Rescue ▶▶A Hunter Hayes Faniction◀◀

SEVENTEEN

“What if I mess up? What if I throw up? Gosh, I think I’m gonna throw up-”

“Hunter,” I interrupt as I place a hand on his chest. “Stop. You’re going to do great, like always.” I give him a reassuring smile. “We’ve gone over this, anyways. You’re not going to faint, you’re not going to forget the words, and no, you’re not going to get laughed at.”

“What if-”

I put my finger against his lips to shut his mouth. He stops talking, but he doesn’t look like he wanted to.

“Seriously, stop stressing.”

I take my finger away, trusting that he would stop asking what-if questions, but apparently I was wrong.

“But what-”

I stand on my tiptoes and press our lips together. As soon as they make contact, Hunter stops talking. At first he doesn’t do anything, scaring me, but then he melts into the kiss and kisses me back. His hnd moves to my face to cup it.

As the sweet and delicate kiss comes to an end, I start to realize what I just did.

And I don’t regret it. Even if he rejects me, was just kissing me back so I didn’t feel awkward, or he doesn’t like me that way at all, I’m just glad that I got my feelings out there. I want him to know how I feel.

Hunter looks down at me; I look up at him. His blue eyes are wide.

“Wha… I…”

“AND NOW HUNTER HAYES PERFORMING ON THE PIANO HIS VERY OWN ORIGINAL SONG,” a person says into the microphone.

Hunter turns his head, looking at the stage with fear in his eyes.

I put my hand on his arm. “Hunter”

He looks back at me.

“You got this.”

He nods, gulps, then walks onto the stage. With a small smile tugging on my lips, I wander back to where Haley, Leo, and Lynette are sitting in the audience. I sit in an empty seat next to Haley just as Hunter starts talking into the microphone attached to the piano. He clears his throat before starting.

“Um, hi, I’m Hunter Hayes and this song is called Wanted.”

~~~~~~~~~

It’s been a year since everything happened. Since Hunter won the school’s talent show. Since my Dad was put in jail. Since Haley and I have been living with the Hayes family.

Now, Haley and I are living with a very kind family who are Hunter’s nieghbors. Apparently, our new parents were told about our situation and recently had a daughter who died from cancer, so they wanted to adopt Haley and I. I’m not just glad that now we’re Hunter’s neighbor, but I’m also happy because the couple are very kind and feel like family. They feel more like parents than Dad ever did.

Despite this, I still visit Dad whenever I can. Haley doesn’t come; it’s just me and him. I thought​ long and hard about what Leo told me a while ago, and decided that my Dad doesn’t deserve my love. Yet. No one else is giving him love, so I should. Without love, he’d never get out of jail or get better. I hope that I can meet him again when he’s the man he was so many years ago. Happy. Healthy. Kind. Selfless. I know that the man I used to know is still in him and I know that love can draw it out of his hard shell.

Haley is very intelligent, so she’s in advanced classes for everything in school. She may be a fourth grader, but she’s reading at a college level and is taking advanced photography classes at the end of the day at my high school. Our new parents, Hunter, Leo, Lynette, and I are very proud of her.

Hunter and I are dating. He’s a very nice boyfriend, and even though I’ve never had a boyfriend before, he’s the best one I’ve ever had. He helps me through my social anxieties, my intruding thoughts about myself, and anything that life throws my way. The same goes for him, too; I help him calm down his stage fright and I make sure to assure him that he’s special. That he’s not just some other wanna-be muscisan, because Hunter’s actually a muscisan and he has a burning passion for music.

After Hunter won the talent show last year, all the girls starting fawning over him. Danielle thought that he wrote his song for her, but when he told her that he wrote it for me, I swear Danielle looked like she was going to cry. I’m not one to laugh when someone cries, but I did, and I felt and still feel horrible about it.

As I stand in the audience, waiting for Hunter to perform for our state fair, I think about everything that we’ve gone through, both together and by ourselves. I think about our future, if we even have one.

I hope so.