So"So- This- This is it?" Erik muttered, cringing and sighing and shifting uncomfortably for one moment.
"So this is it," Jenny replied, staring at their bed. They refused to move, scared the moments they had would disappear if things changed (even if they were already changing). Erik wanted to hug her . . . Or kiss her . . . Or just do something.
"Are you sure?"
"'Lily and Rufus are so in love, it's not funny. What about me and Serena? I love her!'" Jenny said bitterly, imitating her brother. "He's a real arse, my brother. He really is."
"Yeah, I bet Serena's just shattered," Erik snarled, just because he didn't want to say anything sad.
Jenny nodded, lighting a cigarette she'd left in her pocket. Not that she'd smoked in a while . . . It had been those bleary gaps where nothing really meant anything that she had stolen Dan's cigarettes (who went off on a rather profuse rampage). They burned her throat and made her cough and splutter, but it felt like something . . . And something was sort of missing in her life.
"You smoke?"
"You don't?"
There was a long, dragging silence that seemed so dramatic and painful that it might just shatter Jenny's heart. Erik, of course, knew what she meant. Smoking, an easy way out, a sin. Why hadn't he thought of that? Why hadn't he thought of doing something reckless? He'd just sat there, wallowing in self-pity.
He'd always seen that side of her - that dark side. It wasn't like she could help it; it was a natural pull towards doing the wrong thing. Countless times, she'd hurt herself and her family by striving for the top.
"I love you," she said quietly, just to break the uneven, panic-infusing silence that haunted them. Erik didn't see it that way. He saw it as a silence of longing, and pain, and diversions, and pretending, and tears, and the love story that they'd both thought would never end.
It just did, though.
So maybe they were too different. Maybe she was always going to be that way; uneven and dangerous and real and never ever pretending. Maybe he was always going to be that way; full of dreams and pretending and mismatched little things that never quite added up.
Maybe.
Or maybe that was the thing that made them work the most.
Jenny didn't care, and Erik sort of cared (but he pretended not to care, for her sake). Jenny smoked two more cigarettes after that one died out, and Erik stared at the ceiling, searching for things that would never be there. They didn't mind that they were different, but it sure seemed to be more noticeable now.
Bound by the laws or marriage (just not their marriage). Lily would say they'd take it slow, but how long had the two families known they loved each other? From the start. From the very start, Jenny had secretly been waiting for this to happen. She saw the longing looks; she saw the uncertain brief touches when they met. Rufus would propose, and their wedding would be simple but beautiful (he was simple, she was beautiful) and they would never have kids. They would break each other's hearts every now and again, and the kids would get dragged into it. Jenny had known this from the start.
She supposed that was why this didn't pierce through her sides. This little- thing, was only dull and slightly aching.
Erik took her hand, and she wished just once she didn't see things so clearly. She wished Lily and Rufus never saw it, because even if they weren't bound by the laws of marriage yet, it was pretty revolting that their parents were together anyway.
Jenny refused to move until the next dawn breaking in the sky, where she silently dropped his hand and unzipped her bag. He stared at her with sore eyes (neither had slept the previous eighteen or so hours while they laid in bed) and waited for her to say goodbye.
She had always known it was coming, but she was never ready for it.
A/N: I kind of liked that chapter. I felt like my talent was showing.
Anyhoo, thank you all for you great reviews and support.
x.