After a tragic event drives her out of little Hillsborough, NC, 19-year-old Meghan Greene finds herself living in a Manhattan apartment with her best friend Chelsea Matthews. Officially enrolled in NYU and wanting to forget about her old life in her...
+ I want to dedicate this chapter to my top supporters, romance_writer13moonraess and kenzi_boomer. You guys have been so amazing on this journey with me and all your votes/comments make my day. I hope that you guys stick with me through the end of this story and for my stories to follow afterwards. I love you guys very much and appreciate all the support :')
Meghan
I told them everything. From the beginning of Sam and I's relationship to the horrendous night where Sam perished. I watched as their expressions went from unabashed happiness to complete and utter mortification.
We decided that having this kind of talk in the diner wasn't the best of ideas, so we moved the group back to the apartment. Good thing too, because one second Charlie was sitting with his head in his hands and the next, the vase that was sitting on the table next to the couch was flying through the air and smashing into smithereens against the far wall.
"Charlie!" Chelsea gasped and shot up towards him. Sebastian, who'd been sitting next to me the whole time rubbing circles down my back, quickly gathered me in his arms and hid my face in his neck.
"I'm so sorry," I heard Charlie mutter, "I don't- I just- fuck, Meg." I felt the couch beside me dip and I lifted my head from Sebastians shoulder, looking up to meet a troubled Charlie. His eyes were rimmed red and filled with agony, a look that forced tears to begin to form in my eyes. Charlie reached over and wrapped me up in a hug, although we'd been friends for months now we hadn't really shown this much affection towards each other, and the way it comforted me warmed my heart.
He held me for so long that I was afraid Sebastian would pry his arms off of me. All I felt though was Sebastian wrapping his own arms around our little huddle of friendship. All felt right in the world, with the boys finally knowing everything there was to know about me. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders now that I wasn't carrying around this secret any longer.
A gruff voice interrupted our moment, "they won't hurt you." We pulled away and glanced at Jason, who was staring at the front door, his jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists so tight that his knuckles were turning white. "Jason?" I mumbled and his eyes shot to me, his lean but well kept body rising from his seat and coming to crouch in front of me.
His hands reached out and cradled mine, his eyes burning through me. "We won't let them hurt you," he said each word with emphasis and the amount of emotion he was showcasing made my heart skip a beat. I looked around at every person in the room, all of them hovering near me, but what shocked me was the determination etched into their faces.
"Get up," Charlie said from next to me and stood up himself, grabbing Jason by the arm and pulling him up too. Savannah and Chelsea both looked at each other and then back to the two boys, "what're you guys doing?" Savannah questioned with her brows furrowed.
"We're going to the police."
"What? No! They can't- they won't be able to help!" I started panicking, my heart thudding in my chest and my head swirling with what Jason had just said. I turned to look at Sebastian, hoping that he would take my side on this, but his face was stern and his lips set in a thin line.
"They couldn't do anything back home, what makes you guys think they'll do something now?!"
Sebastian shot up from his seat and turned to glare at me, "if they followed you here, then it's stalking. We don't know what they want, or what they'll do and I'm not going to stand aside and wait for something to happen to you!"
I was ready to come back with a remark but the look in his eyes shut me up. For the first time since I'd met him, Sebastian looked scared. I hadn't even thought about what this was doing to him, we'd both finally found a happy place in life while being together and now it was being threatened by something so large. I'd lost Sam, and I don't think I could bare the thought of losing Sebastian too. And I would never want to put him in a position where he felt he would lose me, especially in the kind of way I was sure he was imagining.
My heart constricted in my chest.
These people had warned me that they weren't finished and I hadn't listened. They'd followed me across states. Watched me for who knows how many months. And they waited. They hid in the shadows and emerged when they were ready.
I don't know what their plan is, but I know that I'm done running. I've finally found happiness again after they took it away in the first place, and I wasn't going to sit around and hurt the people that I love most because they decided to come for me. I couldn't leave my mom alone, or Chelsea and the group with the kind of pain that I was left with. I've dealt with it and it almost destroyed me, it would be selfish of me to put them through that because I didn't do a damn thing.
And Sebastian.
The man who has built me back up and given me his heart. The one who helped me come out of the darkest time in my life, who helped me love again after believing for so long that I never would again. I don't want to be the reason why his spark gets blown out, or the reason why his happiness gets taken away. I've watched him grow out of that shell he was in when I first got here, he's let me in and given me so much of himself that it'd be wrong of me to take all of that away because I was careless.
I slowly stood up from the couch, bringing my shaky hands to wipe away the tears I knew were rolling down my cheeks. He watched me walk towards him, his breathing was hard and I noticed how harshly his chest rose and fell under his thin t-shirt. I stopped a hairsbreadth away from him, my fingers coming up to trace his jawline.
Everyone in the room blurred into the background as I looked up at him, his eyes softening as my fingers inched higher, pushing his hair back and out of his face. God, even just looking at him had the power to bring light into my life.
"I love you," I whisper to him, "and I know that you're afraid that you're going to lose me. I see it in your eyes. And I feel it right here," I place my palm against his heart, the quick palpitations of it proving my assumptions correct. I see him swallow and then he slowly nods his head.
"But you won't. I'm not going anywhere," I give him a light peck on the lips and then turn to face everyone else in the room who'd been watching us in awe.
"I couldn't stop it from happening before, no one could have. But maybe this time-" I was cut off as Sebastian wrapped an arm around my chest and pulled me flush against his front.
"Not maybe," he said with vigor, "this time we will stop it."
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+Author's Note: short chapter but this story is almost over :( I know exactly what the ending is going to be and how it's going to happen which makes me super excited. I've had the epilogue written since the beginning (no lie.)
+Questions: do you guys like how protective the boys are? what do you think will happen at the police station? will they do anything?
