No Place Like Home ✔

Thirteen

Adam wasn't as mad at me as he should've been. I narrowed the possibilities of the reasoning behind that to being either the fact that me being "homeless" evoked some sort of pity in him, or the fact that he was just the type of person who wouldn't yell at someone regardless of how wrong they had done him. 

Instead of giving me a hard time for having sold the books, he settled with telling me about the books instead. And he had been doing so for the past two hours, just sitting and talking about the plot of the books and how much he related to the personalities of some of the characters involved. 

Then he brought up how every story has an antagonist. He just briefed over the line and didn't say much about it, but the moment he said it - I paused. And I was left thinking. 

You do know how people often say that you are the bad person in at least one person's story, don't you?

I was aware of that. My father used to tell me that all the time. But, I could never find myself living with the fact that there was someone out there who hated me. 

Then, I came to realize that I was the bad person in my story as well. 

I was the antagonist in my own chapter too. 

And there was no doubt about the fact that I'd end up being the antagonist in every single person's story after my secrets would unravel. However, the more I found myself thinking about it, I only came up with new excuses to save myself from the guilt; 

Antagonists are the main characters too.

There was another thing I hadn't mentioned before. 

Whenever I found myself going through negative thoughts, I would stiffen up - and it wasn't all that visible, you could barely tell, but Adam always managed to tell. Probably since he was a psychology student. 

And whenever I did just that, he used to reach his hand out and place it on top of mine. He used to trace gentle circles onto the back of my hand with his thumb and tell me to take in a deep breath. 

And it got me every single time. 

This man was an angel, I was so convinced. He was an angel that my parents had sent down from heaven. They were trying to make me better. 

I let out a bitter chuckle to myself. 

I didn't believe in God. I was never too much of a religious or faithful man, I guess you could say, but every single time something went wrong - I'd pray to God. I'd pray for everything to get better. I was praying to someone I didn't even believe in. 

Did that make me selfish? Or did that just make me human?

Back to Adam.

There was another thing he'd do quite often that I couldn't help but notice. Whenever he began ranting about something he was passionate about, or something that he genuinely enjoyed; he would never stop talking. He'd go on and on for hours on end listing every last reason as to why he loved said thing so much. And then he'd try to convince me to get into it as well. 

And all I'd say is - "I can't, I'm homeless."

And that would shut him up instantly. And him shutting up would make me feel guilty all over again. I hated that. I hated how he reminded me that I was still human - and I was taking advantage of people who were almost just like me, only; they weren't as horrible at all. 

But at the same time, I loved it. I loved having him around. He was the only thing keeping me sane at that point of time. 

And every single day he'd bring a few pennies or notes along with him just to keep me satisfied. Every single time I saw him hopping over my way with money in his hands and that excited smile, I'd drown in the guilt. He was so happy just to keep me happy; but he didn't know the truth. He didn't know the half of it.

And that made me wonder; when was he ever going to find out? How would he react in the likely case that he ended up finding out? 

Would he yell at me? Curse me out for being such a horrible being? For taking advantage of him and countless others?

Or would he let it go just like he had done with the books? Would he try to talk me out of my miserable state and reassure me that everything was okay and I didn't need to be ashamed? Would he prevent me from feeling guilty about what I'd chosen to do?

I was hoping it would be the latter instead of the former of the two. 

I looked over at him as he continued ranting about how amazing James Bond was in everything that he did and rolled my eyes - out of affection, of course. 

He was so silly yet so adorable. 

My cheeks went red after the shameless confession. Had I just called him adorable? 

I stiffened up once again. I couldn't help it. 

And just like that, he paused his mindless venting and raised his brows at me. I shook my head at him to reassure him that I was okay.

He gave me a nod with a small smile on his face before reaching his hand out like he always did and placing it on top of mine. This time, I turned my hand over instead of letting it stay idle. I turned it over and intertwined my fingers with his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. 

I noticed how his eyes widened only a slight bit before he looked the other way with a grin on his face. And then he went back to ranting about James Bond. 

So we sat like that beside each other, hand in hand.