Asher’s POV:
I wake up feeling this warmth against my back. I’m not completely awake, I haven’t opened my eyes but I can still feel the heavy weight draping over my stomach and hear the steady heart beat behind me. Ive never woken up this peaceful before, not even with mom. Smiling in content I sink further into his arms, wanting to savour this bliss for as long as possible.
I feel his gently touch across my forehead as he brushed my hair from my face and places a small kiss on my temple. Unable to keep up my charade of being asleep my mouth betrays my and I let a smile spread across my lips.
“Good morning prince, no screaming and falling of the bed this time?”He teases, making my face heat up as I recall my actions.
“no”I mumble in my groggy, half asleep voice. But a sudden knock at the door sends an instant wave of fear, my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour.
“Hey, yall going school today?”Lilys voice beckons from the other side of the door. I slightly relax at her voice and Jay holding me tighter and rubbing gently circles on my temple.
“Yh, we’ll be down I’m a minute.”He reply. The foot steps walk away and get shallower until there gone, and only then do I completely relax again and release a steady breath.
“It’s ok, just my sister. Come on we gotta get ready.”he mutters into my ear. It’s ok, I’m safe now and dads not here, I’m not at home anymore. I’m safe now. Jay gets up and leaves to bed, I unintentionally let out a small whimper at the sudden loss of warmth. I try to protest but its useless.
“Well to me you look adorable, but judging by the look on your face I’m guessing we need to try again.”Jay chuckles while I stand in front of him waring a sweater that reaches my lower thighs and dangles off the my arms. Not going to lie, I love it. Its warm, loose so I don’t have to see how ridiculously pathetic my body is, and it smells like Jay which somehow calms my ever existing anxiety. But I’m not leaving to school looking like I’m drowning in this thing, I look like I’m freaking waring a dress!
With my cheeks flaring up again at his comment I timidly shake my head and he lets out a sigh while rubbing his non existent beard.
“Thats the smallest I’ve got, we’ll have to go shopping over the weekend. But for now I’ll ask Lily if she has any jeans and sweater you can borrow.”
“w-what!”Is he seriously going to put me in Lilys clothes!? Thats just embarrassing to another level. But currently it seems like the only option seen as he’s a freaking giant and I’m as small as a mouse. Great.
It turned out Lily actually wares a considerable amount of boys clothes, says something about them being more comfortable and all that, so it wasn’t to bad. Just a simple pair of light jeans and a grey cru neck sweater( which was still to big but not as bad as Jays clothes). Jay gets me to eat and entire toast and a glass of milk before he was finally satisfied, then we head to school. Ive been in his car twice before, but this time I’m not half dead and in pain, so it’s different this time. Lily volunteered to takes to back so I take shotgun at the front.
The familiar hum of the engine always seemed to smooth me, what ever the case may be it always seemed to calm me no matter what as I slip into a momentary bliss. One second we’re leaving his house and the next were in the school parking lot. Lily says her goodbyes and jumps out to car, leaving just the two of us sitting in a comfortable silence.
Jay offers me his hand with a warm smile on his face. I look up at him confused at first before it dawned on me.
“I’m not going to hide that I like you, I made that mistake once already. But if you don’t want to I completely understand, and we will keep it a secret for as long as you want.”He states simply awaiting my answer. Everyone already knows about me, that I’m the school f*g. But they don’t know about Jay.
“I-I don’t w-want you t-to get hurt.”I reply honestly.
“don’t worry about me, I can handle my self just fine. And if people give you shit I’ll deal with them too.”He smiles at me. His smile held honesty and pride, I couldn’t help but melt into it. So I take his hand. If even possible his smile gets brighter as he pulls me closer to him, his lips crashing down on mine. His hand softly caresses my cheek as his soft lips mould into mine. I restrain a moan but smile agains the kiss that sent sparks flying through me. It was like a drug, his lips. There so soft like clouds, so gentle and loving I couldn’t get enough. We break apart panting hard, resting our foreheads together as we catch our breath.
“Lets go face hell called school.”
We walk into school, me still having a slight limp, his hand interlocked in mine. Having him there, having him stand next to me sent a sense of security through me. Even after noticing all the stares and whispers echoing through the halls, they just fade away as I focus on the sparks and warmth of his hand ceasing mine.
We make our way to the lockers and meet Amy who was already there waiting, but before we get to her a girl I didn’t notice tripped beside me. Before I can even react a body is flung onto mine, pushing the both of us against the lockers, trapping me. Panic instantly floods through my veins, memories of being trapped under him, being useless and hurt, his devilish smile and cruel words he would sit in my face flash briefly through my mind. Jays hand is still in mine and I squeeze it as hard as I can to try and chase them away. Everything begins to spin as my heart hammers painfully against my chest. I don’t register who it was, or even when she jumps of me, just stay frozen in my place.
I snap out of my trance faintly hearing Jay call my name, rubbing his thumb over my white knock and caressing my face, not daring to hug me, ironically the one thing I wanted him to do.
“It’s ok. It’s ok I’ve got you, everything’s ok I promise.”He declares. Once I calm dow I half expect to see him in front of me still, but all I see is Jay smiling softly at me. I smile back in resurgence and the worry flushes out from his face. Looking past him I see the girl awkwardly standing there, she just looks guilty and ashamed. I step forward into his arms and bask in his warmth to clam myself completely before pulling away to face the girl.
“I am so, sorry. I swear I just did it and I wasn’t thinking o-or like using my brain at all.”She rambles out.
“I-its ok, I-I’m f-fine.”She smiles slightly at my forgiveness and relaxes a bit. The bell rings over head signalling we had to gat to class.
The rest of the day went by pretty ok. Jay was in my first class Biology so that made it easier, but for the rest of the day he came to my class and walked me to my next one, giving me one last kiss before leaving for his own classes, and although I still got tripped up or papers thrown at me containing horrid words, no one hit me and jack didn’t even glacé in my direction.
We spent lunch on the roof again, but this time it was different. I didn’t use my voice but I did occasionally wrote my words down in the notepad, and I actually participated on there strange conversations and debates on weather ramen noodles are more useful as a food or for fixing holes with superglue like on YouTube. And I actually enjoyed it, I didn’t realise how much I missed just being able to talk freely, to have a friend to talk to in the first place. But I did have to endure Jay making me eat half a ham sandwich, which in true made me feel like my stomach was going to explode and weighed a ton.
We just got back to Jay house, his mom isn’t back from work yet and considering we’re not all that hungry we just go up to his room once more. I automatically go to sit on the bed and flop down face first into the soft, cold sheets that smelled of Jay. I faintly hear Jay chucking but pay no mind to it, just basking into the temporary bliss. I can never be more grateful for having Jay in my life, for even having a bed and not just some old, dirty mattress with springs poking out that I had to pick off the streets, for three years I haven’t even had a bed, and now I have one and Jay gave that to me, for even that I will forever be grateful for.
I feel the bed dip beside me and force myself to lift my face from the comfortable yet slightly suffocating bed to see his gorgeous eyes that are always so full life. I eventually push myself from the heaven and sit up to face him. Only now I notice the book he held in his hands. I give him a confused look before he answers my silent questions.
“This is the fist maze runner book, my favourite series and I don’t care if people tell me am to old or some shit, it will always be my favourite series.”he explains, pride and excitement literally beaming off him. I couldn’t help but feel a little happier seeing his love and passion for the book.
“I-I didn’t kn-know y-you read.”I questioned, he raised a single eye brow in a jokingly skeptical way, it look so dam cute.
“Excuse me, are you stereotyping me to a stupid jock how fails all his classes, cheats off the nerd and hates reading?”He questions me making me go completely red in embarrassment.
“N-no”I mutter under my breath. He bursts out in laughter both confusing me but relaxing me a bit. He places the book in his lap and cups my face gently in his hands, giving me a small peck before explaining.
“Your so innocent,”he coos
“Im just kidding around. I love reading, I just haven’t read anything since…..since my dad died. But anyway I haven’t yet unpacked the box of my books, its still under the bed. But, that is not what were here to discuss.”
“its n-not?”
“Nope. You said you cant read, and that its a side affect of you injury.”A slight tug at my heart at the mention of the incident, but I don’t let it consume me, not now.
“I-I….It’s w-worse t-to read o-out load.”I explain.
“Exactly. So I’m going to help you get better at reading, your going to read this book to me. Everyday I want you to read a bit, even if its just a page or a chapter a day. And ill be right next to you the whole time.”He looks at me with hopeful eyes. I don’t know what to say to that. The fear of just embarrassing myself as clear as day, what if he sees how utterly useless I am? How stupid and messed up I am. What if I never get better and he just wastes his time on me? And its all for nothing because I cant be fixed?
Oh shut up! It only makes sense to try to get better than to just sulk about how its never going to be fixed! You’ll never know until you’ve tried. Deciding to listed to the voice in my head. Which was surprisingly positive for some odd reason, I slightly nod in agreement to this crazy idea. His face lighted up instantly with pride I couldn’t get enough of, and suddenly this idea doesn’t seem so crazy.
We sit comfortably on his bad, his back pressed against the head rest and me situated in between his legs. His arms slide around my wait as he holds the book in front of us and opens it to the first page. See all the words up close send a waves of nerves despite having jay so close to me. My mouth drys up so fast I feel like I just ate a bucket of dirt, I try to speak but the words wouldn’t come out. Jay places a light, comforting kiss on the top of my head and then he leaned his head down to my shoulder, leaving feathery kisses on my neck before whispering in my ear words of encouragement. I take a deep breath and eventually I start reading.
Its hard, reading out loud. I know what the words says, what they mean but its like my brain Is lagged, like its to slow for my eyes. Its takes time and A Lot of brain power for some of the words to register in my head before I can say them out loud, some words don’t even come out in the end so Jay softly whispers them to me before letting me carry on.
After almost an hour I finally finish the first chapter of the book.
“See that wasn’t so hard now was it?”He comments while closing the book. I turn around to scowl at him and attempt at slapping his chest, but its a measly attempt if even that. He just laughed and puts his hands up in surrender.
“Ok, fine I deserved that. But you did really good, honestly you did and I’m so freaking proud of you.”He tackles my in a bone crushing hug and nested his head in my neck, and I hug him back with everything I have, unexpected tears rimming at my eyes. He’s proud of me. He actually cares about me. he’s helping me find my way back into life, and it may not be like the one I had before but he makes me feel like I finally have a reason to live. And for once I don’t feel so lost in this sea of life as much, like I’m somehow starting to find my way.
“Th-thank you j-jay”
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