Going 78 Miles Per Hour | ✓

54 | Latching (Part Two)

DOMINGO
11:52 PM

Reid Harlow

"I deserve a love unquestioned."

The second she turned away, realization struck me like a fucking truck.

My fingers hanging off the brass doorknob, the door creaked wide open and small gushes of wind and leaves dancing into the floor of the foyer. I couldn't speak—trying to process every fucking thing that just happened in the past two minutes—and everything feels still.

I hear footsteps shuffling behind me, alerting a newcomer, and I turn to my head to find Presley a couple of feet away from me. His expression fills with disbelief, almost as if he was watching the entire incident from afar, and he shakes his head once, a scoff exits his mouth.

"She was crying, Harlow." Presley spat, frustration rolling off his tongue so viciously. His anger multiplied at my inactivity to move, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "God, fuck, she's in love with you, came to you in tears, and all you can fucking do is stand there and ask her what?"

I deserve a love unquestioned.

I couldn't produce the words needed to defend myself and I wasn't fucking sure I wanted to. I didn't notice that she was crying, having looked beyond her, avoiding her gaze knowing that, with one shared look, I would've fallen to my knees and kissed her right then and there. No boundaries, crossing every fucking line.

I thought I was bad for her.

I deserve a love unquestioned.

The hesitation tampers with my footing and panic arise in my throat like a bile. My features boiling down into a fucking child, lost and having no clue on what to do next. I wasn't used to feeling this sense of dreading building in my chest at losing something—but I could feel each rib choking me on my decisions and air gasping at my throat at the idea that I did.

I'm losing her more than fucking ever.

I can hear the clock ticking in my ear like a deadly bomb waiting to detonate and the time running slim with each second I spent glue to the floor. I don't know why—but I couldn't fucking leave without one more word from Presley.

My foster brother closes his hands together, seeing the hesitation in my steps, and he looks at me with the most sharp, intense gaze in the world. "I know you have so many fucked up shit in your life, and I know you're an asshole with a heart of gold, but I can swear to you, if you let that girl leave right now—" he pauses, gesturing to the door, "you're going to regret for the rest of your life."

And I ran out that door.

━━━━━

LUNES
12:03 AM

Dahlia Gray

I couldn't breathe.

Sobs hitch to the back of my throat, performing a blockage to my lungs, and bluing at its desperation for clean, clear air. I'm trying so hard to catch my breath as I ran away from him—from Harlow, my problems, my father—but it seems as if the more I thought about the detrimental situation I'm in, with reality seeping into my skin with the consequences of my choices—the more my airway closes and suffocates me from my decisions, inside and out.

I thought in life, our true purpose were the choices we make and the decisions we choose, and the only consequences that call to our actions were if they were right or wrong.