Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 51: The Library

Seth

By the time we reach at the library, I'm flushed, breathing hard, and my muscles are aching. It doesn't help that I took a ridiculously round-about way to get here, trying to lose anyone following us while simultaneously avoiding places where an abundance of people could spot us.

Joshua fell silent some time ago. Sullen, defeated, furious silence that feels like a brewing storm over my shoulder. Every moment approaching the library, I felt ready for it to crack over my head, and for him to kick his away out of my grasp. But he never does, and I don't know if it's reassuring or even more nerve-wracking.

His silence left more room for me to think, and thus more room for my thoughts to consume me. We lost his father around the same time Joshua stopped yelling at me, and that's when the guilt started to eat me alive. It's a heavy, acidic weight in my chest heavier than Joshua himself, and no matter how fast I run or how far I go, I can't shake it.

I'm stealing him away, becoming the monster everyone sees inside me, a monster even while like this, while appearing human. Joshua's father will never accept me now, and I've just made Joshua's choice all the more stark. I've destroyed any middle ground there might have been by kidnapping him, and the knowledge makes my stomach churn.

I want nothing more than to stop and make sure Joshua isn't mad at me. Now that we seem to be in the clear, I need to know. The world could be against me, but as long as Joshua stands by me, I'll be okay. I'll be okay.

But what if he's not with me anymore? The question keeps nagging me, refusing to leave, only finding more ammunition in Joshua's silence. What if this was the tipping point to change his mind? What if he no longer wants to be with me, no longer wants to help me find my kind?

By the time we reach the library, I'm short of breath, and it's only partly because of all the running. My throat is closing up in my worries, and it's hard to breathe. I'm simultaneously relieved and terrified when I finally slow, because I can finally set Joshua down. Which also means I can finally find out just how furious he is with me.

His hands are pressing into the small of my back, looped over the brim of my pants, and it'd probably make me incredibly flustered if not for the incredible anxiety distracting me. He's straining to look around me to the library, and as we pass the pillars that make up the front of the building, he finally speaks up.

"Put me down." He says, his voice like gravel down my spine.

I immediately do so.

Behind one of the pillars, I crouch to let him off my shoulder. As he slides off, he stumbles a step, and I move to help him, but he swipes my hands away, even while pointedly not meeting my gaze. His face is almost as flushed as mine, and I realise only now how uncomfortable that had to have been for him, hanging upside down for so long.

I bite my lip hard enough it hurts, and I wish for the hundredth time today I'd thought of some other way to diffuse the situation, or that I hadn't suggested we go out at all. Joshua was right after all... This was a terrible idea.

Closing his eyes, Joshua presses a hand against the pillar, leaning into it as though his head is rushing, which it probably is.

I fidget restlessly, glancing repeatedly around him, positive someone's following us, or watching us. I don't see anyone though.

Gazing at Joshua again, my anxiety overwhelms me. I know it'd probably be best to leave him be, to let him simmer down on his own, but I can't stop myself. The question is out before I can think about whether I'm ready for an answer.