devotion
The flooring in the apartment has always been something you've hated. You hate it even more right now, as you've been pacing back and forth across it for too long.
You pace back to her, where she's packing a suitcase full of clothing, to take with her when she leaves, and she will leave, now. It's inevitable. "You shouldn't go back to Beacon Hills," you say, softly. "This is a mistake."
"This is a mistake," you say again, louder this time, and stop, stand in front of her, and you wish that you could make her understand but know already that she never will.
"I really don't think you're the one to be talking about mistakes, Derek," Laura bites back, harsh and bitter.
You go still. This in itself is a testament of how much those words hurt you, like knives to your heart, that you can't even conjure up any emotion to be angry, and instead you're just hurt.
Laura's face crumples, and the tears start welling up and she whispers, "Derek, oh, god, I'm so sorry."
But you- you just can't take it anymore, and you run. Out of the room and out the apartment, into the streets of New York and you just keep running. Like a coward.
You come back eventually. You always do, it's the only place that even remotely resembles a home, and it only seems that way because Laura is there too. But Laura's not there when you get back, and the little apartment feels crowded with it's emptiness.
You make hot chocolate, something that you loved as child and still do now, a bit of childhood that you're hanging onto.
It's when you're settling into the sofa, that you hear the door open. You don't say anything, just sip your hot chocolate and think of people and places and things, about how much you don't want to be you.
Laura sits down next to you, leaning against your shoulder because touch is a sense you both miss. She says: "I promised myself I'd never blame you." Her voices breaks at the end of the sentence, and your heart breaks when you hear it.
It's terrible, and you're not sure why, since it is your fault anyways, and if you can own up to it then why can't she. Is it a matter of not wanting to hate the one person who will be with you forever, or is it something that is Laura at her core, too good of a person to place blame even where it should be.
She turns to you, says, "I love you, Der'."
You whisper, brokenly, "I love you too."
