Carry Me Home Tonight

I woke to find I was still in his arms. Only we were now laid out on the couch. I didn’t dare to move. I didn’t want to wake him.

He looked so peaceful. It was like when he dreamed, he wasn’t in pain. I ghosted my fingers over his scars. I couldn’t imagine the pain Tess and the other put him through to get him to turn his emotions back on. I stopped tracing his scars and put my fingers on mine. I started to cry again. Every time I touched them, I felt like I was being bitten all over again. The phantom pain was too much for me. I was drowning in the pain and the hurt. I could feel the fear I had for that monster that had replaced my Alex.

I remembered the cold eyes as they stared at me. I remembered the strength of the grip he held me in as he drained me to near death. I remembered Tessa getting me off the floor as the guys took on Alex.

Then I remembered hearing Alex’s screams when I left him in his cell with Jack before I went to my graduation. I slammed my eyes shut and just screamed. I felt Alex get up, startled by the sound that escaped my lips.

“Make the pain stop,” I shouted, “Make the bad things go away! I don’t want to feel it anymore!”

“Hey,” Alex wrapped his arms around me, “It’s okay, Kenzie. Everything’s okay. It’s over. The pain is over.”

“No it’s not,” I protested as I hit him in his chest, “It will never be okay. I can still feel it. I can still feel your fangs in my neck. I still feel my heart breaking. I still hear your screams of agony as the vervain burned your skin.”

“Shh,” I felt him rocking me, “That was in the past. We’re in LA now. You’re safe. I’m me, okay. The emotions are on. Everything’s going to be fine now. Just breathe.”
---
I woke up laying in a clearing. I looked around to find redwood trees all around me. I sat up and saw that Alex was walking into view with some logs under his arm. That’s when I noticed I was near a fire, just outside a tent.

“Where are we,” I asked him as I curled up into myself.

“Tay gave me permission to take you away from the house for a few days,” he explained, “I brought you out to camp with me while I hunt.”

“Why though,” I asked.

“To help you see that the monster is gone,” he replied, “I want to rebuild the trust you had in me. I feel the guilt, but I also feel compassion. I care. And I want you to be happy.”

“This is a way for you to find more of your emotions, right,” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I want to feel happy. I want to actually smile and laugh again. I’ve been faking it too much lately. I miss my smile.”

“I do too,” I whispered, which I knew he heard, as I opened my locket to gaze at his portrait again.

“I miss your smile too,” Alex put the logs by the fire pit and sat down next to me, “I want to help you heal. I want you to find your happiness again.”

“I want you to take me home,” I told him.

“What,” he was shocked, “You want to go back to the studio house?”

“No,” I looked at him intently, “I want to go back to Timonium. I miss my uncle and I want to be home. I’ve missed it.”

“I don’t know,” Alex sighed, “It might not be healthy for you to go back to where you felt so much pain and loss.”

“I need to accept what happened,” I told him, “Running away from the problems doesn’t fix them. It just makes it worse.”

“You have a point,” Alex sighed and rested his head on mine as I rested my head on his shoulder, “I’ll get you a plane ticket. You have to tell your uncle you’re going to come back home. I can look into getting us place.”

“What about the house Tess got for you when you turned it off,” I asked.

“Tess and Matt live there,” he replied, “I’m homeless right now. It didn’t feel right to settle down when I turned my emotions on. The guilt had flooded in first, and it paralyzed me for the longest. The guys had to pick me up and carry me out of my cell when I hit the switch. I was so full of guilt, I couldn’t move for a week.”

“Alex,” I hugged his arm tightly, “I’m so sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong,” he replied simply, “I’m the one that’s sorry. I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through in the last five years. Without me, you could be married with a baby or be expecting your first baby by now, or something. I took the chance of a normal life away from you.”

“Well I don’t want a normal life,” I told him, “I want a life I can be proud of. Maybe when the pain finally fades, I’ll be able to look back and be proud of the strength I managed to gather to make it through the hard days.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he promised, “I am going to make things right. You deserve to be happy after five years of sadness and pain.”

Alex did everything he could to make sure I was comfortable. He made me whatever food I wanted over the fire. He sang softly while he played his acoustic guitar. He was nothing but sweet. When I was tired, he helped me into the tent. I was scared of being along though, and I didn’t want him to leave me in there alone.

“Lex,” I reached for his hand before he could leave the tent.

“Yeah Kenz,” he looked back at me as I sat up in my sleeping bag.

“Can you stay with me,” I asked as I played with the hem of the sleeping bag, “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Sure,” he climbed into his sleeping bag and nestled up next to me, “You don’t have to be alone tonight.”

“Thank you,” I smiled a little. It felt like a true smile. I hadn’t smiled like this in a long time. It felt so right.

“You’re welcome,” Alex kissed my forehead lightly. It felt like he was putting in an effort to feel something for me. It was nice to know he was working very hard to get all his emotions back.

Because now I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I was afraid of him leaving me again. That was something I can’t handle. It would destroy me.

Notes

I'm not going to lie. I feel sort of evil for envoking feels on you guys.