Find Her, Keep Her (CFTM Sequel)

Chapter 23 (Part 2)

*NOTE: Check out the Audiobook version of this chapter voiced by kaelking12 (Kristen M.) by clicking the link above! Featuring music by Paramore, Arctic Monkeys, Kodaline, and The 1975.

Alex

This.

This is not the boy I lost last summer.

This is not the boy who held me in his arms on a Jersey beach while time and empty promises slipped through our lips and fingers.

This is a man. One who's touch makes me feel whole and wholly beautiful.

A man who's hands hold me in all the ways Kai's can't, a man who erases my loneliness with a brush of his fingertips.

This is the poet who's words built up and broke me in the quiet of my dorm room this morning.

And I've missed him.

God, I've missed him.

I've been missing him since the day he left.

Even though I tried not to.

Even though I denied ever feeling anything for him at all.

His warmth brings out my truth.

His arms surround me to the point where I can't escape my body's response to him.

Even after half a year spent trying to date someone else, trying to love someone else, and trying to dissolve into someone else--

--he still feels like home.

And it terrifies me.

It rattles me because being this comfortable means losing control.

Giving into him means giving up the paper thin armor I made out of my sadness to protect myself from falling into him again.

I don't know where I stand.

Or what this means for me and Kai.

Or how to start over with Elias.

But I want to try. I need to try.

Because I'm tired of pretending.

I'm tired of trying to be someone I'm not.

I'm tired of fighting how I feel.

So, I let him hold me.

I give up the battle in the middle of that tiny hallway and let my heart leap back into the hands of the first boy who broke it.

And, in less than seconds, I break every promise I made to myself to play it safe and finally surrender.

Because somewhere underneath my worries is a part of me that believes in those words he wrote.

And somewhere in the middle of my darkness is a heart that wants to find hope again.

"Elias, I don't know what to do about--"

"Kai?"

"Yeah. We fought this morning--about you and me. And, I don't know where he is at this point, but eventually I'm gonna have to talk to him about this. About us."

"I know. Jersey, I'm not asking you to leave him if you're not ready to. I just want you to be honest with me when it comes to what you want."

I swallow the gum ball rising in my throat and push back the impulse to dance around an answer.