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Cadence: Part 1
Cadence: Part 1
I want to wake up to you, morning breath and all. He grinned playfully as a smile livened up her face; it always felt good to make her smile. He couldn?t remember ever putting a tear in her precious jade eyes, and if he had she would never admit it. That's why they worked so well together; neither of them brought any emotional baggage to the table, making it easy to keep their social lives separated from their personal. It was almost as though they were two sets of people: the one that everyone recognized as purely friends, and the other a more intimate couple that really only existed when backs were turned. Neither really knew just how much the other held back, nor did they ask.
"Yeah? That's because no one can make you feel the way I make you feel." She leaned across the bed to tousle his sandy brown hair as he rolled just out of her reach. She narrowed her eyes at him, crawled over the bed to where he was now laying, and grabbed a fistful of his hair with intensions of roughing up the adorable curls he was found so embarrassing.
She let out a small shriek as he pulled her arm and yanked her tightly against him, and again when his fingers found the spot on her sides that made her writhe in delight. She struggled to the floor, meeting it with a small groan, but laughing just the same.
"Okay, okay- you win." He helped her back onto the bed and held her in his arms for a few minutes before venturing into dangerous territory.
"Cadence, can I ask you something?"
"Anything." She laced his fingers through his and lightly brushed a kiss over the back of his hand, but his mind was on other things. She couldn't see the different emotions playing across his face, but she didn?t need to; two years had taught her well.
"Where do I belong tomorrow? I mean, where do I fit into your plan. What I'm trying t say is, what am I to you?" the question had danced on the tip of his tongue for weeks and now that he had finally said the words, they didn't seem quite as clear as they had in his head.
"Aden, I don't know what to say; you're amazing, really, and I don't ever want to live without you- but so much has happened between us."
"What does that have to do with anything? I mean, it's what you learn to live through that makes you live to learn, right? And I want to learn it all with you."
"That's sweet, but it's complicated; you know that. We work so well together and you want to risk losing everything we have?"
"It doesn?t have to be like that." He left his place on the bed and strolled across the room to the only window. He placed his head against the cool glass and watched his breath fog around his face; why couldn't he make her see? "Things don't have to change. I just-" he stopped in mid-sentence and went back to her. "I just want to love you right, that's all."
She blushed, but turned away so he wouldn?t see it. He was so good to her, so sweet, and so patient- but she didn't deserve it. Everything was so screwed up with her sister's death just a few weeks prior and the way her life was falling to shambles. He had tried to be supportive and she knew he cared; she was just too proud to admit it when she needed a little help.
"You don't want to love me."
He chuckled softly and pulled her into an embrace, brushing his lips over her shoulder.
"Of course I do." His voice was a low whisper but she heard every word, each syllable resonating through her like chills. "Don't you want to love me?"
For a moment everything stood still; her breathing echoed off the walls in time with the pounding of her heart and she knew the answer he wanted, the answer she wanted to give- she just couldn't seem to get the words out. She felt them lodged in her throat and she would have given anything to suffocate then, instead of seeing the fear behind his eyes.
"Aden, I don't know what I want." She felt the sting of tears swelling up inside her. When had saying what she really felt become such a task? She reached out to touch his hand but he pulled it away sharply; that was what she deserved, not the tender words he offered entirely for her comfort. "You know you're everything to me, though. You know how much you mean to me, right?"
"I don't believe you. You're just lying to try and make me feel better; I don't think you care about me at all! You say that I'm everything; I mean so much to you, yet you don't want to be with me? You don't want to be my everything? What are you so afraid of anyways? I hope you're afraid that one day you're actually going to have to look back on today and know that you lost the only person who would give his life to ensure your happiness."
