Redemption

Well, thanks for all the great reviews! I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please keep the feedback coming!

Chapter Thirteen

My heart was incessantly thumping in my chest as Dimitri drove back into familiar land. We shouldn't be doing this, but there was no way that I could tell him to turn back now and just leave the funeral. The most destructive thing in life is to live with regret. That's one thing that I was grateful that my mother taught me.

"Are you okay?" Dimitri asked. It seemed as though that was the only question he had really been asking over the past week.

"Yeah, I'm fine" I answered, almost too proud to admit what I was about to. "I'm just a little scared." I'm Rose Hathaway. I'm the girl who just doesn't get scared. How can I change this much over one death?

"You're scared?" Dimitri laughed as he took another sharp left and we drove back into town. What we were supposed to say if someone from school recognised us? They probably just thought we had been absent from school because facing it without Andre was just too hard. "Wow, that's a first." Well, he didn't have to mock me.

"It's not funny" I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest like a young child. When did I turn into such a brat?

"God, calm down" He sighed, parking the car outside of a church. "We're here." The funeral had already started and it was beautiful. Flowers of every colour were littered by the doors of the church and photos of him were framed and stood proudly on benches. He was beautiful and so was his funeral.

Dimitri took my hand and led me to the doors of the funeral. This was where we would spend our time mourning. There was no way that we could get too close. That would be disastrous. As soon as I peered in, I wanted to cry. So many people from school had taken the day off, so they could be here for him and his family.

"There are so many people" I commented as my eyes fell on Rhea and Lissa who sat at the front their hands clutching at each other as they cried for Andre. "Oh, shit" I hadn't been sure that my Mum would show up, but she had. She was sitting on the other side of the room to Lissa and Rhea and had eyes like a hawk. She was expecting me to show up here. Damn her for knowing me well.

"We should go" Dimitri whispered once he had noticed her too. His words astounded me. We couldn't back out of this now. "Your mum's here. We'll get caught if we stay here for too long."

"No, we can't leave now" I argued, desperate to get closer as the woman spoke about him.

"Andre's life was too short" She had been saying with Dimitri grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to look at him.

"No, we can leave now because if we don't they'll catch us" he snapped. "Do you want to ruin everything?"

"Dimitri"

"No, shut up for two minutes and just listen to me. You're irritating me. Just do as I say."

"Dimitri, stop."

"No, you need to learn!"

"Dimitri!" My voice had risen far too loud as Dimitri finally listened to what I had been trying to say. His rant had attracted the attention of the whole church.

"Oh, shit" He sighed, his eyes going wide as he scanned the whole church. They were all looking at us… including my good-for-nothing mother.

"Rose, what the hell do you think you're doing?" My mum shouted as she got up from her seat and began her saunter over to us. Dimitri took my hand in his, pressing his lips to it. Well, he still had to play the part of the love-struck boyfriend.

"Come on" He muttered in my ear, already pulling me right out of that church and leading me back into the car. As soon as I pulled my seatbelt on, she was hammering her fists of the car window.

"Rosemarie Hathaway you get your backside out of that car right now" She shouted. "There is no way that this is over. We need to talk."

"She's not going anywhere" Dimitri shouted back, hunting for the car keys in his pockets. Please find them quickly.

"And you, lover-boy" She snapped as she pointed at him. "You better stay away from my daughter." Oh, so now he decides to play the role of a loving mother. Well, I'm not buying it. He finally found his keys and hurried away from the screeching woman. For the first few minutes, my heart was slamming into my chest. What if she caught up with us? God, I can't believe I had actually ruined Andre's funeral. There's no way I can forgive myself for that.

It was only when we got back into the country roads, Dimitri spoke. "You've got to admit, that was pretty funny" He finally said. Was he being serious? In what world was that funny?

"No, it wasn't funny at all" I snapped as I buried my head into my hands. "Dimitri, do you realise what we did? We wrecked Andre's funeral and now my Mum is probably onto us."

"I told you that we should have left, but you wouldn't have it" He argued. As much as I wanted to argue more with him and prove that I wasn't to blame here, I knew he was right. I should have just listened to him and none of this would have happened. None of it. It was my entire fault for trying to make everything so risky.

It was still rather funny to see his face when everyone was looking at him. And just like that, I started laughing for the first time for a long while. Dimitri looked at me as though I was mental, but still joined in before pulling over outside of a hotel.

"You're crazy" He laughed, taking my hand in his as he leaned back in his seat. "Oh, what are we doing?" My laughter died down as I pondered his question. I didn't have a clue what we were doing. I just knew that we had to do it.

"It'll all be over soon" I sighed, hooping that my words were true.

"No, that's not what I mean" He said. "Why are we blowing hot and cold all the time with each other? Why can't we just accept facts and move on. I can't live like this with you."

"Well, I don't have anything to suggest" I sighed. "We're always going to be like this with each other. We were made to argue. You made that clear when you kissed me and just acted as though it hadn't even happened."

"Hey, I didn't do that" He argued. "I just wanted everything to go the right way. I wanted to get Andre's funeral out of the way before I explained everything to you."

"Well, we're done with Andre's funeral now" I reminded, giving him a look of satisfaction. "You might as well tell me now." He didn't look as though he wanted to do that right now. Something told me a car wasn't the place he wanted to explain his feelings for me.

"Fine then" he grumbled. "Ever since I first met you, I knew that there was something about you that I was attracted to. You may be a complete bitch sometimes, but I have feelings for you and they're not going away no matter how hard I try." His words made my hearts swell.

"Do you really mean that?" I asked, too scared to let myself believe it in case I was the one to get hurt. I couldn't deal with that on top of all this business with Andre and my Mum. "You're not just doing it to hurt me?"

"No way, Roza" He answered, still holding onto my hands tightly. "I could never do that to you. Not after everything that we've been through."

"Then why are we just sitting here?" I asked, grinning from ear to ear as I sidled nearer to him. "Come here, Dimitri." I wrapped my arms tight around his neck and pressed my lips to his, no longer caring about scaring him away because I knew that he wasn't going to leave me. He kissed back with more force than I could imagine as he pulled me even closer to him until I was practically lying over the seat just to get to his lips. This wasn't the kind of way that I wanted to do this.

"Look, let's go inside" I mumbled into his lips. "This is hardly dignified" He clutched at my hips as he opened his car door and slipped out before opening mine and taking my hand.

"I didn't think you were bothered" He laughed, leading me into the hotel.

"Hey, don't be so cheeky" I grumbled, following him obediently.

Once we were inside, I was glad that he had picked this hotel. It was a lot cleaner than the previous one and a lot friendlier. The bed was wrapped in a crimson red duvet cover and the bathroom was one that made me feel ready to faint.

"Are you sure we can afford this?" I asked, still peering around the room. One night in a hotel like this would probably bleed us dry. "It's a lot of money. Rhea will be even angrier."

"Hey, you let me worry about our finances." Dimitri assured, stroking the side of my head with lean fingers. "This is a treat. We'll have enough money to cover the rest of this trip" I wanted to believe him, but I didn't want to ruin everything by making Dimitri think that I needed a treat.

"No, we don't have to stay here" I pressed, already scared that we were sounding like a married couple having a squabble. "Look, we could have a nice night in the car and we can just talk."

"Shut up before I change my mind" He laughed, already pulling me even closer to him. "We are staying here and we are going to have a nice night and you'll love it. You'll only regret it if we don't spend the night here."

"Fine, you win" I sighed, almost happy that I had given in. This hotel was extremely nice and the idea of spending the night here made me giddy. "Come here." He wrapped me up in his arms like he had done in the car and pressed kiss after kiss to my cheek, lips and neck. The closeness I had with him now was making my head spin. It was just so needed. Throughout this whole trip, I had missed people and I had wanted to talk to Lissa, Rhea and Andre, but I couldn't and now I have Dimitri to support me. It's almost as though I've found my lifeline. That kind of reassurance can't be found anywhere else.

"I'm sorry about all the things I've said to you, Rose" He sighed once he broke apart from me. "I was a dick when I first met you." I had vowed on the first day I ever met him that I was going to hate him until the day I died, but he looked as though he truly was sorry for the way he had made me feel on my first day at that high school. There was no way I couldn't forgive him.

"Forget about it" I sighed. "It's all in the past." Only I couldn't help but think that things from the past were going to come back and haunt us.

Ah, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I finally actually wrote a nice one even if it did have Andre's funeral mentioned in it. Anyway, hope you like it and please don't hesitate to leave me a review!