I wish I could say that the first thing I wanted to do when I heard the front door open, is not jump up and meet the curly haired girl half way, like a puppy that she'd left alone in her home. I really wish I could say that. This way, I can only sit, on the edge of my seat, and pretend that I'm unfazed by her presence. And in return, she could pretend that she doesn't know I actually feel like a teenage girl who got to meet her favorite actor.

A minute later the door to the small living room creaks and, there she is. "Hi," Freya says with a bright smile, already with no shoes and jacket, as she watches me in my sunken seat on the couch, watching reruns of Bones. I barely turn my head to greet her, but I don't need to either, as she makes her way to the sofa.

"Hi," I smile back, my voice much quieter than hers. She sits down, sideways so she's facing me, and I finally turn my head to look at her too. And hear my neck crack while I do that.

"How was your day?" She asks in a light tone, scooting a little closer to me. I take a second to scan her face, smiling just the slightest at her flushed cheeks and red nose, and not to mention that she'd just taken her beanie off her head too, and saying that her hair is all over the place is an understatement.

"Good," I reply, continuing to watch her as she brings her face closer to mine. "Went to the frat house for a couple of hours. Reminded me that I should start studying before the semester starts."

"Mhm," Freya hums as our noses touch; she's clearly not listening to half of what I'm saying. "Met any teenage girl?"

"No," I decide to respond flatly, my lips touching hers as I speak, instead of acting shocked that she'd ask me something like that. "Been waiting for you all day."

"Okay then," She whispers and finally decides I've had enough of torture, and presses her lips against mine briefly. This is literally all I'm gonna look forward to until school starts; it's pathetic, but it's the best thing I have for now. For now  – I've given it a little thought while she was at work, and I've decided that just kissing her isn't enough for me. I want the whole package. But it's just that I'm dying to see what she actually wants to do with her freedom, then I'm gonna let her know what's on my mind.

Freya interrupts my thoughts when she gets on her knees, eventually placing her left leg over my lap and making me raise my brows as she straddles me. I slowly put my hands on her thighs, sliding them up her jean clad legs until my palms are pressed against her bare skin, under her light grey sweater and white shirt that she's wearing beneath- no, she can't want the freedom so that she'd be able to have a boyfriend. She wouldn't let me touch her like this and kiss her like this if she wanted to see someone else. This is why I'm dying to see why exactly she wants it.

Her hands are on my neck as mine slip from her hips to her lower back, and then a little lower again- to their favorite body part of hers. No, she definitely doesn't want another boyfriend. "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you haven't met anyone either?" I mumble, as she proceeds to kiss me through my entire sentence.

"Actually," She pulls on my bottom lip before pulling away for good, "I fell in love with a guy for two minutes."

I blink, and I'm not even gonna hide that I'm a little shocked by that. I mean, even if she's joking or she actually 'fell in love' with a customer for two minutes, I'm still gonna be shocked. Because, here I am, in love with her, listening to her talk about being in love with someone else.

"Did you?" I choose not to voice any of my thoughts, and instead say the only thing that wouldn't make me sound as, well, shocked as I feel. Freya smiles for a moment, leaning down to kiss my jaw- this is seriously some sort of a joke.

"Mhm," She mumbles against my neck, and I try to gulp as inaudibly as I can. "Kinda looked like Marlon Brando, you know, tousled brown hair and big brown eyes."

"I only know him from The Godfather, you're not giving me a clea-"

"He wore a white sweater," She continues, ignoring my talking – while still kissing my neck – and I press my lips in a line and nod, deciding to let her finish. For whatever reason. "And a leather jacket, and dark blue jeans, and black converse."

"You sure you didn't run into Seth?" Literally, she literally just described Seth from word to word.

"Pretty damn sure," She chuckles against my earlobe, putting her arms completely around my neck and lifting her hands to my hair, "He was my first customer, came in a few minutes after me. Ordered a blueberry pie and an Arizona for lunch."

"Sounds delicious."

"Asked me for my name when I took his order," She keeps talking, and at this point it's actually funny how she's ignoring me. "Then I caught him looking at me, a few times. And he always looked down when I'd meet his eyes. And then he'd look up and smile because he'd see me smiling too."

I'm not sure how much of this I'm actually gonna be able to take. "Then when he paid me and was about to leave, he scribbled down something on a napkin, folded it in half and slid it over to me, and then got up to leave. You know what he wrote?"

"No idea."

"'You look so cool'. That's what he wrote."

I only nod at her answer; if only I knew why 'you look so cool' would make her fall in love with someone. "Then I watched him walk out of the diner, and I could actually feel myself falling in love with him. I even wanted to go after him, ask him for his name or something."

"Why didn't you?"

Freya pulls away from my neck at my question, smiling widely for some reason. "I remembered you. That's the thing," She says, sitting down on my lap and raising her hand to my cheek, the gesture bringing me back to life. "I was in love with him for only two minutes because I remembered you."

Well, if that was the point of the story, she could have spared me the painful details of their movie scene-like flirting. "Cute story," I say lightly, acting unfazed, "Make sure you tell it to your children."

I look over at the TV, but I can still see her expression from the corner of my eye; and I'm actually a little confused when she blinks, keeping her face frozen for a few seconds; I look up at her, that making her finally start moving again.

"Yeah, well," She starts, as she gets off my lap- I have a feeling that I've said something wrong, but that's nothing new. "If something even better happens by then, I might forget about it. But I probably won't."

I chuckle at her statement – by the end of it she's laid down across the couch, her head on my lap, her eyes closed and her face opposite of my stomach. I bring my hand to her hair, and she frowns as I brush a few strands away; then she shifts her head, trying to make herself more comfortable- oh. I think I know why she's frowning. "Please tell me that's your phone," She mumbles- yeah, I was right.

"Yeah, because I keep my phone in the middle of my pants," I reply in a mutter, looking away at the TV. I'm relieved when she only breathes out a laugh, and reaches out for something – that being a cushion in the corner of a couch, to put it under her head. Good solution.

I look down at her after a minute, when I feel her playing with the hem of my shirt. "Why aren't you wearing the shirt I bought you?" Freya asks, her brows still furrowed as she inspects the material of the white button up shirt that I'm currently wearing.

"It's a sixty dollar shirt," I tell her, thinking that's a good enough excuse. "Not planning to wear it around the apartment."

"Have you tried it on?"

"Yeah." No. "And, it's alright. But seriously, I'm not gonna wear it like I wear the rest of my clothes."

Freya shifts again, for a different reason, and keeps inspecting the shirt I'm wearing. "But I bought it for you," She mutters and, honestly, I feel bad that I'm not wearing that fancy-ass shirt around and getting shit spilled on it like I do with most of my clothes.

"Yeah, well, you could've given me the sixty dollars instead. Need them more than the shirt," I reply casually, hoping she'd drop the subject. Though I only hear her breathe out through her nose before she continues.

"I should lock you in your closet until you put it on," She mumbles with an amused smile, laughing when she notices e gulp. As I shake my head she turns on her back, to get a better view of me while I'm shuddering at the thought she'd just put into my mind.

"You really shouldn't do that," I tell her, chuckling at my own reaction while she continues laughing. I take a second to admire how she looks laying like this, her hair on the cushion, behind the cushion and down my legs; her sweater hitched up her waist a few inches and her smile as wide as it can get. She looks disheveled and perfect at the same time. Not just now, she's like that all the time. And it's really one of my favorite things to look at. Like I don't even know how I'd feel if there was someone else- anyone else that got to see her like this, this mess, but this composed, fucking gorgeous mess; I don't know how I lived with knowing that she had Craig to see her like that. That he didn't appreciate seeing her like that. That he did the complete opposite of appreciating her.

"Are you scared of the dark?" She asks quietly, but just as entertained – putting an end to the thoughts that were little by little making my heart beat faster and my hands start sweating and my body want to jolt up and punch a wall. For the first time, I don't find him being in prison enough; I literally feel the urge to pay him a visit, give his whole entire body paper cuts, then throw him in lemon juice. God. Just the thought of doing that is calming me down.

"No," I finally answer her question, blinking to clear my mind. I should really stop thinking about things that make me angry. Which is about half of everything that happens. Which means it's impossible. "Scared of small spaces."

"Ooh," Freya says, kicking her legs a little, seeming amused with my answer. Really? "Claustrophobia?"

I nod, and watch her as she watches me. I'm just waiting to see her find a way to make fun of me, but the amount of time she spends just lying there, inspecting my face with an expression that's more curious than amused now, is slightly surprising.

"I have dementophobia," She says all of a sudden, and what she says is probably at the end of the list of things I thought she'd say. "Bet you know what that is."

"Oh, you mean you're not scared only of yourself?" I raise one eyebrow, remembering what she'd told me a few months before – when I still thought her name was Angel – and she bites her lip at my words.

"You asked me what's my biggest fear," She defends herself quietly, "And also, I was high as a kite."

I breathe out a laugh, scratching the back of my head, and ultimately decide to drop the topic. "What's the name of that phobia again?"

"Dementophobia."

I look up, thinking about the name for a moment, "Fear of... being demented?"

She's nodding lightly when I look down at her, her smile still partly on her face but her expression significantly more serious now. "Insanity."

"Why'd you be afraid of going insane?"

"'Cause I've gotten my head smacked enough times."

She keeps her eyes on me for a few seconds, before bringing her hands to her face to rub it; I huff out a laugh I shake my head, trying to convince myself rather than her. "You're not gonna go insane because of... that."

"What if I do?"

"You won't."

Freya removes her hands from her face, her lips slightly pursed but she doesn't look like she's in the mood to fight with me. "Would you still be there if I did?"

That question catches me off guard; but I'm quick to shake my head again, "You won't-"

"If I did," She interrupts me, closing her eyes for a second too long, "Hypothetically speaking. If I did. If something happened to me. Would you still be there for me?" Wow, this really scares her, doesn't it?

It's hard for me to imagine her any different from the person that she is now, but it's also hard to imagine me being anywhere else other than right beside her. No matter what she's like and what happens to her. "Yeah. 'Course."

It takes her a few seconds, but in the end she smiles; and as she lifts her hand to mine to take it, I realize it's one of those small, polite smiles and that she doesn't really believe me. I can practically hear 'he's only known me for four months' and 'he's just a teenager' going through her head, and my want to have a massive fight about it with her is as big as my want to never have that conversation, ever.

"Your turn," She says quietly, squeezing my hand that she'd conveniently placed on her chest. Bless her.

"My turn for what?"

"We're telling each other our fears. Your turn. Go."

One end of my mouth twitches upwards in a smile, and I shift in a more comfortable position before starting. This is better than thinking about Craig and how she doesn't believe half the things that I tell her, much better. "Uh, well... I'm scared of needles."

She nods firmly, "Belonephobia. Fear of pins and needles."

"Do you know the names of all phobias?"

"Try me," She grins up at me proudly; and it takes me a second to remember but when I do, it all adds up – phobias are kinds of mental disorder, and I've known about her passion towards the human brain basically since I met her. I just didn't know she also knows about clinical psychology. It all goes together, I guess.

"Well, it's your turn anyway," I mumble, rubbing her thumb with mine. Freya licks her lips, moving around on the couch a couple of inches while she thinks.

"Dentophobia."

"I know that one," I shoot immediately, "Dentists."

"Correct."

Once my happiness about knowing what dentophobia is passes, I start laughing softly; she's afraid of the dentist. She's not scared of strangers attacking her when she's alone in the street at night, but she's afraid of the dentist. The guy in white with the thing that buzzes. Then again, those things are a little scary.

"What are you laughing at?" She uses her free hand to smack my chest, ultimately making me laugh harder. "Try getting a tooth implant first."

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," I say through a giggle that I'm desperately trying to stop – it's not that I think her fear is funny, God knows I have that one myself, but the thought of her being scared at the dentist's office is just too funny to think about. I can't imagine myself comforting her if she ever had to go to the dentist because I'd be too busy laughing at her.

Okay. That's one thing I'm not going to tell her about. "Um... right, is it my turn?" I take her hand, that's still on my chest, with my free one, and restrain myself from laughing again when she glares at me, tugging her hand out of mine but without succeeding. I wrap my fingers around her knuckle, and bring it to my lips for a couple of seconds before letting go of it.

"It is," She answers in a mutter, awkwardly bringing her free hand to mine, that she's holding with her other one, and starts playing with my fingers. I don't even know how to begin describing such a precious sight. It's just precious, that's what it is.

"Alright," I look around, not exactly knowing what to say. I've come to realize there aren't that many things that I'm deathly scared of. "Well... this might sound weird, but I'm scared of being buried alive. I don't know why. I've never met anyone who's had that happen to them, or someone they knew. The thought is just... you know, scary."

Freya nods, looking right up at the ceiling. I didn't know this conversation would become so serious. "Taphephobia," She says after a minute, "Literally the fear of being buried alive."

I nod too, deciding to speak up after the idea of being buried alive crosses my mind. I should talk to someone about this. "Your turn again."

She pulls her lips between her teeth, shifting slightly before releasing them. She's not looking at me, but the face she's making while looking at other things is making me a little anxious. "Agraphobia," She finally says, averting her eyes to mine and I can't help thinking that the look in hers resembles how I'm feeling.

"That's like..." I begin, squinting my eyes as I try to remember where I've heard the word before. "Fear of open spaces? Like the opposite of claustrophobia. Like the fear of leaving a safe place."

Freya lets out a breath, that she'd apparently been holding until I spoke, and laughs for a few brief seconds. "No, that's agoraphobia."

"Oh," Is all I say, but then I frown, "And what'd you say?"

"Agraphobia."

Oh, so without the 'o'. "Um, then... it's something similar to agoraphobia?"

"No," She answers right away, her well-known entertained smile spreading across her face.

"Then..." I lift my eyebrows, helpless, and my expression makes her chuckle again. "Then I've no idea." I look down at her, and she looks down at her hands as soon as our eyes meet, the smile gone from her face by now. Well that happened quickly. "Tell me."

"Hm?"

"Tell me what's agraphobia."

She shifts, again, and carefully looks up at me- is it too early to say that this isn't looking good? "Do you know what genophobia is?" She finally speaks up after a long minute, but it's not what I was hoping for. She's just continuing to confuse me.

"Genophobia?" I repeat, starting to look around again when she nods, rather curtly. "What's genophobia have to do with agraphobia?"

"Well, my agraphobia is sort of... starting to turn into genophobia."

That's all she says, but I can tell by the look on her face that she wants to tell me more; I'm not sure why she decides not to anyway. "Genoph- geno... gen, gen..." I keep mumbling to myself, trying to get to the root of the words. I ultimately start shaking my head when I hear her laugh involuntarily, most likely at my incoherent talking. "No clue. Does it have something to do with genders? Like a fear of the opposite gender? Fear of the same gender?"

"No," Freya shakes her head, the already small smile that was on her face disappearing all over again. "You know what?" She begins, sitting up, "I'm gonna go make the bed-"

"What? No, you can't just-"

"Because I'm really tired," She continues, just as quietly, leaning her face closer to mine – knowing that would stop me from interrupting her again. "And I want to get up early in the morning, clean the place a bit and maybe cook something."

I raise my eyebrows, blinking at her a few times; I'd be stupid to interrupt her now. "And... you can stay up if you want, I don't mind," She smiles briefly at me, then pecks my lips and gets off the couch before I can even comprehend what's going on. But apparently, within five seconds she's decided that she's tired, and is now walking toward my room. Well, our room. It feels weird to call it 'our room'. But it also feels weird to call it 'my room', now that I have someone else sleeping with me there on a regular basis. I should just call it 'the room'. Until 'our room' stops being uncomfortable to think about.

I blink as the door closes, and start digging through my pockets before I even know what I'm doing. When I realize that my phone is actually on the coffee table, I snatch it and keep averting my eyes to the door of the room, as I unlock it and open the browser. I even type in the word 'agraphobia' without looking at my keyboard, and don't click on any of the results when they appear, instead I just look over the small paragraphs that show up. But the small bit of the Wikipedia article is the one that really catches my attention:

Agraphobia (also contreltophobia) is the abnormal fear of sexual abuse.

For a few seconds I just sit, frozen in my seat, and stare at the few words that are little by little making me feel nauseous. How did I never notice this before? The first time we were ever together in a bed, she made it crystal clear to me that nothing would happen. Then it took her about six ice ages to let me kiss her again. And then, whenever I tried taking things a little further, she'd be on the brink of an anxiety attack. It all adds up. I just never took it this seriously.

Before I can go into an actual trance, I click on the box again and proceed to type in 'genophobia', my heart speeding up as I wait for the page to load. Agraphobia is bad enough and I can only imagine how bad this is, if it's what her current phobia is turning into.

The page loads within a few seconds and I scroll to the bottom, a nervous habit of mine, before scrolling back up and- well you've gotta be kidding me.

Genophobia is the fear of sexual intercourse.

This is just... I mean I get her agraphobia, I've seen her limping and in bruises, I definitely get her agraphobia. But fear of sex itself? That's just, that's... that's also reasonable, when I think about it. The only person she's ever had sex with turned out, well, he turned out the way he turned out to be, and there's no one else she can compare him to. But it would be stupid of her to think that all men are like him.

I glance at the door to my right, contemplating whether or not to go in there and-and, I don't know, talk to her? Would she even want to talk about it? I might think it's a bit irrational and all, but I can't treat her like it is. She won't treat me like a special person because I think that pins and needles are weapons of mass destruction and would end my life if they got anywhere near me. I should return the favor.

With a small sigh I get up, and crack my knuckles as if I'm about to fight her, and not try to have a conversation about what I've just found out. Then again, she might want to break a few bones of mine once I start speaking.

After a few seconds of contemplating whether or not I should knock on the door, I just walk right in, startled at first; the only source of light is coming from the double window on the right side of the room, somewhat allowing me to see her silhouette as she moves around, absentmindedly pulling at the duvet at different places until there aren't any creases, or anything that she'd be unhappy with. I'm guessing that being a perfectionist is the second thing she becomes when she's nervous, the first one being talkative of course.

I slowly close the door behind me and keep watching her, waiting for her to run out of things to fix about how the bed is made. A minute into it, she finally takes a step back, still looking at the bed and scratching the back of her head, her hair bouncing at the action.

"Freya-" I begin, and I have no idea why I thought she'd let me speak.

"Do you know what it is?" She asks, returning to the sheets again.

"...What?"

"Agraphobia," Freya says casually, but even standing five feet away from her, I can tell that her voice is near cracking. "Do you know what it is now?"

I gulp, for a moment actually rethinking my decision to talk about it, but I know it's going to come up sooner or later. Better to get it over with now. "Yes."

"And genophobia?"

"Freya," I repeat, taking a large but slow few steps into the room, and try to pull her toward me so she's looking at me without being rough. But she's obviously going to make that hard for me. "Fre- Freya."

"I just..." She finally stops fighting me and lets me turn her toward me, but she brings her hands up to her face as soon as our eyes meet. "I don't want to talk about it. I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" I ask quietly, tilting my head to the side in an attempt to see a glimpse of her face; but her bony hands and bad lighting are kind of in my way.

"You wouldn't..." She begins, but trails off to shake her head; if she meant to say 'you wouldn't understand' I'm gonna lose it. "Like- if I told you that I'm afraid of-of going that far, you wouldn't... you know, you wouldn't... you wouldn't want to stick around."

Well this is definitely going an unexpected way. "Yes, that's right," I nod firmly, placing my hands on her cheeks in an another attempt to get her to look at me, "You're right. I followed you around like a lost puppy for months, depended on your existence, got myself in danger and ultimately got myself in a coma because I thought I'd get laid in the end. That totally makes sense. This is such a disappointment. I need to think for a while, and you should leave. I also want a refund on all the condoms that I bought. And all the pop-punk CDs that I was planning to fuck you to."

By the end of all the bullshit that's coming right off the top of my head, she's smacking my chest with a smile that she's trying to hide with a frown, and naturally I'm laughing at her reaction – being the one I was hoping for. "That's really funny, Niall, I hope you get-"

"I was kidding," I cut her off, before she said something that would potentially give me nightmares. "Well, except for that last bit." I nod again, "There are seriously so many pop-punk songs that I want to fuck you to."

As I nod to further confirm my statement, Freya just stands in front of me, blinking with a straight face. I just love leaving her speechless. "Why am I not angry at you right now?" She finally says, trying to sound annoyed, shaking her head at her own self, "Why am I not trying to make a hole in a wall with your head?"

"Well, first of all," I give her a small frown, "That's violence. Second, I was talking about two of your favorite things."

"Sex is neither of those, Niall."

I think my heart just broke. "I know," I say despite my thought, "I was talking about pop-punk songs, and myself."

It takes her a few seconds, but eventually she rolls her eyes and turns around, her reaction making me grin briefly. "You joking about it isn't gonna make it disappear, I hope you know that."

"I know," I tell her immediately, taking her wrist to make her face me again; I don't want her to think I was making fun of her, or anything. "I do. I don't wanna make you feel bad about it, I'm just bad at handling these things. And you're not making it easier by assuming that I wouldn't want to stick around because you won't jump into bed with me."

Freya pulls the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, as she sighs, and then brings her palms to my chest. I can tell that she wants to say something- a lot of things actually, but she's still afraid. She still doesn't trust me. And I'm going to be angry and frustrated about it some other, more appropriate time. "Can you tell me just one more thing?" I tilt my head to the side again and she looks up at me, her brows raised, seeming almost scared. "Is this why you gave me my 'freedom'?"

The look on her face is definitely assuring me that she was expecting that question – and that she doesn't really want to talk about it. "Yes, and please don't make me feel like an idiot about it."

I've never felt more relieved than when she said that 'yes'. I almost felt like I was proposing to her. "Look, I..." I trail off, not knowing what exactly to say but knowing that I want to end that right now. "I'm-I'm not saying I want you to label us right here, right now, I just... can we work on that freedom thing? As in, get the fuck rid of it because I know you don't want it, and I sure as hell don't either?"

To my slight surprise, but also relief, she smiles and breathes out, then looks down at the ground. That's better than having a panic attack, which is what I originally expected from her- I'm underestimating her so much. "You need to stop with this," She tells me all of a sudden, "You're making me feel like I'm seventeen again. Giggly and naïve."

"That's a good feeling to have, sometimes," I mumble with a grin, putting my arms around her upper back while she conveniently wraps hers around my waist. "Is that a yes?"

I pull her closer to me as she sighs, pretending to think about it while inspecting the collar of my shirt. She blinks once, twice, then looks up at me with a somewhat unsure expression. "And we don't have to put a label on us?"

"No," I shake my head quickly, one hundred percent sure that she can feel my heart beat right now.

"Then... okay."

"Okay? Yeah?" At first my smile is lopsided, but her nod nearly causes my face to hurt from smiling. I've managed to exterminate the freedom thing within a day. There has to be some sort of an award for this.

"Yes. Now," Freya continues, clearing her throat, pretending that nothing had just happened. "Name me one of those pop-punk songs you were talking about."

*******

so a lot of writers have a problem with writing long chapters and a lot of readers complain about short updates

i think we're gonna have the opposite problem bc my 5.4k-word updates are beco ming more frequEnt and i need heLP like wehre ist he sTOP BuTTON ON ME

anyway i hope you enjoyed this unnecessarily long update and if they continue being this long you're gonna have to start shipping me tissues bc i will cry (✿◠‿◠) thank you and good night. oh and please vote and comment?? 200 comments before the next update??¿? seriously 200 comments aren't a lot for a turdy seven page update (◡‿◡✿) i'm sorry for the overuse of emojis, it's half past five in the morning and i don't care. i love you. x