A/N: Once again, THANK YOU for all the sweet reviews and your support of this story! You don't know how much it all means to me! It also gives me so much motivation to write.
There are many chapters coming right now in a short span of time. However, chapters might not come as often from now on, depending on how busy I am with school. We shall see… My Holiday break is coming next week though, and I will be school free for almost three weeks! I will try to write as much as I can!
The story, meanwhile, is still building up, and it will continue to do so for a while.
What matters Anakin and Padmé… Well, as we all might have noticed, the attraction is defiantly there, but I'm not going to rush this story. I hate it when characters rush into romances in movies/shows/books… etc.… It's just so unsatisfying!
This a slow burn story (I love a good slow burn), and I want it to be as satisfying as possible when these two dorks finally get together! :)
Enjoy!
Content warning: Use of drugs!
Chapter 3
Anakin is lying on his bed inside his room, with the door locked tight, while getting high on weed. It's not the heaviest thing that he has used. There are worse things that he has pumped into his body. He knows that he shouldn't use drugs, and not just because of the classical, "drugs can kill you" stuff. He knows that mixing medicine and drugs is potentially fatal if it isn't correctly dosed, but Anakin doesn't care about that. He stopped caring a long time ago. The antidepressants and the meds for his bipolar disorder that he has been forced to eat since he was 14, doesn't make him feel any better at all. In fact, they only make him feels worse. Because of them, he's always filled with anxiety. He feels empty, and he's drowsy all the time, because at night he can't sleep due to insomnia. The drugs however, they make him feel things. The experiences are almost euphoric. They were euphoric, at least in the beginning. Now, he only almost reaches that peak of total relaxation and amusement that he just seems to be unable to feel in real life, without all the drugs in his system. He tries so hard to again and again reach that point where he's so gone that he barley even knows his own name, but often the search goes empty halfway through as the euphoria turns into a monster. Sometimes while he is the middle of a drug fueled daze, the feelings all turn on him, shifting from amazing to awful as the euphoria turns into real, sometimes horrifying hallucinations that causes even more anxiety and paranoia then he felt before pumping himself full of drugs.
Tonight is one of the better nights. No strange or creepy hallucinations that make him want to claw his eyes out. Tonight, he just falls into a comfortable state of calmness as the drugs in his system lulls his limbs into a heavy state.
When he is asleep, he dreams of her, the girl with chestnut curls tumbling down her back. Her face is fuzzy and unsharp, but her kind smile and her amber eyes are as clear and bright as stars on a cloud free night. A girl without a name. A stranger. That is what she is to him, but he wants it to be more than that.
He wants to get to know her. He wants to know her deepest desires, her darkest secrets, her small unconscious habits that she isn't even aware that she does.
A girl without a name. A stranger.
A few hours later, now early morning, and he is still lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling above him. The girl in his dream, she who he met yesterday, is ever present in his thoughts. For a moment, he wonders if she even existed, if she was only a product of his drug infused imagination, but he quickly decides that those dazzling eyes and the warm smile are to bright and wonderful to never have existed.
His thoughts then shift to his night, and for a moment, he thinks about what a miracle it is that his family hasn't found the drugs yet. After all, he only hides them in socks in his drawer, and that isn't such an unusual place to hide things.
How they don't even suspect anything is fascinating, but he does suppose that the side effects of his normal medication aren't so far away from the normal side effects of the drugs that he uses.
Family. Family. Family. Anakin mused on word for a moment, smiling slightly in a bitter way. His mother, after having been a widow for the last four years, had just stared dating this man called Cliegg Lars. His siblings were supporting of it all, just wanting their mom to be happy, but Anakin meanwhile, was having none of it. For fucks sake, he thought for a moment, I don't want a stupid new stepdad!
ClieggLars was a middle-aged man, two years older than Shmi, and also a widower. He had a child of his own from his former marriage, a boy called Owen who was only six months younger than Anakin. Shmi and Cliegg had only dated for about half a year, but they were already hitting of very well with each other, and Anakin to be honest, would not be surprised if the two of them were married by the end of the year.
Suddenly someone knocked upon his bedroom door, momentarily breaking him out of his drowsy state.
"Anakin?" a small, shrill voice was heard from behind the door. It was Ahsoka, his little sister. The little girl who was kind, caring, and so opinionated. The little girl who could sometimes be so extremely snipy, a trait that had given her the nickname Snips, which she is less than happy with. The little girl who he used to be so close with.
"You have to get up for school, or else you're going to be late!" She called through the door.
Anakin groaned as he heard the small footsteps retreating away from the door, before manning himself out of his bed. He then proceeded towards the bathroom to take a quick shower before he went down to the spacious kitchen that was his mother's pride and joy, after her kids of course.
…
Anakin drove to school in his grey Alfa Romeo 75, his parent's old car, that he had gotten as a present back in April when he got his driver's license. He was especially glad to get to school without getting pulled over by any cops, because he had spent the whole night prior getting high, and had he gotten stopped by a police officer while partially still under the influence, it was bye bye drivers license.
When he got to school, he had immediately gone to the tree in the park in front of the school where he would often sit in the mornings while waiting for his first class, or during some longer breaks where he proceeded to listen to some music, and sometimes light a cigarette.
Today he did just that. He put on his headphones, started his mp3 player, and then lit a cigarette. The nicotine soothed him momentarily as it flowed first through his bloodstream, and then up to his brain. When he had tasted his first cigarette, he had coughed and sputtered it out at first before, unused to the sweetly bitter taste of tar and smoke in his mouth and on his tongue. Now, he is addicted to it. Can't go a day without the nicotine.
He sits there, leaning back against the tree with the cigarette between his lips, just watching all the kids all around the place. Kids that used to know, and kids that he has never known.
Kids that he used to be close with before everything crashed, and kids he's sure he has never seen in his whole life.
He sees Kit Fisto, born in Hawaii but grown up in California because of his parent's jobs, and beside him is his half-French girlfriend Aayla Secura. They were sitting a few meters away, and they were kissing like usual.
Near them sits Quinlan Vos, also a friend of his, and his sometime drug dealer. He's actually closer in age with his brother Obi Wan, but he has had to start over the last class several times because of his failing grades, and his lack of motivation for school. If only the idiot wasn't stoned enough to realize that he would free from school if could have just stayed away from drugs, or just dropped out!
These are some of the few people that Anakin sometimes hang out with, (when his not too low because of his medication), but that might also be because of them being his drug buddies.
Anakin then slides further down the tree, crosses his arms over his chest, and closes his eyes as he emerges himself deeper into the song playing on his mp3. He sits like that for a while, for once in his life feeling somewhat calm. Then, without really knowing how, almost as if sensing that someone was coming towards him, Anakin opened on eye to look, and he then immediately pushed his headphones down from his head, before pausing the mp3 player, interrupting Pennyroyal tea by Nirvana, a song that he can relate to very much, as he did. He then removed the cigarette from between his lips and rested it between the fingers of his left hand instead.
It was the girl from yesterday. She who had sat down next to him during the first lesson, and had said, "Hi," to him. It was the stranger. The girl in his dreams. She without a name.
She was walking towards him.
Anakin swallowed dryly, his Adams apple bobbing slightly as he did.
"Hello," she said as she reached him, a bit shyly before giving him a small smile.
For a moment Anakin just sat there, studying her face for a sliver of a moment, trying to take in every little detail that he hadn't noticed yesterday when he had averted his gaze before he could. He then noticed the small, almost invisible freckles splattered on and around her very slim and elegant nose, and the two beauty marks, one by her nose and one on her left cheek. Somehow, they only added to her both exotic and timeless beauty.
"I… Sat next to you yesterday. I don't know if you-" She continued quickly, but Anakin interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.
"I know." He said quickly and quietly. "I remember."
For a moment, the two of them just stood there, she in front of him, and he, sitting down, leaning back against the tree. They both look at each other, trying to memorize every little detail, every little perfect imperfection. No one says anything, and while the moment is slightly awkward, it is also filled with hope and curious wonder.
Then, she suddenly snapped out of the tense moment saying, almost in a surprised way, "I… I guess I'll see you around," she says.
He only nods in response before saying, "Yeah… I guess we will."
Then she waves to him slightly, once again smiling that kind smile as she does, before turning around and walking towards the school entrance.
As Anakin watches her walk away, he realizes that he still doesn't know her name.
I should have asked her! He thinks to himself.
The stranger. She in his dreams. The girl without a name.
A/N: Okay, this chapter was pretty much a repetition of the last chapter, but from Anakin's POV instead!
FIY, I don't smoke, and I don't do drugs, and I NEVER WILL!
And btw, I mentioned that Anakin got his drivers license in April… Well, to makes things as easy as possible, I've just decided that Anakin and Padmé's birthday's will be the same as Hayden Christensen's and Natalie Portman's IRL birthdays. To make things clear, Anakin will be two months older than Padmé in this story (just like Hayden is two months older than Natalie).
Anakin's birthday is the 19th of April, and Padmé's birthday is the 9th of June.
Stay tuned for the next part!
