( CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT )
DENY JUST PROVE YOUR LOVE

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ROSE CAMERON'S HOUSE was surely the safest place for John B and Eden as they ran through the streets of Figure Eight, their breath short, desperately looking for a place to take shelter while the police continued to examine all the places where they could be. Eden had visited this house earlier, and she was almost certain that no one was there. Either way, they don't have many options available to them. There weren't even any without them getting caught.

Eden and John B took the street on the right, and ran for a few more minutes, their hands still encircled in each other. She looked around for the house where she had been taken for hours, and she nodded for John B to follow her without question until they were safe. She would have preferred never to return to this house where she spent the most stressful hours of her life, but she had to go there for John B's safety. They climbed the three steps that led to the not very decorated porch. She brushed annoying strands of hair disposed all over her face, and leaned towards the door which asked for a code. She cursed under her breath, looking around in hopes of finding a clue that would give her the code.

John B waited impatiently, hearing whispers of people slowly approaching them, but it was enough to make him panic and stress. Eden didn't listen to him as he warned her to hurry, then she lifted the mat aside, discovering numbers marked on the wood. She frowned, wondering if that was really it, and entered the four-digit combination into the machine, and got the key. She quickly closed the machine, and hurriedly put the key in the lock, crouching on the ground.

"Let's check this street. They can't be far." Someone said from behind them, and they turned around, finding two men walking towards the house where they went to hide. This only increased the stress that was coursing through Eden's veins at that moment.

    She turned the doorknob, and infiltrated the house, grabbing John B by the arm and rushing him inside. "Come on." She ordered, and he hurried to close the door behind him.

    John B sat in the corner next to the door, then Eden followed his movement, sticking her body to his to be furthest from the door where there was a window and the officers could see them very well if they did not stay away from the door. The boy put his hand on her knee, grumbling, "Sh, they're on the porch."

She didn't move anymore, putting her hand over her mouth so as not to let out and hear a single sound from her mouth. The time the officers took to check that everything was fine seemed like an eternity, and Eden tried really hard not to even move.  She stayed close to John B who seemed ready to pass out at any moment with the deep breaths he was taking to catch his breath.

When the officers finally moved away from Rose's house for sale, John B's head fell on Eden's shoulder, and she felt a enormous blow from him land on her neck, and she understood that he finally let go of all the pressure he had accumulated over the last few days. He could finally take the time to breathe for a moment, his body slowly calming down without Eden moving from her place. She sat there listening to him take in gulps of air and . . . take them out. He did that repeatedly. She could hear his heart bouncing in his chest, and she gently placed her hand on his chest, which caught his attention.

She moved her fingers very delicately around John B's heart without paying attention to the boy's eyes wandering over her face. She took the time to make the shape of a heart where her hand was placed, and she finally raised her brown irises which seemed black in the darkness of the house. She saw him swallow hard as he stared at her, which made her smile. She had no idea that her look was so unsettling for John B, who had been thinking about their kiss since the second it happened. Even in all the terror outside, John B's thoughts were all about Eden and their kiss.

    "Let's go upstairs, there's some kind of bedroom I think." She hummed in a soft, non-directive voice. John B blinked, removing himself from his thoughts literally distracted by the girl who had come to find him in the middle of the battlefield with the police.

    He followed Eden who seemed to know the place since she had scanned it a little before she left towards the tarmac with Caden. She hadn't seen much, but she just knew that there was some sort of unfinished room near the place where she had been locked up with only a couch and a chair for a place to sit, but she to prefer the ground for an unknown reason. She really didn't like coming back here, and John B could see it in her movements and her rapid walking past a room with the open door. He didn't ask any questions, wanting to wait until she was calm.

    They entered a room, and Eden was right. A simple mattress was lying in the middle of the room with boxes placed all around them. The girl quickly looked for a blanket which she found in a half-opened box, and quickly lay down next to John B who was already on the mattress, his eyes half-closed as if he wanted to stop himself from sleeping. She smiled at this sight of him, and sat down on the not very comfortable mattress, which disturbed John B who expected her to lie down next to him.

    "You all right?" He asked, sitting down in turn, his hands placed behind him for support. Eden only nodded, not daring to look at him for completely stupid reasons. "If . . . If you don't want me to sleep with you, I can sleep on the floor."

    She let a giggle escape from between her tightly pressed lips. "John B, this isn't the first time we sleep together and we're not even, you know . . . together."

"Is that a problem?" John B asked instantly after she said these words, now potioning himself properly. His hands placed on his knees, he turned his face towards Eden who remained silent while he examined every feature of her face which seemed annoyed by something, but he had no idea what. "Did I do something that made you uncomfortable?"

She shook her head, removing the words he had just said, finding it probably the stupidest thing in the world. He hadn't done anything bad, he was even too kind even with everything that was happening outside. But that wasn't the problem. Eden was not comfortable where she was in this room of this house, knowing that the next room was where she was locked up for hours without being able to do anything. Just to think that the person who did this to her probably spent days here preparing this plan, it disgusted her mentally. She closed her eyes as the events flashed in her eyes, reminding her of everything that happened.

Caden hadn't necessarily been physically mean, but he had been abrupt enough that it stuck in Eden's mind. He still put her on a plane by force, tied her with ropes and left without looking back. He may not have done anything physically to the Winslow girl, but mentally, everything was still fresh in her head which only brought back bad nightmares every time she had a minute of rest. Even when she was forced into her room by Fred, she was still overcome with fear by the latest events she had faced. Everything had happened too quickly over the past two days. Her kidnapping, the plane, the murder of Sheriff Peterkin, John B being suspected of murder, the lies that just kept coming at her. She no longer knew where to turn, and the thoughts in her mind were becoming too noisy. Too noisy to continue ignoring them.

"Hey . . . Eden." He called, taking her hand in his, and he felt her tremble as he did too. She didn't move further, squeezing his palm tightly to try to stop their muscles from moving without their permission. He licked his lips, and tilted his head enough to lock his eyes with the girl's. "Was this the house where everything happened?" He questioned her gently without asking too much, and he felt her squeeze his hand even tighter. It pinched him a little, but he resisted the urge to ask her to loosen her strength. "You can talk to me, you know that."

    "Yeah, I know." She whispered to him, sniffling. Then when he expected her to stop speaking and remain silent, she turned to him, then offered the boy a forced smile. "But you probably need to talk more than me. So, go ahead, I'll listen to you."

    He furrowed his eyebrows. He bit his lip as he moved on to why she was acting like that. As she did before, pushing away her pain so as not to think about it and find it useless to express. But suddenly, he thought that if he spoke, maybe that would allow her to open up to him in turn. "Well, I don't want to go to jail. I just can't go to jail, Eden." He began with a sigh that turned out to be long and mixed with frustration that he couldn't express well. "It's so unfair what's happening. I didn't do anything, and even if I tried to prove it, Ward would still win."

    She nodded, pressing her lips together, resisting something even John B didn't understand. When he went to ask her, she spoke, cutting him off, "We're going to get you out of this, okay? I promise you that one day you'll be able to go outside without being afraid of getting arrested. Trust me."

A smile slowly appeared on his lips, seeing the confidence that Eden was trying to instill in him. "I do. I always will." He told her, wanting to earn a response from her, but she just turned her head to her knees covered in the blanket, and she played with her fingers while John B's hand was away from her. He was literally confused about what was going on with her, how she was acting right now. "What's going on, pretty girl? I see that something's bothering you, just tell me what is it. Does it have to do with the murder? Rafe?" She shook her head repeatedly, which irritated him while he tried multiple times to help her spoke up to him by opening doors for her but she remained closed to him. "Caden?"

    A sigh escaped from between her lips, and he realized he had hit the right spot. She remained silent all the same which made him try to understand why she did not want to open up as she had done dozens of times since their relationship was good and without problems again. But now that chaos was back in their lives, she seemed to want to not talk about it so as not only to deal with what she was feeling, but also with what the Routledge boy might be feeling at the moment.

    But strangely, he was not of this opinion since he did everything to talk about what Eden had experienced here, and not about his own problems. "Eden, don't go back to that. Don't start to underestimate your pain again." He let her know with a reassuring voice, and Eden took that moment to burst into tears, her head falling to the ground. John B didn't waste a second before putting his arm around Eden, letting her tears flow down his arms. "It's okay. It's okay, I got you." The boy repeated, feeling her letting go of everything she had accumulated for more than two days. "I got you."

    Eden clutched John B's T-shirt, her head falling onto his chest as his arm was wrapped around her body trembling at her cries. She always had this shame when she burst into tears when she should be comforting the other person, and it always happened at the wrong time. But what she never knew was that John B would be ready to hear her talk about her problems day and night if it would stop her from letting her sink into loneliness and isolation once again. He didn't mind taking care of Eden, he even liked that it was him rather than her mother who would shout mean things in her head without comforting her.

    So yeah, she felt this shame every second that a tear left its nest to fall on Eden's cheek where hundreds had already dried. She was afraid of showing her pain to the wrong person so that he would then use it against her, but she didn't have that feeling with John B. She felt safe with him, holding her in his arms to weaken her cries. Eden felt comfortable with him whispering comforting things in her ear so that she would slowly calm down. She felt protected when he held her in this warm way. That's what she loved about him, this power to always make her feel good and . . . cared of.

"It was so scary, John B. I thought I'd die." She confessed as tears fell down her rosy cheeks, but he couldn't see them in the dark. Her voice was a real tremor, trying to find balance as she explained to him at her pace what happened here "He wouldn't let me go, so I tried to leave. That's how I cut my hand." John B leaned his eyes towards Eden's palm wrapped in a bandage, then he gently took it in his and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. "He forced me on that plane, I really thought I was never going to see you again."

"You're okay now, I'm here. I'm here, Eden." He reassured her as best he could, his voice rising in her hair, wanting to calm her as gently as possible and not rush her. Eden closed her eyes, and all the tears she let out supported those who had all been pitted against each other for days without being able to take the time to find peace. "Did he hurt you?"

She bit her lip, then shook her head to tell him. "No, but . . . he got angry and pointed at me with a knife. I knew he wasn't going to use it, he's not like that, I think, it was obvious he didn't want to. But—" She paused to compose herself, lifting her head from John B's chest. She pushed her hair back into place thanks to him tucking it behind her ear, and she wiped the tears from her eyes, her cheeks heating with heat. Eden began to stare at the wall, feeling the boy staring at her with sadness mixed with anger towards Caden. "There was that look in his eyes when I wanted to run away. John B, I had to act like nothing was hurting me but . . . I was so scared. I didn't want to die, I didn't know if I was going to make it."

"I'm so sorry I let you go that night. I should have realized that Ward was saying things just to turn me against you." He blurted out suddenly, feeling terrible about everything that had happened the night he learned what Ward had done to his father on the boat. He sighed lightly, running his hand through his hair. "I was such a fool, Eden. I can't believe what I did."

Eden smiled as she was still capable of doing, facing the sincerely sorry face of John B who no longer dared to look at her. "It's okay." She told him in a voice he thought came straight from a dream. She had been acting so sweet towards him for days, and he didn't really understand why. "Ward is indeed capable of brainwashing people. Fred for example. He made him believe that I was doing drugs with some Kooks, and everything I said was taken as a lie. I think he will always be one step ahead of us." She supposed, shrugging her shoulders, now relaxed by the loud tears she had just shed.

After these revelations, Eden let her head fall into her hands, and her hair fell on either side of her face, which completely hid her face from John B. And he took that moment to go back for a moment. A lot has happened to him over the past few days, even weeks. In fact, ever since he started this treasure hunt, everything around him began to tremble with danger. There were guys in his house, a gun pointed at him by an old lady, a murder . . . It was a lot to take on for a sixteen-year-old boy without parents, but at least he had these friends who were always there to help him when things got too bad. He counted himself more than lucky to have such incredible people there for him in this treasure hunt. He really needed to feel well surrounded and not alone.

But apart from his friends, there was also her. Her childhood best friend who happened to become her enemy, only to come back to them and turn his entire life upside down for a second time. When they were little, their relationship was formally pure friendship with no love other than the love of two best friends. Then there was this fake relationship thing that ruined everything. They became enemies, separating their paths in life into two completely different ones. But a year later, Eden Winslow reappeared in the group, and it created an explosion in the simple life of John B Routledge. He has never fallen in love with a person like he did for her since he was fourteen when she asked him to become her fake boyfriend to get away from a boy.

Because yes, he was in love with her like he had never been with anyone. She had this funny energy, this habit of being stubborn, this way of being sarcastic to demonstrate her annoyance. Her smirk every time she tried not to show her laughter. How she always puts her hair back when something bothered her. Her way of protecting her people, of wanting to defend good persons. This . . . kind of lights up every time she does something stupid and thinks she's funny. He loved everything about her, but there was something that kept him from saying it. Maybe because the time he tried to confide in her, she left for a year. He didn't want to lose her again. He couldn't lose her again after everything they had just been through together.

"Hey . . ." She called out to him softly, snapping him out of his thoughts that were only focused on her and what he would like to say to her. "What's wrong? You seemed far away in thought." She noticed, her eyes worriedly as she stared at him to find out what was wrong.

"Nothing. It's just, um, all of this is very complicated to live with." He lied, but now completely, clearing his throat, and she saw how his attitude had suddenly changed. She gave him a look. He turned his face towards her. "What?"

    Eden sat better in her place, and raised her eyebrows."I know you better than anyone so, tell me what's on your mind, John." She pointed out to him, which silenced him, and Eden could sense that he was going to say something she didn't expect.

    He hesitated for seconds, thinking if he should really tell her what was going on in his head or just lie so as not to start this discussion now when the police are outside after them. But, he was always honest with her, he always told her how he felt with her without ever really telling her. Maybe it was the right time. He grumbled after running his hand through his strands of hair, "You wanna know what's on my mind? Just you."

    Eden's eyes widened slightly, as she buried his answer in her head. She was on his mind. Her, and no one else. She didn't quite understand what that meant, so she stammered, "Wh— What do you mean?"

    "It means since our kiss in the bedroom, I can't stop thinking about you. About us." He explained to her briefly, hoping that she would understand with those words alone, but she didn't. She stood confused, her eyebrows furrowed nicely. "I mean . . . what's going on? What's going on between us? Why did you kiss me that night?" He interrogated further, questioning floating across his facial features. "And why do you keep risking your life for me? Eden, you put yourself in danger I don't know how many times just to prove my innocence."

"You put yourself in danger for me too, John B." She replied, shaking her head in disbelief of what he had just said. "You stood in front of a plane that was about to take off, piloted by a completely crazy guy. You tried to save me, and I wouldn't have the right to do the same?" She added, getting angry at what he was insinuating in the face of what she had done to get him out of this mess.

"That's not what I said." He retorted, turning his brown eyes to the wooden floor that only creaked with their every movement. He seemed irritating, as Eden rather was. Something wouldn't come out from between his lips, and it haunted him. "Tell me what the kiss meant to you."

"What?" She asked, unsure of this question, her face completely filled with lines of confusion.

"That night, you came into my room after crying about something I still don't know. You asked me if you could kiss me. I accepted, and we slept together. Well, not slept-slept together, but you know what I mean." He reminded her of this, that she herself had been replaying herself over and over since it happened. "Why did you want to kiss me? And why did you kiss me?

    "I don't know. I was looking for comfort, John B. I don't . . ." She stopped talking when she realized what she had just said, and noticed the boy getting up from the mattress. "That's not what I meant. Look, I had just discovered something, and for the past two months, the only person who has always been there for me was you." She justified herself. She saw him turn his back to her, and she grimaced at that. She didn't understand why his attitude suddenly changed. She stood on her own two legs, two meters away from him. "John B, what's going on? Talk to me."

    "No, you talk to me." He protested, turning his whole body towards her, and she saw a glint in his eyes. It wasn't anger, but a light that she couldn't understand. For one of the rare times, she couldn't know the why of his feelings right now, she couldn't understand him. "Eden, you already know what I think of you. But I don't know if you're just playing with me. You told me you wouldn't leave again, I believe you. But what am I to you? I'm your comfort, your friend? I need to understand what's going on between us."

    "You really want to do this right now? In the house where I was kidnapped, with the police sirens in the background?" She asked him, the substance of her words mixed with irony. He nodded, lips pursed together. "All right. I protected you and risked my life because I refuse to see you go to prison. I refuse for you to take Rafe Cameron's place, and spend the next years between bars. I took this decision because I can't stand the idea that you could end up far away from me a second time." She spoke loudly and intensely to make sure those words entered and never left his head. "What about you? Why did you stand in front of that plane?"

    He didn't even take the time to think about his answer as it was already crossing the space between his lips, "For you. Because the simple idea of ​​never seeing you again made me lose my mind." She batted her long eyelashes, trying to find stability on her two legs, weak from all the running she had done for days. He took a step closer to her. "I didn't even think when I drove onto the tarmac, because all I thought about . . . was you."

    "What's in your voice? Why do you seem angry at me?" She questioned him, raising her arms in the air, annoyed at not understanding.

"Because you act like nothing happened, Eden!" He exclaimed, the tone in his voice rising a notch as she took a moment to step back to take it in.

    "John B, I'm not acting like it didn't happen. We just never had time to talk about it." She answered him, her hands on her hips.

"That's not just that. It's . . ." His voice was lost in the silence of the room, while he stared at Eden with intensity like he had never done before. "You don't know that what I feel about you is the same thing I felt a year ago." He started slowly, even though his voice was strained by his heavy, exhaling breaths that didn't stop. "You . . . you're so . . . you."

"Is this a bad thing?" She paused the discussion, her mind beginning to doubt of herself.

    But John B instantly reassured her as if he had read her. He shook his head, correcting her, "No. Everything about you is . . . like an magnet to me. I can't go a single second without the constant need to be by your side, to get on your nerves just to get your attention, to make you smile to take away all the this pain in you." He met Eden's warm gaze boring into his eyes, seeing her completely silent and wordless. "You don't know that—"

"You think I don't feel everything like you do?" She retorted by cutting him off, taking a small step towards him, enough so that they were only a meter apart. "Why do you think I continued to come see you after the first accident at the Chateau? Why would I kiss you on the beach? Why would I continually put my own life in danger like I never have done? Why, do you think, John B?" He didn't respond, his hand trying to grab Eden's, but he retraced his movements. "I know everything I do seems completely crazy. I know it, John B. But it's because . . . I can't do without you anymore." She paused in her loud words to the boy in front of her, and continued with a slight laugh in her throat, "You were the first boy I loved. And . . . even if I tried not to think about it anymore, or to just hate you like you did for me, I couldn't."

"I never hated you." He admitted in just one too short breath. Eden frowned as usual when she couldn't interpret what that meant. "I saw you making your life with the Kooks, so I decided to try to hate you like you did. But, even though you were far from me, you were always close in my thoughts. And this summer, it just happened to prove that I never stopped thinking about you." His jaw clenched as Eden tried to understand the potential meaning of his words. "You . . . you are the girl that I truly like of all people."

    "You like me?" Eden's heart was beating furiously, but not out of fear or stress, but because perhaps this was the moment she had been waiting for for weeks.

"No. I love you."

Eden's entire body fell to the ground as these last few words echoed in both of her ears. She could hear it over and over again, and something awoke inside her as she stared at John B with her mouth half open, her eyes firmly planted on his which darkened as he looked at her completely silent. It was a sentence she had wanted to hear come out of his lips so much that she couldn't believe he was finally saying it. John B loved her, he had just told her. But he didn't stop at that.

"I love everything about you, Eden." John B whispered, his voice a little unsure of what he had just confessed. He had faced this same situation before, and it hadn't ended well. He just hoped she wasn't playing this time. "I love your so damn beautiful smile, your laugh when I manage to crack a good joke, your frown every time you're lost. I love your whole personality. You're whole you. I've loved you for too long and . . . I— I can't deny it anymore. I need you to know it, because I have no idea how this story is going to end." He confessed to her, his expression calming after finally expressing his feelings to the girl who stood straight in front of him. "And . . . I don't know if you'll want to take that chance, 'cause I'm aware of your lack of confidence in love, and in yourself, but know that I'll wait for you. No matter how long it takes, I'll be there—"

He was suddenly cut off when Eden took two steps in his direction, and placed her hands on his waist, bringing him close enough to her that she could place her lips on his with as much pleasure as she could transmit to him. John B stiffened for a second, his eyebrows raised upwards. She thought for a moment that she had made a mistake, so she slowly freed herself, but John B caught her by the waist and his hand on her cheek, pressing his lips to hers once again. Eden melted into this kiss before she felt something explode in her stomach. Thousands of butterflies exploded, and she felt herself losing control of her movements.

The kiss was a mix between sweetness and the pressing desire to say what was on their hearts. Eden didn't think when she rushed towards John B, but when she heard that movie-like statement leave his lips, she didn't know what to do more than just act before he says no more. And she didn't regret it. The kisses were always gentle although he knew how to take to deepening the kiss. Massaging Eden's cheek with his thumb, he pushed her body against his, pulling her completely towards him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, playing with his hair that went down to the beginning of his neck, continuing to pour out her love for him in this kiss.

John B grabbed her hips in a gentle motion, catching another kiss from her as she was about to fall to the ground at the sensation of what she was feeling at that very moment. Eden separated for a second, letting her hands fall on his shoulders which were now very relaxed. The tension hung in the air of the room, both breathtaking. Her forehead fell to John B's, and he played with strands of her hair as she caught her breath. "Does this mean that—"

"Yes." She hurried, smiling. "Yes, I love you too, John B Routledge." She said it loud and clear, a more than electric and joyful smile hanging on her lips, then even she had difficulty understanding how she had gotten to where she was.

Eden had never been the best when it came to love. With everything her mother told her when she was younger, she formed a bubble around herself to protect others from getting too attached to her. She thought for a long time that she was just a burden in people's lives, that she would end up hurting them. And that's what happened. Even with a shell around her and her feelings, she managed to hurt John B by escaping from him and what he felt for her. But . . . Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

Eden had the right to this second chance because she chose a boy who would always be waiting for her on the other side of the door, on the other side of the ocean, or even in another universe. John B Routledge would always be the one Eden would choose to give her heart to a boy. All her love was for him, and she couldn't deny it. Even while trying once again this summer to avoid it, he created a path close to her and showed her that he was always going to be there. Even when she wanted to create a new personality to please people, John B saw the real her. He saw her, and he will always see her. During this summer, Eden realized the mistake she had made the first time. Her mistake had been overheard by what her mother threw in her face day and night, which created a problem with her self-confidence, John B was right about that. But she managed to pull herself together and talk about her problems. She understood that . . . it was never her fault.

"But—" She contradicted, making John B anxious and looking up at her with brown eyes, afraid of what she was going to say. "I'm not your girlfriend." He stared at her confused, and she quickly clarified, "I don't want to have the pressure of the girlfriend in all this. I want to . . . help you like I did before. And after all this, we'll see."

    "Do you love me?" He asked, hands on her cheeks.

    She stuttered, not sure she understood what he meant. Maybe he hadn't heard it the first time. "Yes, I just told you. Are you deaf or some—"

    "Then that's enough for me." He told her, and a smile formed on his face, as on hers which lit up at the sight of her so happy.

authors note: AAAHHH THAT'S HAPPENING GUYSSS!! I'm actually so stressed about posting this chapter, but I really hope this love confession was on point 🤭 Eden who doesn't want to be considered as John B's girlfriend for now is just for the little thing I planned in book 2... Don't be mad at me!! They're gonna be together soon <3

Me literally at anytime John B opened his mouth in this chapter :

Did I just do a WHOLE chapter just for them?? Totally and I'm perfectly fine with this 😘 There's two/three chapters left...and...I hope you're ready for it...

Love you all and take care of yourself until next time . . . See you soon <3