SURPRISE!!!

——————

I look behind me at an apologetic-looking Hannah.

Then back downstairs to Lucas, who scratches the back of his head awkwardly.

I can't bring my eyes to move thirty centimetres to Lucas' left, where he stands.

"I can't do this right now," I state shakily, overcome with a million emotions at once as I turn on my heel and march straight back into Hannah's room.

"Wait! Quorra!"

I clamp my hands over my ears, not caring that I'm ruining my immaculately-curled hair.

Even the sound of his voice hurts. So you can imagine how much pain erupts in my body when he races up the stairs and reaches for my bare arm.

I pull away immediately, stumbling back and nearly falling over due to the height of my heels. Hannah catches me swiftly, but I yank myself away from her too, needing space.

"Stop! Everyone just stop! What is happening? Hannah, did you plan this? Lucas?" I throw out every question in my mind hysterically, chest rising and falling erratically as I lean back against the banister of the balcony overlooking the bottom floor, hands cradling my head, "Why is he here?"

Everyone seems to take the hint, even Lucas who has followed the drama up the stairs. I feel surrounded. The three of them trap me against the banister even if they don't mean to, and I don't even know who to trust.

"I'm sorry, Quorra. I could just tell that you haven't been happy lately, even if you've been doing well at school. It wasn't hard to figure out why. Please, Quorra - I had to," Hannah explains herself, remorse dripping off her every word, "I knew you needed to see him."

Lucas adds to her words while he stays eerily silent and keeps his distance, "I'm sorry too, Quorra. And to you, D. It's just so clear when I look at you that you're not happy. You got your dream job but your love life came to a screeching halt the moment you left her."

Gesturing to me, Lucas sighs at our lack of a response. The truth is, I don't know how to respond. I'm too scared to look up at face the person in front of me, so I stay with my head bowed, hair falling around me and shielding my face from view. My heart thuds against my chest fast, but not faster than my eyes are starting to water.

I close my eyes and beg the tears not to fall, for the sake of my dignity as well as the sake of my makeup.

My heart doesn't just stampede against my ribs - it physically hurts. It aches and throbs like an open wound gushing blood. I can hardly breathe with him this close.

"Quorra," he finally speaks up quietly, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Then why did you? I don't say.

I'm torn apart by his words, the low caress of his voice, the hurt laced through his tone. I sink to the carpeted floor, hands now tightly coiled into fists as my head rests against my knees. I couldn't care less that I'm in a dress and shouldn't be sitting like this. My eyes are shut tight, as if closing them could block out the sound of him.

I hear the sound of retreating footsteps and low murmurs.

I finally start to relax but instantaneously turn rigid when someone sits down next to me. Of course he didn't leave. The same, addictive, nostalgic smell of his cologne is enough to tell me that.

The air around us is thick, almost palpable. I'm only hurting more and more the more time he spends next to me and the closer he gets to me.

"Quorra."

I shut my eyes even tighter, wanting to sob like Elena did earlier today, "Please don't say my name. It hurts."

I know he's hurting too, even when he doesn't say it. My heart is screaming at me to get away from the man beside me, but my legs are like jelly and I know I cannot stand. Mental fatigue trumps physical fatigue any day. He doesn't speak for a while, but he moves.

More specifically, his hand does.

He tugs the edge of my once-creaseless dress further up to my knee. I flinch away, the dress falling back in place as his fingers brush past my uncovered thigh. My heart speeds up tenfold.

He clears his throat, "Sorry. Your underwear is on show."

I would feel mortified, but I'm too on edge to react.

"Then don't look."

My words come out sharper than I intend, radiating a generous amount of vitriol.

His swallow is audible in the silence between us.

After a while, my back starts to hurt. I'm forced to straighten it, but keep my knees bunched up to my chest and look in the opposite direction to where he is sitting. I lean back against the railing under the banister, nails drawings blood from my palms.

I grow tenser as time passes, willing away tears. It hurts too much to be around him. It hurts worse than what I felt when he left me in the first place. Why couldn't Hannah and Lucas have let me live a life without him in it? I wanted him back but now he is here, I want him gone. Away from me.

"You look beautiful," he tries again.

A single tear rolls down my cheek. I let it, feeling so weak that I might faint.

"Please let me in, Quorra," he murmurs, shuffling the tiniest bit closer.

I bite my tongue when he utters my name.

"I said don't say my name," I repeat, voice wavering and I struggle to defend the remnants of my self-confidence, "You don't deserve to."

He leans forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of my expression. I turn away from him more dramatically, putting my back to him and balancing my chin on my knees. I feel broken. Diminished. Burnt down to nothing. I can't take this anymore.

His voice triggers many memories that all fight for dominance in my mind. I hear sarcastic remarks, strict scoldings, addictive laughter, and unforgettably sinful groans. They all contribute to the next wave of tears that stream steadily done my cheeks. It hurts. Why does it hurt so badly?

"You're hurting me," I speak up, sounding as broken as I feel, "It hurts."

He seems relieved that I'm at least talking, but more confused than anything.

"How am I hurting you, sweetheart?" he questions softly, as if only for the sake of continuing the conversation, "I'm not touching you."

His voice. His smell. His presence. It's breaking me bit by bit.

"You're here," I answer, unable to keep the tremble out of my voice as the tears rolling down my cheeks start to leave uncomfortable stains, "I don't want you here."

I know that my words upset him, but I can't find it in me to care. He deserves this pain. He doesn't know what he put me through.

"Quorra, I-"

"I said," I grit my teeth and whip my head around, finally looking him dead in the eye, "don't say my name."

I'm mesmerised for all of ten seconds.

I sweep my gaze across his tanned skin, seeing disconsolate eyes, a perfect nose, and full, pink lips. I look up to take in his slightly curly hair, which is longer than I remember. Some rebellious locks of hair falls to frame his forehead.

I lift a hand and brush them away without thinking, anger forgotten. Without a word, I continue to take him in. My gaze travels down his chiselled jawline to his Adam's apple (which moves as he swallows nervously), down his broad shoulders to a shirt-clad chest.

Eventually, I look back up into his eyes with my watery ones.

His raises a hand and I go against everything my heart is screaming at me, allowing him to stroke the tears off my cheek. More start to stream, racing to the bottom of my face.

"God, don't cry," he whispers, his rich tone invading every pore in my body.

I only cry harder, breaking our staring contest and dropping my head into my hands.

"Leave me alone," I sob, "Please go."

My pleading does little to stop him. He does the opposite of what I order, boldly hooking an arm under my knees and one behind my back to lift me into his lap as if I'm weightless.

My skin burns where he touches and I scramble to get off, but he only separates my legs further and pulls me closer to his chest, gently pushing my head against the nape of his neck. I'm still crying at this point, and the feel of his skin of mine is so painfully comforting that I want to disappear.

"It hurts, it hurts," I repeat in between sobs, hands finding his neck like they have so many times in the past, "Why does it hurt so bad?"

His arms loop around my lower back, keeping me against his warm body.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I know," he murmurs into my ear, "I know."

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

◈ѕlaтer нarтley◈

God, this hurts.

Having her pressed up against me, chest to chest, legs wound round my waist, lips right at my neck, and knowing that I don't deserve any of this. Any of her.

She's fallen asleep against me, mentally exhausted. I can't blame her. I plant a kiss on her temple, knowing she wouldn't let me if she was awake right now. I quietly stand, looping an arm around her back and one under her legs to keep her against me.

Wandering into Lucas' spare bedroom, I keep the light off and reluctantly place my angel on the bed. Her legs tighten around her when I move away, eyebrows turning up.

"Slater," she mumbles with closed eyes, arms reaching blindly.

I close my eyes. I wish I could record the sound my name leaving her lips and play it on repeat forever.

Abiding by her request, I sink onto the bed next to her, letting her nestle into my neck out of her own accord. God, if only she was awake to see herself do this. She would blush scarlet. Pushing the thought aside, I simply enjoy the feel of her silken hair against the underside of my jaw and the flutter of her eyelashes across my collarbone.

Seeing her again pained me.

The agony I felt when I lost Addilyn nearly drove me to insanity.

Losing Quorra was ten times worse.

I stroke my angel's waist under the duvet, soaking in the serenity.

"I'm sorry I left you," I whisper to nobody, "It was the worst mistake of my life."

She makes an adorable noise and shifts position, as if my voice is disrupting her sleep. Her hand brushes my chest, fingers absent-mindedly tracing a mindless pattern across it. I inhale a sharp breath, closing my eyes and quickly laying a hand over hers to stop the torturous game she doesn't even know she is playing with me.

"God, I don't want this moment to end," I mumble.

My angel abruptly lays a fingers across my lips, "Shush."

I stop, surprised for a moment, before chuckling. Kissing her finger, I place it back on my chest with a smile.

"Okay, sweetheart."

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

● qυorra neverѕea ●

I stretch out like a cat with a yawn, rubbing my eyes. Placing my head back on my pillow, I hear a deep rumble echo from it. Laughter? I drape a hand across it and find a rigid surface. My fingers trace the outline of one... two... three... four...

"Okay, that's enough," my pillow says with a sharp intake of breath before a hand grabs mine.

My eyes fly open.

Everything comes back to me.

I bolt upright, pulling the duvet up with me, and nearly fall off the bed in my haste to escape from my 'pillow'.

My eyes are wider than saucers as I look at him, sitting less than a metre away from me with dishevelled hair and a creased shirt.

As I continue to gape at him, heart thumping exponentially faster in my chest, he must sense that I am not going to be the first to talk.

"Good morning."

My eyes momentarily leave him to glance out the window. It's open, allowing strong, yellow light to pour into the room. I glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

8:34am.

I slept all through the rest of the night and the early morning?

Eventually, I gather the courage to look back at him.

Three seconds later, I'm tripping over my own feet and darting out of the room, slamming it shut behind me.

Hannah freezes when she sees me out in the corridor, clad in a towel and about to enter her room. Lucas leaves the bathroom moments later, a towel hanging low around his waist and exposing his muscled stomach.

I'm racing down the stairs and reaching for the door before either one of them can stop me.

————

Hope you enjoyed the early update.

Today was not a good day for me. Things are just building up in my life and I just feel like giving up right about now. I needed to vent before I started crying (which I did anyway) so I just wrote some depressing self-depreciating speech thing. I'll post it at the end of this book in my ending author's note if I feel like sharing. You guys will be able to see just how similar Quorra and I are.

I hate feeling worthless. I just want to stay in bed and cry for the rest of my life.

over and out,
spud