Running || A Garrance Fanfic

Chapter Thirty Nine

**Shoutout to SmootheeWrites for the edit up top! Thank you so much!!💕

Laurance's POV

I stopped crying three hours ago. I haven't done anything since. I've been sitting here, alone, for three hours.

He gave up trying to talk to me. Part of me was hoping he'd just be sitting outside my door, waiting until I opened it, but I left to get water an hour ago and he wasn't there. He's sleeping peacefully next door, dreaming about all of his amazing friends that he'll see in five hours.

It's 1am. He'll leave in three hours for the airport. With Zane. With Aaron. With Aphmau.

He's leaving me in three hours.

And my last memory of him will be of him crying.

I'm garbage.

I'm laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and praying for some miracle to tell me that this is all just a horrible dream I'm going to wake up from. The reality is that Garroth is gone. He's not coming back.

And I didn't even get to tell him...

Just as I feel the tears resurfacing, there's a quiet knock on my door. My heart races and breaks all at the same time and it's painful. I sit up and hug my knees, weighing my options.

Do you really want him to leave without saying goodbye?

But I don't want to say goodbye...

Sighing, I get up and slug to the door. It unlocks and I crack it open. The blonde stands there, exhaustion written all across his face. The skin around his eyes are red.

"What?" It comes out more bitter than I mean it to.

Garroth frowns, scratching the back of his neck.

"I-I, uh..." He ponders for a moment. "I...had a nightmare...?"

I really try to fight my smile, but a very faint one slips through and he notices.

Irene, I hate him.

I don't answer, but I leave the door open and make my way back to the bed, flopping back on it. Garroth steps in and Taco comes barreling in after, jumping on the foot of my bed. Garroth goes to the other side and climbs in. I pull up the covers and refuse to look at him.

For a while, it's just quiet, neither of us daring to make a sound. It's the awkward kind of quiet, too; not the normal comfortable one. All I really wanna do is hug him and hear him tell me that he isn't going anywhere. That he'd rather be here with me.

I want to hear him tell me he loves me...

But he doesn't. And he won't. This is one-sided and I know it. I've always known it.

"Did...did I wake you up?" he asks me after what feels like decades of awkward silence.

"I never went to sleep," I respond, bitterness still present in my voice.

"Oh." He pauses. "Neither did I."

I don't reply at first, but I don't stay silent for as long this time.

"You're really leaving, then?"

"Not forever. I'll come back."

"What makes you think I'm going to stay here?"

I feel him move so he's facing me. I still face the ceiling.

"You're not gonna stay?"

I shrug: "Who knows. Kinda useless to live in a two-bedroom apartment when there's only one person living there."