They were both just kids looking for a black hole to drown their sorrows, instead they found each other…

Jane dug around under her mattress, feeling for the single sheet of newspaper she had tucked away nearly a month ago. It wasn't an easy task to find news of something that happened months ago, unknown to the team, not when they watched her like a hawk so she waited and waited some more until finally they started to warm up to her a bit. Her fingers brushed against the thinning sheet of paper and she pulled it out. It was creased from having been folded several times over the past few weeks but would still be legible enough to read.

Here goes nothing…or everything.

With nervous fingers she slipped her phone out of her back pocket, clicked on his name and typed :

Can you come over?

Time passed slowly. It had been almost been an hour since she'd texted him and was beginning to think he wasn't coming.

Jane stayed hidden within the darkness, feeling every beat of her heart pounding against her ribcage.

She pulled out her phone, not to check for messages, but to flick through some photographs of him. The silly ones they'd taken together, they were honestly all ugly faces but she couldn't remember ever feeling more happy and free than she did in that moment.

The living room was as quiet as it was dark, with only one sound to be heard; the sound of her own pulse throbbing in her ears. Suddenly, the serenity of silence surrendered to the deathly scream of hinges, as the door opposite her was slowly prised open. A narrow stream of light gracefully meandered through the room, and a shadow quickly followed.

What starts as a contortion of her stomach becomes a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. Her breathing becomes erratic, deep, then shallow. She fights it though. She fights the feeling as her body writhes to be free or shut down entirely.

What if he's disgusted with my tattoos? What if he's disgusted with me?

"Hi."

He was unnaturally quiet, his hands dug deep into his pockets.

"Thank you for coming," Jane says, the relief evident in her voice. She fought the urge to reach for his hand like she normally did after he kissed her. Instead she just walked over to the couch, offering him a seat, he declines. They both just stand there looking lost.

"Sit. Please," this time her voice was barely even audible.

He nodded then, removing his jacket and folding it neatly before taking a seat.

He noticed that her place was a bit different now. Before her living environment had little to no personal belongings but now she had little sketch books, photographs of her and two women, a group photograph of the two women, the rude man he'd met briefly… the brother? and another man, he assumed them all to be her friends, several small frames of paintings and piles and piles of books.

A small smile stretched across his face as he noticed one of his all time favourite books; Flowers for Algernon.

"That's a good read," he mumbles pointing his chin in the direction of the open book.

Jane doesn't even hear him. Her mind is buzzing way too loudly with all the horrible scenarios — him leaving, calling her disgusting or worse, a murderer. It was all becoming in too much, too fast.

She clenches her fists tightly, until her nails dig into the palm of her hand, but she barely notices. The only thing she is really aware of, is the sound of her heart throbbing against the cage of her chest. It's not until she feels his hands brushing against her lips, that she's aware she's been biting down on her lip so hard it bled.

She choked down the rising bile and consciously flexed her hand, feeling at last the pain of her nails digging into her palm.

"Here," he said softly, handing her his handkerchief. He waited until she was finished wiping her mouth before he spoke again.

"I'm sorry for lashing out on you lastnignt. It's just… everytime I'm reminded of my name change all those years ago, I'm reminded of something awful. Something I still struggle with."

"It's okay —

"I need to do this. Let me."

She looks down to her cotton socks and nods, waiting.

Seconds, minutes pass and yet he hasn't uttered a word. She's afraid to look up for fear of what she might see there.

"When I just sixteen years old, in grade ten, I met the woman I said I was going to marry. I was just a gangly thing so I was surprised when she actually gave me the time of day. She wasn't like any other girl I'd met. She was such a kind soul; always willing to help out wherever and whenever she could. One of the many qualities I admired about her was her ability to smile and be strong even when life was beating down on us. My parents never approved of our relationship. They didn't believe that a white man could marry and love a black woman so to prove them wrong, Jennifer and I got married three years later. My parents did not like that," he said, chuckling to mask the pain that he still felt.

That she was sure he'd always feel.

"What happened to her?" Jane inquired, though she already suspected what must've happened since the woman was nowhere to be seen.

"A year later, Jen fell pregnant. It was unexpected but we were happy. She was happy and her happiness meant so much to me than anything else would've. We were a pair of twenty year olds, struggling to get by with our new baby, Amelia. I didn't have any younger siblings so I hadn't the slightest clue on how to raise a baby but Jen, she was so strong, so brave. We didn't have much money. My parents practically wrote me off when I married Jen and she was an orphan; never knew her parents so we had no help. I worked three jobs just to get food on the table and diapers on Amelia."

"Oliver, you don't have to —"

"After about two years later, things started looking up. My mother had come looking for me, said she'd searched for weeks. When she finally got ahold of me and saw Amelia and the state of our living environment she broke down, begging for forgiveness. She was my mother and I had missed her, she offered us some help and I took it. I wanted a better life for Millie and Jen so I took what my mother was offering. Jen and I both got a chance to go to college while my parents watched Amelia. We graduated, I had a stable job and so did Jen, she had always wanted to be a photographer. We had another baby— babies actually. Twins girls, Scarlett and Skylar. My girls were my whole world. Life was great, I was the 'best daddy' according to my princesses and for the first time in a long while, life was worth living again. Until one day it wasn't. The girls had always tired Jen so that faithful day I promised to get off earlier than usual to help her with them. I was just getting ready to leave when my phone rang. It was our elderly neighbour, Mrs. Winters, her children were all grown and out of our hair so she was always more than happy to watch the girls when Jen and I needed a little break. She said there had been a fire. She said… she said no one made it out alive. My girls…they were —"

When no more words came, the tears did.

The pain that flowed from him was so intense that Jane struggled to keep her own tears at bay.

"I'm so sorry," she soothed, pulling him into her arms. He clung to her tightly, gripping her shirt.

He cried until there was nothing left inside but a raw emptiness that nibbled at his insides like a hungry rat. His irises were threaded scarlet and his eyeballs hung heavy in their sockets. His whole body hung limp like each limb weighed twice as much as it had before.

I wrestled with the thought of whether I should tell him my truth or not. He just poured his heart and everything else out to me. Would it be selfish of me to talk about myself now? But wasn't that why I invited him over? To the honest?

"What's worrying you?"

As he leaned forward my pulse raced. A small lock of hair tumbled in front of my face, resting just in front of my cheek, but with one swift slide of his thumb, it was brushed out of the way. Looking into his eyes I saw deep pools of blue that displayed his soul; kind and gentle. His lips touched my cheek, the simple touch sent a wave of butterflies coursing through my veins, their fluttering wings easing the dread that had settled inside me.

His eyes glistened in the darkness. I know what is coming and glance away, then look back at him. His hand reaches under my hair below my ear, his thumb caressing my cheek. Suddenly I see him clearer, his eyes revealing more than his words can express. My lips part and our breaths mingle. My heart flutters as he draws me to his lips.

"Tell me," he breathes against my lips.

My arms reach up and tangle around his neck. I breathe in sharply and kiss him delicately, his arms encircling my waist drawing me in, his lips hungry for mine.

"I'll show you."

Reluctantly, I reach into my back pocket, unfolding the sheet of paper. My fingers brush against the dusting paper.

"What's that?" I felt a hot breath on my neck, then the tender brush of lips. Burning as they make contact with my neck.

With a soft sigh, I melted into him, my fingers clutching the lapels of his jacket as I softened my mouth to accept his gently probing tongue. The kiss ended as quickly as it began and with a sigh I pulled away from him.

He frowned up at me. "What's wrong?"

Before I could talk myself out of this incredibly risky decision to give Oliver the truth I know he deserves, I push the crumpled paper into his lap.

His frown depends as he picks up the sheet, examining it.

"What is this?"

"Just read it."

His eyes raced across the sheet, his expression changing from one of confusion to something entirely different. If he was annoyed or disgusted by what he had just learned about me, he didn't show it.

The silence was like a gaping void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything…

The silence was killing me. I had to say something…anything.

"Oliv—"

He simply nods, folds the paper and patted the space next to him for me to join him.

With slight hesitation, I sat down beside him allowing him to pull me in.

As soon as his arms wrapped around me, I collapsed against him with a sob of relief.

"Atleast now I know that you not knowing anything about Harry Potter wasn't intentional," he said, laughing at his own joke.

Silence lingers in the air; thick and heavy.

He sighs, gently pushing me back.

"I don't care about any of that. The tattoos, the memory loss, nothing. Not anymore. You are a beautiful person. Inside and out. A few tattoos won't change that and as for your memories you make new ones everyday. You're gonna be okay, Jane."

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. I feel the muscles of my chin tremble like a small child and I look toward the window, as if the moonlight could soothe me.

"I'll be okay. You will too."