Torn

Chapter 19 - Stitching Up Old Wounds

Chapter 19
Stitching Up Old Wounds

A/N - This is the second to last chapter guys, meaning the next update will be the final chapter of Torn. I hope you guys enjoy (: 

As much as I realized I didn’t want to run, I did.

But it wasn’t because I was fearful of Flynn and his confession. To be honest, the amount of fluttering occurring in my stomach was enough to make anyone sick. The way his voice was raspy, his hair disheveling in the wind, and his deep baby blues absorbing me by the second, what girl would be stupid enough to turn away from that?

It all should have been enough to make me want to stay, enough to make take this opportunity head on, but it wasn’t. So many scenarios flashed through my mind when he uttered those three, far from simple, words. The issue of trusting him was in the forefront, replacing my constant fears of Frank coming to get me. Instead of fearing hate and violence…I feared love. I knew my heart practically belonged to Flynn, that part wasn’t hard to decipher. After all, through everything him and I had been through, I’d stuck around just enough to make him a major part of my life.

I couldn’t erase the look on his face when I turned away. While jogging away in the midst of the cold night, I watched his face fall when those three words that meant everything to him didn’t fall from my lips. Maybe he had finally thought he was enough for me, that I was done being scared of whatever Flynn was giving me. But I was just confused, and stuck in the tug of war of indecision. I didn’t know if it was possible to trust Flynn with my heart. My own father threw me away like a paper bag in the wind, so what made Flynn any different. He was a man, he was hot-tempered, and he was indecisive just like me. He hadn’t even broken up with Olivia until the months following our kiss.

How did I know he really loved me?

I spent the night tossing and turning, the picture of his dropped jaw and agonizing eyes imprinted in my brain. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, what with the creaking of the floorboards still making me nervous and my wandering mind of decisions. When I finally decided to pull myself out of my crumpled bed sheets, the house was eerily still. Usually, my mother was making a mess in the kitchen, pots and pans banging against marble countertops and stoves. But today, it was stiffly silent.

I crept downstairs, my fingers gently grazing the walls as I went. I winced as my feet creaked against the floorboards, the sound not even matching Frank’s combat boots against the wood. Peeking around the archway to the kitchen, I noticed my mother with her head leaning against her palm and papers in her other hand. She was sitting at the dining table, with a contorted face filled with so many different emotions. Her coffee cup was steaming as I walked closer, emitting the smell of a fresh brew. Silently, I sat down on the chair next to hers, trying to glance over the papers.

After a few long moments, she finally placed down the bundle of papers with a heavy sigh. Her dark, anxious eyes met mine and increased my heart rate. What exactly was hidden beneath the lines of those papers? She looked so worn out and exhausted that I felt sorry for putting her through all of this. Thinking back to it, she must have missed the life she created in the city. If she never came back to check up on me, she would still be in her comfortable home with all of her friends there for support. Now, because of crappy timing and drunken husbands, she was stuck taking care of the girl who was missing a father.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice timid and anxious.

She slid a single sheet of paper over to me, but I refused to look at it. I wanted to see why she looked so distraught and anxious. I wanted her to tell me herself what was really going on. My eyes never left hers as I waited for her mouth to move.