This chapter is dedicated to CheyenneHoying for her support to this story.

And guys, PLEASE read the A.N at the end. Seriously, read it.
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My sister and I have had a strange obsession with books ever since we were kids. We started out with bed-time stories and then eventually escalated to our own individually preferred genres. However, one thing we still shared was the feelings we got from reading a book. The overwhelming satisfaction of a character after having made someone smile; his giddiness upon finding out that someone has a crush on him – his pain after having lost someone he loved.

Over the span of the last 29 years of my existence, I had had the pleasure of experiencing almost all of those fantasised sentiments. One specific emotion which I was yet to feel however was thrown at me the moment I turned the corner off my block and entered the roadside.

Tachypsychia: the neurological phenomenon of freezing of time whilst encountering a traumatic event, and/or excessive exertion of one's body – that's what I felt. The erratic beating of my heart was what filled my otherwise muffled over ears, as I stood and watched the scene in front of me play out in slow motion. A large group of people were surrounding what seemed like a car, somehow which was stuck in the middle of the pavement.

With sweating hands and shaking steps, I pushed my way to the centre of the commotion and realised that the car had swerved off the road and into a pole, following which the pole must have then collapsed on top of the car. As a result, there was a good few inches deep dent in the middle of the car with its windshield and front passenger windows shattered into tiny pieces of glasses which now lay on the ground.

Amongst the wreckage, the one thing that caught my attention the most, and quite affectively sped up my heart and slowed it down to a stop all the same, was the blood. On the ground, a little beside the car there were splashes of blood. The splattered blood was mesmerizingly shining a deep shade of red in the moonlight and the streetlights; blood which was of a person badly hurt, possibly dead too; blood which might as well belong to Mathew.

I sucked in a sharp breath, my vision getting tunnelled and blackening out at the edges, my ears muffled over by all the shouting around me and the whoosh of my own blood, my eyes burning with tears that were now flowing down my paled cheeks. Backing away from the gory scene in front of me, I clamped a hand on my mouth, barely keeping myself from breaking down into sobs.

"M...Mathew?" I whispered, hoping he would appear from somewhere amongst the crowd of people. "Mathew?" I called out his name a little louder this time, desperately wanting to hear his melodious voice and his bedazzling shy smirk, one more time. "Mathew!" I hollered, praying, begging to God to grant me this one wish; to grant me my Mathew.

Just as I was about to finally fall to the ground in a heap of my own blubbering and sniffling and crying, finally breaking down after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I heard the one voice which magically held the power to fight away my darkness.

"Emma?"

I whipped around my head fast enough to get a whiplash but I couldn't have cared less about such trivial things in that moment. And there he was, standing amongst the worried-stricken citizens of Lincoln, the light from a nearby streetlight casting a shadow at the side of his beautiful face. His face looked distraught and anxious and happy; his eyes were bloodshot; a few splotches of blood were staining his clothes, but he was here and he was alive – my Mathew was alive.

A relieved sigh escaped my lips, "Mathew." I ran towards him and threw my arms around his tall and lean frame, tightening my grip as much as I could muster up the strength to do so while stuffing my face in his chest. Instantly he hugged me back with just as much urgency if not more, burying his face in the crook of my neck and breathing deeply.

Only a few moments had passed when he pushed away just the slightest bit, one hand still tightly wound around my waist as the other one came up to palm my cheek. This time around however, I didn't flinch away, I leaned in.

Smiling a bit at my actions through his concerned looking eyes, he took in the sight of my flushed and tear-streaked face. "Ems, w...what's wrong? Why are you here?"

I gulped and shook my head before speaking, "I...I was listening to your v...voicemail and then that c...crash happened and I got scared and I...I just..." taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I continued, "I came to find you."

He smiled his brilliant smile then, his melodious voice wrapping me in, completely extinguishing any chance of escape I had left. "You came for me, love?" he whispered hopefully.

Almost automatically, I found myself nodding in affirmation because I had come to find him since I couldn't imagine myself living a life without him in the picture then, at least not in the long run.

Oh hell, I thought bemusedly, there goes my so-called bloody decision. But then I remembered the crashing sound from the message and the wrecked car and cringed at exactly just what could have happened.

"W...what had happened?" I asked, finally un-wounding myself from him, but still I held onto his hand because I couldn't let go of him completely, not just yet.

"I was calling you and walking down the street when suddenly a car came rushing towards me," he began.

I found my breath hitching in my throat as I imagined the alternative could have's for this story.

"Fortunately though, a guy pushed me out of the way just when the car collided with the pole, and that was when I dropped the phone," he punctuated his narration with a small frown. "Unfortunately the driver of the car wasn't half as lucky. He got badly injured but the paramedics said that he'd live... or at least they hope he will."

I realised then that we had started walking, slowly but surely heading in the direction of Cafe Blue's Leuc. For the moment though, I decided to keep my mouth shut; for once.

"Anyways," Mathew looked at me with curious eyes, "You're here. You came for... me." Realising that I wasn't going to present him with an answer just yet, he continued, "So, what does that mean?"

I stopped walking and turned around to fully face him. Letting go of his hand, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and gathered up the courage to look into those vibrant blue eyes – and when I finally did look at them, the action knocked my breath away all over again. "It means that I'm sorry. It means that I've been a whiny bitch about this whole situation."

When he opened his mouth to contradict me, I held up my hand to quieten him down. This resulted in the appearance of a small frown on his lips which caused me to fight the urge to call him 'adorable dork'.

"It means that," I continued, "you were right about not willing to stop fighting." Slowly his frown got replaced with that infamous shy smirk, causing my own lips to curve upwards just the slightest bit as I finished my little confession. "It means that... that I am willing to give us a chance because quite honestly, I can use some of your amazing dorky-ness in real life and not from whatever my past self got to experience."

Scrunching up his nose for a second, he closed the distance between us and took my face in both his hands. With our foreheads touching, he whispered through a wide grin, "That's all I ever wanted to hear."

Mathew then took my blushing self's hand in his and crossed the road to Blue's Leuc. Just like the slightly warm April air, his ever-so melodious voice encompassed me in, "Buy you a hot chocolate again? Now that you actually know who I am?" 

*-----------*
THE END
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Lyrics of "Rock bottom" by Hailee Seinfeld ft. DNCE:

[Hailee Steinfeld:]
What are we fighting for?
Seems like we do it just for fun
In this, this stupid war
We play hard with our plastic guns

Breathe deep, bottle it up
So deep until it's all we got
Don't speak, just use your touch
Don't speak before we say too much

That you hate me now and I feel the same way
You love me now and I feel the same way
Scream and we shout
And make up the same day, the same day

Oh, we're on the right side of rock bottom
And I hope that we keep falling
We're on the good side of bad karma
Cause we keep on coming back for more
We're on the right side of rock bottom
And to you, I just keep crawling
You're the best kind of bad something
Cause we keep on coming back for more

[Joe Jonas:]
You get under my skin
More than anyone's ever been
But when we lay in bed
You hold me harder 'til I forget

[Hailee Steinfeld & Joe Jonas:]
That you hate me now and I feel the same way
You love me now and I feel the same way
Scream and we shout
And make up the same day, the same day

Oh, we're on the right side of rock bottom
And I hope that we keep falling
We're on the good side of bad karma
Cause we keep on coming back for more
We're on the right side of rock bottom
And to you, I just keep crawling
You're the best kind of bad something
Cause we keep on coming back for more

Keep on coming back for more
Cause we keep on coming back for more

​​What are we fighting for?
Seems like we do it just for fun
​​In this, this just stupid war
We play hard with our plastic guns

Oh, we're on the right side of rock bottom
And I hope that we keep falling
We're on the good side of bad karma
Cause we keep on coming back for more
We're on the right side of rock bottom
And to you, I just keep crawling
You're the best kind of bad something
Cause we keep on coming back for more

Keep on coming back for more
Cause we keep on coming back for more
Keep on coming back for more
Cause we keep on coming back for more
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Well, well, well. Here it is guys.

The.
End.

God this feels so surreal. This is the first time I've ever finished a properly written book. My First time ever investing so much in the characters and in a story. And now it's come to an end.... aagghhhg. God. *wipes away tears*

Shush up, okay? I'm just sweating from my eyes.

*wipes away said sweat*

Now I'm sure that you aren't here to listen to my emotional speech so I'll get on with it then: I've finally decided that I will write an epilogue for this story. Main reason behind that isn't because the story particularly needs one but, because I'm not quite done with my babies just yet.

So yes, my beautiful creatures of nature, there will be an epilogue!!!

When? Oh well. Here's the tricky part. Hehehe xD
I'll update the epilogue as soon as the vote count crosses 515.
Why that specific number? Meh. It just seemed cool. 515... five-one-five...

Okay, okay, I'll stop! I'll update the epilogue when the vote count for the book has reached 515 votes. So spread the word, gather together just about two three new readers and we'll be there in no time! ^_^

Let's go out together with a bang, yeah? :D

Much, unbelievably very much, love,
-zainab