't in contact with my sister at the time, I wasn't talking to any friends. It was just me.

Until you decided to enter my life again even after I had completely blocked you out. You showed me that no matter what, the thing we had when we were kids all the way to what we are now will always be there and it won't be evaporating anytime soon. You and I are two solvents that make a solution. We're two molecules that form to make a compound, and when Aaliyah and Asher enter the equation, it forms a mixture.

You took me, you read me, you understood me and you brought me out of my shell.

I might still feel the pain and difficulties from the past may find a way of creeping up on me in the worst possible times which might lead onto me acting different to my usual self, especially on such days like this.
But all I want you to remember is that I'm still the same Ri you loved back then and I'll always be the same Ri who will love you just as much back.

Like we always say, my heart is yours.

You're my one and only, James. Always.

Lots of Love,
Your Riles Xx

I finish reading it and then look down at Riley as she stayed curled up by my side. I was about to say something but that was before I had realised she had fallen asleep with her head laid against my chest. I sigh, smiling down at her softly and kissing her temple.
I knew she was right. No matter what, she was still my girl. I could never lose her to anyone.

"I love you," I whisper, thinking she wouldn't hear me. But only a second later, she fidgets a little and then without fluttering her eyes open even an inch, she whispers the same words back.
"I love you," she emphasises before finally falling asleep in my arms or the first time in days.

.Emily.

I finish telling Wyatt everything about Riley and Bryson, what had happened in the past and how I felt like I had lost her, all the way up to her being pregnant now with her third child. The only thing I hadn't yet told him about was myself and Hunter, and how he had left me because of my not-yet confirmed infertility. If I wanted a relationship with Wyatt, I wasn't about to scare him away by feeding him such information.

He sat in silence for a moment, his eyes wide and pupils dilated as he took in everything I had just said. It's only a moment or so later before he sighs, shaking his head and then biting her lip.
"She's been through a lot. And so have you," he whispers gently, making me close my eyes as I breathe out before reopening them and then looking downwards.

"I just can't believe I shut her out all those years ago when she was suffering silently. There's so much more I could have done for her. If I had been patient, maybe things wouldn't be as bad as they are now. She's my baby sister, yet I didn't think to be there for her-"
"You were just as confused as she was, Emily," he tells me, causing me to chew the inside of my cheek. "You were hurting just as much as she was."

Everyone always compares Ri to me but I've rarely ever been compared to her. Everyone seems to think I'm the better of the two of us: the more confident, most stable, most achieving and the one who's accomplished more things. I used to get seen as the pretty one, Miss Popular, the gossip girl. 

What people don't realise is that I have the moments when I also compare myself to Riley. She's got a family of her own. She has a family dance studio run by herself and her husband who's been there for her through everything ever since we were teenagers. She has two healthy children. She's happily married. She knows what it feels like to hold her own child in her arms the moment after giving birth to them, hearing their sweetly bitter cries as the umbilical cord is cut.

"I'm unlovable," I whisper without even realising.

The moment the words leave my lips, Wyatt's face contorts with pure confusion as he looks over me, as if to try and perceive what I had just said. I allow my eyes to meet my own, and when they do, I feel the tears begin to brim in my eyes.
Tears. 
The sort of vapour I hadn't shed in so long, it felt almost foreign.

"I'm unlovable, Wyatt," I whisper again to him. I don't know why but it just happens. And when it does, so does a tear as it rolls down my cheek, then I can't seem to stop. I hadn't felt this empty in so long. The last time I felt like this was when Hunter left me. But even then I didn't cry. I refused to let myself fall down again, but now I was. In front of a guy I hardly knew but I trusted with every ounce of my body.

He sighs and pulls me into him, allowing me to rest my head against his chest as I pull my legs up by my side and I close my eyes, allowing the tears to cascade down my face.

All I've needed these past few months is someone who will listen to me. Someone who will take me in their arms and care for me for once, instead of it always being me looking out for everyone.
I just needed someone. Whether they're a guy or a girl, a friend or a lover.
All I need is someone who will listen.

"You're not unlovable, Emily," Wyatt whispers to me, rubbing my arm softly. "You're anything but," he says.