Johns POV

I meant what I said to Dylan. I couldn't sleep a wink. My mind was going through a series of words that I want to tell Quinn. I thought about writing it down, but I don't think that's such a good idea.

I look over at my alarm clock. It's now 7:06 AM. I'm so tired but I just can't sleep. I have to be with my dad today, I decide. I will talk to Quinn tonight. My dad is much more important. Hell, I haven't seen him in 5 years.

After my shower, I head back downstairs with my phone in hand. I checked to see if Quinn was still here, and as I thought, she was asleep. How badly, I wanted to go over to her and tuck her stray hairs behind her ears. I want to hold her, close to me, but I can't. Every fiber of my being wants to go into that room and kiss her forehead, and feel safe in her arms, she in mine.

No one was up yet so I started making breakfast. When ma would come home late, I would make dinner myself. I'm a pretty good cook, I would say. I watch Gordon Ramsey a lot so I know a lot of little details. I think I like to bake more than cook, honestly. I watch Sugar Rush and Nailed it and I really wanna go on a show like that. I've baked a few cakes for my mother's birthday and they turned out not too bad.

By the time I finish cooking scrambled eggs, bacon, salad, and butter toast, my father gets out of his room and sits down on the chair. "Good morning son!" He says, his face lighting up and I can tell that he's in a very cheerful mood.

"I love you, Dad," I tell him because I haven't said that enough in my whole life and it took almost losing him to make me realize this.

I go over to him to give him a hug. "I love you too- oh my goodness you cooked all this?" He asked looking over the neatly set table. "Yeah, I've been cooking and baking more often now". I chuckle. He looks up at me and and pats my shoulder. "But you still wanna be a paleontologist like me, right?"

"Yeah of course." I assure him. It's true, I do take an interest in paleontology and the numerous fields of it, but I'm only 18, I don't have a lot of years to decide, but I've got a few to decide what I actually want to do.

"Okay, son, I would love for you to work with me. But if you want to be something else, I'll always be very supportive of you, don't you ever worry about that." He says. I nod and go back to the kitchen to clean up. He helps me set the table and we continue our conversation about school life.

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"Hey dad can you pass me my phone? It's on the island." I ask and he passed it to me. I check the time, it's 8:00AM now. I wonder why no one else was up. Breakfast got cold 30 minutes ago so I put it in the microwave. I don't want to wake up Dylan nor Quinn.

"Ma?" I knock on her door. She calls, "A minute, darling!" So I wait. As she said, a minute later, she comes out with dirty clothes in one hand and her towel in the other. "Ma I made breakfast. It's in the microwave if you like." She walks to the laundry room and puts the dirty clothes in there and hangs the towel to dry in the porch before turning around to me.

"Okay honey. Are any of the.. guests awake yet?" She smiles. "No, should I go check on them?" I ask. She nods so I rush upstairs. I knock on Dylan's door first, and when he doesn't open, I push the door open and his bed was empty.

My mind immediately began to run through a series of events. Is he with Quinn? My hands goes to the back of my neck and I walk around the empty room to calm this temper.

What if he was with Quinn? Would they be doing something? Maybe they were just having a good talk. Dylan wouldn't do that to me after what I told him last night would he? Or maybe he took my words last night as a challenge and decided to play his part now? No, he said he didn't have any feelings for Quinn. Would he lie?

My jealousy got the best of me and I barged in Quinn's room to see her only wearing a bra and panties.

"Johnny! I'm getting ready! Wait outside." She snickers upon seeing my shocked expression. I quickly snap out of my daze and quickly get outside and shut the door behind me. I hear the guest bathroom door open and Dylan steps out in just a towel wrapped around his waist.

"Hey man." He says as if we were jolly good friends.

I stand there, still in shock as Dylan eyes me weirdly before going in his room and shutting the door.

"I made breakfast." I mutter.

A while later Quinn steps out in a beautiful yellow tank top with a pair of shorts that I know she loves.

"Okay let's go eat!" She says and takes my hand. She skips along the steps and I chuckle at her childish behavior. "Is Dylan up yet?" She asks her eyes searching the kitchen and living room.

"Yeah he's up, he's getting ready. I think he should be down in a while." I say.

"Okay" Quinn goes over to the island and sits on a chair. "tráeme la comida por favor amable señor" she says. I raise my eyebrow at her. "You're getting really good at Spanish Quinn!" I praise her whilst setting the microwave to 2 minutes.

I lay a plate and grab the salad from the fridge and put it down on the neatly set table. "I know right? I'm proud of myself too!" She smiles and sticks her tongue at me. I return the gesture and she tries to hit me but I dodge it.

"Hey do you wanna talk about last night?" I ask her and sit down on the chair in-front of her. "No, not really." She says, looking at the floor but I know her better than that.

"C'mon Quinn you know you can talk to me." I urge her.

"I do know. It was the usual. They wouldn't stop arguing. This time, my mother took it further. She hit my dad with her stupid wine bottle." She bites her lip to stop the tears. I go over to her and hug her. She pushes her face into my chest and I slowly move my palm up and down her back.

"Let it all out, Quinn. It's not good to hold back your tears."

"My mother was so mean, Johnny. She said such rude things. I want to unhear them, I do." She sobs.

I take her small face into my palms and lift her chin to look up at me. Her eyes are beginning to fill with tears again and her lips are quivering.

"Quinn, you can't unhear them. If I could take back time and get you out of there I would. Is your mother getting physically hurt?"

"No it's my dad that's getting hurt. My mother is hurting my dad, John. What do I do?" Her face goes pale just thinking about it.

"I can ask my ma to go have a chat with your mother and ask her to stop doing this. Maybe your mother can even start going to a therapist and get some help. Would that help you?"

"Yes, that would, a lot. Thank you so much Johnny." Her pale face regains a bit of colour and she gives me a smile.

I wipe her tears with my thumb. "You can stay here until then. If you're not comfortable going home alone, I'll go with you to get you clothes." I smile back.

She nods and wraps her hands around my torso. It's moments like this especially when I want to tell her. Tell her I love her. Tell her I need her as more than a friend.

But that would be me taking advantage of her when she's vulnerable. And I can't do that to her.

She ends our embrace and does over to the kitchen to wash her face. "That felt good, to tell you my feelings."

"I'm always here. I'll never leave you." I go over to her and plant a kiss on her wet forehead.

She closes her eyes and smiles. "Hey did you know that Becky likes you?" Her eyes open and they're sparkling.

"Gross no I didn't." I point my finger to my mouth and make gagging noises.

"Hey that's rude!" She laughs. "I don't care, I don't like her or Georgia. I don't get why you hang out with them anyway."

"Johnny don't get too jealous, I've told you a hundred times, I can't not always hang out with you! I need to have my girlfriends to talk about girl stuff!" She and I laugh at the choice of her cringy words. Dylan comes down the stairs and Quinn smooths out her shorts and crosses her legs on the chair. I raise an eyebrow at her and she jokingly glares at me.

"Hi Dylan." She says, tucking a hair behind her ear.

"Hey" he replies and goes into the laundry room before shouting my name. I huff and go into the laundry room.

"Where do I put this?" He asks before pointing at his dirty clothes. "Put them in the hamper my mother can wash them." I say before turning around to go. He takes me by surprise by taking ahold of my arm.

"John, I know you won't like me saying this but I do have feelings for Quinn,"

I open my mouth to say something but he started talking again.

"I know you love her, and I don't know what to do with these feelings I have. So I'm going to give you time to tell her your feelings. If she doesn't feel that way for you, I'll wait and see if she does like me. I know you'll want the best for her and I promise if she doesn't feel that way for you, and does for me, I'll treat her better than I treat myself." He takes in a breath and I can see that he was nervous to tell me this.

"We don't know if she likes me back or not." I roughly say.

"Yeah exactly. When are you going to tell her?" He impatiently asks.

"Tonight, later, I don't know man!" I wave my hands up, not even noticing how loud I've gotten. I storm out of the room and plop down on the couch.

"Hey what's wrong? Did something happen?" Quinn walks near me and sits on the couch next to me. "No, nothing. Did you eat?" I ask her. "No, but the microwave went off and I put down the food." She tells me.

"I'm going for a walk." Dylan says, whilst wearing a coat and closes the door behind him.

"What is happening?"

"Nothing."

"John if you don't tell me- nevermind." Quinn says.

"Let's go eat. I've gotten hungry." I say and go over to the kitchen.

After eating and clearing the place up, I decide it's now or never.

"Quinn." I call her and she breaks her eyes off the tv. "Yeah?"

"Let's go outside I need to tell you something." She nods and worry crosses her pretty face.

We go outside to the garden and sit down on the bench next to the beautiful bed of roses my mother had grown. In the center of the garden is a big beautiful apple tree.

"What did you want to tell me?" She asks, looking into my eyes. Her beautiful green eyes stared into my blue ones with question.

"Just let me say this, please. Okay?" I tell her, and wait to continue until she tells me to go on.

"I love you, Quinn. Not as a brother. I don't want you to look at me like a brother. I have bottled up these feelings in me for a long time, and I just didn't want to tell you because I was afraid. Afraid you weren't going to love me back. I thought I was going to be the only person for you in the world, but when Dylan came into the picture, I saw the way you looked at him. I saw how much you liked him. I saw that I had a deadline to tell you this. I knew that if I didn't tell you this, i would regret it later on. I love you, Quinn, and im really not sure if you feel the same way for me. But im telling you I love you. I want to spend my life with you. As your boyfriend. As your husband. Because you're my soulmate." I gasp for air as my chest breathes in and out heavily.

Her eyes are watering now and she looks surprised. "I honestly didn't know you felt that way, John." She says. "I felt those feelings for you too, once. But then you started dating Samantha and I had to get over you."

"You did like me? I only dated Samantha just to make you jealous. Because I was afraid of telling you I was trying to make a way for you to tell me."

"John, what you said was really, really sweet," She's crying now, and wiping her tears with her palms. "But I don't feel that way for you anymore."

I feel as though my heart had been ripped out from my chest. I feel as though all my fantasies have been spat on.

"John? Are you okay? I'm sorry, I really am." She says and her voice is barely audible. I think I'm going to faint.

"I think- im really dizzy, Quinn." I manage to say, before falling off the bench and onto the floor.

"John!!!" I hear her scream into my ear. I feel numb. I can't move. "John, should I call your mom?" I shake my head and try to sit up.

"John I'm so sorry!" She cries into my chest. Dazed, I bring her head closer and hug her. "I love you Johnny. Just not in that way, you have to understand. It's okay if it takes time. I'm always here for you, okay?" a muffled voice comes from her.

"Yeah." I simply say.

I start to softly sob, before she looks up at me and holds my face in her hands. She sits on my lap and brings her lips to mine.

Her soft tender kisses takes me surprise. This is probably going to be the only time she and I will ever do this, so I want to absorb every single minute.

I grab her waist and pull her close to me. She tugs softly at my hair and I slip my tongue in her mouth. A soft moan escapes her perfect lips and I just can't resist her. I push her to the ground and she giggles. I put my lips to her neck and she moans my name. But then-

She stops, pulling herself off of me. "What's wrong?" I ask her. "I don't want to lead you on, John." She says. "You're not." I say, reaching for her arm.

"No, John. I don't want to do this to you. I love you, so much but you're like an older brother to me so I don't want to hurt your feelings more than I already have. I'm going inside. You don't mind if I stay here, do you?"

I look at the ground and back up at her. Her cheeks are red in embarrassment and I feel bad. And guilty.

"Yeah of course. I won't tell anyone about this." I assure her.

"I don't care about that, Johnny. I care about your feelings. And you, loser."

I pick up a small rock and throw it in her direction. She laughs, as I purposely sent it a different direction, and sits back on the bench.

I don't want this awkward silence anymore so I stand up and sit next to her.

"Remember when we used to climb that apple tree with Ulva and Callum?"

They used to be our best friends, but they moved away when we went to high school.

"Omg yeah! It was so fun! And remember when we invited Susanna and she fell and hit her head?"

"Yeah, it was your fault, you pushed her." I tease.

"No I didn't, you psycho!" She laughs so hard that a snort escapes her mouth.

I start laughing. "You're a pig!"

"I am not, it's something that happens to everyone when they laugh too hard!" She tries to reason.

When I wouldn't stop laughing she playfully hit the back of my head.

"Stop it Johnny!!" But contrary to her words, she's laughing too.

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  :: 𝑨𝑼𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑹𝑺 𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑬 ::

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