Yeah, okay I know, I know, I am superrrr duperrr extra late. I am ashamed too. It has been like more than 20 days since I last posted. -_-

Sorrrrryyyyy!! Really. I was busy with assignments, projects and volunteering stuff.

Also this is short and unedited because it has been a long day and I am hella tired but I wanted to get this chapter out today so this was all I could manage. I will make the corrections tomorrow. =)

But aside from that, thank you to all the new readers. Hope you're liking it so far. And a shout out to in fact all the readers for putting up with my disastrous updating schedule. I love you all! Thank you so much! ♥♥

On the side is the violin piece mentioned in the chapter. I quite love it and I think you should check it out too.---->>>

Enjoy ♥ 

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"So you just walked away?" Anya asked for the third time, her eyes staring at me with disbelief. "And he didn't even stop you? Not even once?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Huh." She made a pondering face, scowling a little. "I am still unable to process how that could happen."

"Well, it did." I sighed internally. "But it's okay. I wasn't expecting anything else anyway."

"I was," she said, "After all the things you told him, it seems impossible to believe that he didn't say anything and just let you walk away."

I rubbed my face with my hands. "I don't know. I don't want to think about it."

Normally, I wouldn't have told Anya about what happened, or more like what didn't happen, at Daniel's, because in every sense of the word it would be awkward, but when your former best friend demands you to sit your ass down on the front steps of the house and tell her every single detail, it hardly leaves you with any another choice.

Anya was staring at me with a look in her eyes, a little pity and a little regret. I chose to not to let it get to me.

No more feeling sorry for myself.

"Well," Anya started, getting up from the stairs. "It rarely happens but I really don't know what to say, but I hope everything gets better."

"Yeah," I breathed out, nodding my head, staring at the night sky and listening to the sound of crickets.

Everything was going to get better someday, no matter what. It didn't depend on what Daniel chose for us. Even if we were over, and I really moved to New York, that would still be alright. It would give dad and me a new start.

When you have been to the rock bottom, every single path can only take you up, and that was what I was going to do; see the good in anything that comes my way.

"So see you tomorrow at school then?"

I smiled, giving her a little nod.

Returning the smile, Anya walked towards her powder blue Ford parked in my driveway.

I waved her a goodbye and watched as her car disappeared away in the darkness of the night. Even after the sound of the rumble of the engine was gone from the air, I was still standing at my spot.

There is always some kind of comfort that comes with the night time, like it nurses you of the things that happened during the day. It seems like the perfect time to be alone, for once when you can be whatever you really want to be, happy, sad, whatever. It doesn't judge.

Yeah, apparently now I was turning into one of those people who think in quotes about everything.

With a faint smile, I shook my head and treaded back inside which was dark and silent as dad wasn't home yet. He had sent a message saying he was busy with a case at work.

Usually, I wouldn't have been but I was a little scared about staying alone. Now, it was like the fear was there all the time, not ready to leave. Always there. All the time.

Soft wind swept inside the room from the windows as I sat on my bed, playing Ashokan Farewell on the violin. Since the minute I got back from Daniel's place, all I felt like was to lock myself inside and play for hours with no one to interrupt me.

It was kind of the only thing I thought I would have a will to do for a while then.

I guess my love for violin was back.

But it wasn't the same. Back then, I preferred something easy and soft or doing covers of songs I like, but now they just didn't make me feel anything. This time, even without thinking once I found my fingers playing all the dark, sad stuff.

But they felt fitting. Like a reflection of the transition that years had brought with them.

Like the piece I was playing right then, Emma straight on called it funeral music. Making a face she had said it felt haunting and depressing.

I had retorted back that I would make sure that it played at her funeral.

Obviously, I didn't mean it to actually happen just seven months later.

Keeping my biased view aside, I knew she was right. There was something so extremely evocative about this song, something stirring up nostalgia for a perfect world that once existed. Its name went along with it perfectly too.

It was a farewell song, meant as a lament.

Yeah, like I said, completely fitting.

With the final note of the song, I slipped the violin off my shoulder and rolled off my bed to walk out in the balcony to see the light drizzle falling outside.

It was almost the last hour of the night so everything seemed silent and still except for the soft pattering of raindrops on the ground. For a few minutes, I closed my eyes enjoying the tranquillity that came with late night rains until a faint sound came, like the squeak of table against the floor, and it had come from inside of the house.

Was dad home?

But I didn't hear his car.

Thinking about it for a minute, I walked out of the room and down the rooms. I tried to make my steps almost inaudible.

I was about to yell if it was dad, but if I had learned anything from those thriller movies, it is that it's stupid to give your position away.

As I had left it, the entire of the first floor was dark with not a single light on anywhere. I decided to let it be the way. Again, no giving away of position was probably the best.

I held on tight to the handrail of the stairs, not even allowing myself to breath too loudly.

It couldn't be him, could he? Clay couldn't be here.

Maybe it was just dad. Or maybe I just imagined hearing the sound.

But what if it really is Clay?

I fished for my phone in the pocket but came out empty handed.

Shoot! Left it in the room!

Okay Norah, don't worry. Panicking would be the worst thing to do right now.

I clasped together my shaking hands and took a few deep, but silent, breaths in order to slow down my speeding heart, but it wasn't working especially when I focused that mixed with the sound of rain was of someone's breathing in the room.

Definitely not my imagination.

Taking a two steps to my left in the dark, I picked up the heavy brass candle stand that lied on the side table and clutched it tightly as I inched towards the front door.

With the distance of mere feet between me and the door, I felt my foot getting tangled in something. The candle stand made a loud clank against the floor and my hands flailed in the air as I tried to balance myself but ultimately completely lost my balance but I didn't just fell. I also fell on someone.

Oh. My. God.

The other person's breath got knocked out with the fall while mine was stuck inside of my lungs.

"I think I just pulled a muscle."

I couldn't say if I was relieved or even more surprised.

"Daniel?" I exhaled out, sitting up.

"The one and only," he replied. The screen of his phone lit up, giving a soft glow on his face.

"Umm, I feel like I should ask you if you're okay but first, why have you broken into my house?"

"I didn't. Your backdoor was open." He aimed the phone screen at my face, almost blinding my eyes. "By the way, that was really careless. You should check your doors or windows."

I lowered the screen with my hand. "I know but that still counted as breaking in. And anyway what are you doing here?"

"What else? I wanted to talk to you. It was late and I thought your dad probably wouldn't have let me talk to you right now but I really just had to talk to you," he answered, and there was something different, he didn't sound how he did earlier in the day. He didn't sound sad or mad or anything.

"Dad’s not home. And you could have just called me, you know," I said. "Didn't need to give me a premature heart attack."

"Well, aren't you a genius, butterfly?" He commented in a heavily sarcastic voice. "Your phone is switched off. I got worried."

"Oh," was my reply. "Okay. So, umm, what did you wanna say? I mean, what did you have to talk about?"'

"Umm..." He rolled his lower lip inside his mouth, a nervous look on his face.

"I am going to slap you."

He chuckled, amused. "What?"

"Yeah, I really am going to slap you. After all this time, you're still hesitating about telling me things. I mean after all the things I confessed, you're the one who's feeling nervous? Really?”  And then I hit him on the arm. Then one more time, and then once again and so on. "Do you know hard it was for me to say those things? To tell you how miserable I have been without you. And you're-"

"Okay, okay, I know," he cut me off in mid rant and pinning my hands behind my back easily, he pulled me onto his lap stopping me from hitting him anymore.

I struggled to be free with a convincing scowl on lips, but it was hard considering that he was so close to me right now. There was a tiny smile tagging on the corner of his lips.

"What are you doing?" I asked, frowning.

He pulled me even closer, close enough that I could actually feel his warmth and if that wasn't distracting enough, his breath was blowing over my skin and I was almost certain that he was doing that deliberately.

"I am getting you to shut up for a while," he simply said.

"Dan-" and I got shut down once again but not by anything he said, but because he blew softly on my lips. I stared at him with a stiff look while he smirked.

Jerk.

"That's more like it. So ready to just listen for a while?" I nodded, looking straight in his eyes which seemed like liquid orbs in the low light of his phone. I bit my lower lip, nervously. "Good."

"Say what you had to," I whispered, my eyes still fixed on his.

"Where do I start?" he asked in a whisper, eyes staring back at me fervently. I felt strange in the pit of my stomach, like something fluttering inside. "I guess, saying that I am sorry won't be enough. I shouldn't have said those things."

"You don't need to apologize. You were right. I did put you through alot," I told him, quietly.

He pressed the tip of his nose against mine. It felt cold, but the gesture was so cute that I couldn't help but smile. "No, I wasn't. I should have never said that. It couldn't be farther from what I actually feel. I was mad and I don't know..I just.."

"It's okay," I said, as his arms circled around my waist. "You don't need to."

"And I am sorry for not stopping you today when you came over," he said, again in whisper. "I just needed some time to think."

"What did you decide then?" I asked, just to confirm that this was what I was thinking.

"I came to the conclusion that I'm an idiot."

"That you are," I commented, without wasting a moment.

He narrowed his eyes playfully. "Well, and also that I should have never let you go. I need you not because I have some weird ideas that being with you would suddenly make everything alright in the world, but because I love you and that is the only way of living I have known for a really long time, and that's the only way I want it to be."

"Daniel, I..."

"I told you to shut up for a second, didn't I?" I pouted and he smiled again, putting his thumb under my chin. "So as I was saying, I love you and I am done being afraid about telling you that. You were right, we would be really good at, you know, just being together.  And if I could, I would take these last few days back. I was an idiot, I really hurt you and I thought I would be fine, but I wasn't. It was just so hard without you."

"Really?" I wrapped my hands around Daniel's neck, getting this feeling like I needed to be as close to him as it was possible. I simply wanted to kiss him.

"Let's just say I have seen more than forty four sunsets every day of the last week," he answered with a half-smile.

I smiled too at the Le Petit Prince reference. "Were you so sad then?"

"Like I never want to be ever again," he answered, pressing his lips against mine and letting me out of my misery.

His arms was around me, holding me so close that there was no space between us as he kissed me. Being the Daniel addict I was, it didn't take me even a complete second to respond.

I was finally kissing him again and this time with nothing to hide and with no reason to run away.

This was it.

"And by the way, if you move to New York, I would drag your cute little ass back down here," he said, pulling away but leaving a quick kiss on my nose.

I chuckled. "I won't. Promise."

"And just so you know, this is not how I planned how I would tell you that I love you for the first time. In the dark, on the floor of your living room," he said, resting his forehead against mine.

"When I said it first, I had you locked inside your own room. I think this certainly beats that." I ran my fingers on the side of his face, stopping where his dimples appeared. He closed his eyes slowly.

He chuckled. "Yeah, I guess."

I didn't understand why he thought that this wasn't perfect moment. It was raining outside, I was on his lap with almost no distance separating us and we both loved each other.

How more perfect could it have been?

But I didn't say anything, just closed my eyes too, with our heads still pressed together and enjoyed the sound of his breathing, which soothing like a sweet melody.

"This is nice," I breathed out, not disturbing the silence of the night too much.

"Yeah, it is," with his eyes still closed, he replied.

"Daniel?"

"Hmm?"

"You still haven't like, you know, officially asked me to be your girlfriend or anything."

Daniel gave a silent chuckle, slightly opening his eyes. "Oh little butterfly, I am not giving you any other choice this time."

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Sooooo, yeah I hope that compensated for the super late update. Did you like it? Finally they are together! Yay! Hurray!

Buuuuuut, this doesn't mean that the story is over! No, Sir! This is both romance and mystery book amigos, so there is still quite a lot to happen, so don't think it's over. The book will have approax. 50 parts so yeah, we still have quite a few chapter before the epilogue and one of most important parts of the story is yet to come!

Anyway, tell me what you thought about the chapter in the comments. And what do you think is coming next for N & D? =D

Vote, comment, share ♥