Before We Blew It Up

Prologue

"I'm not leaving you. At least not permanently."

That's a lie, Harlow. You're leaving them all. Permanently. For nothing is as permanent as death.

But that is the case for everyone and everything, so I don't feel particularly guilty as Layla asks me for the umpteenth time how long I'll be gone for. She gives me an exasperated look, brows drawn up as she ties her thick brown hair into a bun. It looks much better than a few months ago, when she'd escaped Chicago looking like a walking corpse, skin pale enough that I could see the veins beneath. I force a grin on my face, remembering that she's in for one hell of a surprise. Well, not really a surprise, since I already told her.

"At least a few months. Probably more," I answer, grabbing one of the boxes and taking it out to the parking lot.

She brings out the last box, and as she straightens, she gives me no warning and crashes my body into hers, squeezing me tight enough that I wheeze. We're both on the shorter side spectrum, but me more so than her. Enough that I'm currently smothered to her chest. If this goes well, Jaxon is going to be one lucky bastard, I think.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she says, and her words reach a space in me and squeeze, because I know they're true. That's the thing I hate about my situation the most sometimes. All the people who'll get hurt. Layla especially, because sometimes, I'm all she has. I did manage to convince her to let Aaron in, and Jaxon is back in her life again, but three years of self isolation and everything else she ran away from leaves a mark in her that'll never go away. A mark I'll make worse.

"I'm not moving to Antarctica for crying out loud," I mumble when she squeezes me harder and something else in me goes crack. For both our sakes, I hope it's not a broken bone.

"But still. I'm clingy and need my people. Who am I going to talk to now about all the weird stuff that goes on in my head? Who's going to cook me Japanese food and scold me for holding chopsticks wrong? Who's going to get me to dress right? It's a crisis, Harlow."

I can't help it, I laugh. Layla can't dress for the life of her. As the smothering grows, I wrestle out of her grip, and when I hear a car pull into the parking lot, I grin. Since I'm leaving, and we both were paying rent on the apartment, which we can't now do, I... discreetly arranged for Jaxon to have her over.

"You can speak your heart's desire to Jaxon, and don't worry, I'm sure he'll feed you," I tell her, and she shoots me a glare.

Jaxon and Layla were childhood friends-turned-more-than-friends, who got separated, are now in each other's lives again, and Layla – the chicken – is having cold feet. This is the perfect matchmaking move.

He parks the car close, turns the ignition off, and pulls out of the car, tall body unfolding. "He better do more than feed you," I murmur.

I catch Layla looking at him like she knows exactly what I mean, and she gets that dreamy look on her face. It's probably the thermal he's wearing – it accentuates his shoulders nicely, and I know Layla enough that anything like a hoodie on a guy is her kryptonite. "Yummy," I say under my breath and she hisses.

"He's not food." To make her point, she drives her elbow into my ribs, but her other hand is playing with the hem of her shirt.

"Someone's possessive," I whisper just as Jaxon gets closer, enough to hear us.

"Who's possessive?" he asks, bending over to grab a box and heft it with ease. Layla's eyeing his biceps and I'm internally thumping my fist into the air.

"No one," she squeaks, face flaming. I'd pay a hundred dollars to know what she's thinking. Better yet, I'd pay twice that amount to have Jaxon know what she's thinking.

He opens the trunk of his car and starts helping with loading the boxes in. Throughout it all, I'm making quips and comments that make it clear I'm playing matchmaker, and he laughs, catching on, and giving Layla a look. She returns it until he picks up another box, and this time, he lets out an oof.

"What's in here? Bricks?"

"Yes," Layla says. "They're my weapons. I like throwing them at my mean friends." She gives me a look I choose to ignore – for her benefit. "Why do you think Harlow's five feet? It's because I've hammered her down with bricks."

It's actually less than five feet, but I don't correct her and instead punch her in the arm, relishing the way she rubs it. "Respect the short people, Layla. Respect us. We're so tall and mighty on the inside, that God made us short on the outside." I look at Jaxon. "They're not bricks. They're her babies."

He puts it in the trunk. "I'm so confused right now."

"Books. They're filled with books, her babies, and if you crease the spine of even one, she will know, and she will hunt you down. It's not pretty."

He looks at her at that one, smiling enough that his eyes crinkle, and Layla's eyes are on his smiling lips. She looks away, clearing her throat, and a wistful look enters her gaze.

"I know. I've seen it before," he says, and again it's obvious that if any two people really know each other, it's these two. They share a past even Layla won't really divulge about, probably because it's interwoven with the pain of loss and her father's... business, but the way they look at each other, the way he looks at her...

Layla glances at me like she knows where my thoughts are and gives me a warning look. Fine, I won't push.

"Okay, Layla, I'll be back before you know it, try not to freak out, and I trust you'll dress like you're an eighteen year old and not an eighty year old."

I reach over and wrap her in a hug, trying not to think too much about what this means. This could be the last time I'm hugging her. No, it is. I know that. But for all of it, I'm grateful. Grateful that I got to have her in my life, and even though I'm guilty at how she's going to find out I lied about my reasons for going to SF, I won't say anything.

When I pull back, going to my own car, I tell her, "Grab life with both hands, Layla, and you're my bestest friend in the whole widest world."

It's a running joke of sorts, a small way of getting the other to snort and chuckle. She watches me as I get in my car, start it, and then pull out of the parking lot, the entire time, my gaze focusing pointedly away from the rearview mirror.

It's better this way, I tell myself. Not only for them, but also for me. When my grandmother was dying, the last few months were a personal kind of hell. Not only to know that I was losing someone who understood me in a way no one ever could, but also to watch her slowly lose all semblance of control. To watch the people around her treat her less like a human and more like a corpse, until she wasn't a loved one, but someone with a tangible expiration date.

Her cancer hadn't only eaten away at her body, it ate away at everything. Tearing holes in her personality, her image, until to others, she wasn't sobo anymore, but the sum of her terminal illness.

And I'm not going to let that happen to me.

A/N 

So, that's some background, and if you've read Before We Lit It Up, this chapter should be a bit familiar. I'll be posting a Characters chapter sometime, with the character's faces (as I see it) and maybe a few aesthetics. But thank you for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy this story!