Truth is all relieving

I stood next to the lighthouse, the cold nipping at my skin. "Brr," I shiver. It was 8:15, where was he?

I wrap my arms around my waist, shivering, I should've stayed in my car... It was as cold as death out here.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, I just had to do something," A rather tense voice informs.

I turn in the direction of the voice to see Alex. "Why didn't you just text me?" I question.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't," he apologises, his eyes showing the guilt he had.

"You know what… You say we need to talk, you say we need to clear things up and in due time everything will be revealed, but, this 'secrecy' affects me. This secrecy involves me. I feel like I am walking blind into shark-infested water and you're not even telling me I'm going to dive right in!" I spit, my tone was annoyed.

"I don't want you involved!" He hisses

"Well I already am! This third-party person involved me!" I yell, pointing at my phone to the glowing screen full of messages from this unknown person.

"Why do we always fight? It wasn't like that before," He says sombrely, his hand reaching up to his face, rubbing his temple.

"Because you hide so much from me, you didn't before and if you want to be friends the least you could do is trust me!" I say hurt, not only did it affect him, it affected me. I had no idea what danger or what I was in and he wouldn't even tell me.

"Fine! You really want to know?!" He yells, annoyance bubbling in his eyes.

"YES! Finally, something you can do right!" I spit, I then shut my mouth, knowing exactly what I had said.

"Something I can do right?" He growls, his hands softened and his eyes dropped, he was hurt. Before long he built up a wall again and his whole body radiated anger.

"Wait! I-I didn't mean that!" I call out, he was turning away from me, walking back up the hill that was placed right next to the glowing lighthouse.

"Stop!" I scream, he didn't. He kept walking.

I decided to chase after him in fear he'd hurt himself driving. "Please stop!" I plead, my hands grabbing his arm.

"Leave me alone Evelyn," He groans.

"Stop trying to fix everything, stop getting involved…" He retorts, his voice calming down. His eyes failed to look at mine.

"I never wanted to get involved," I mutter, my grip dropping.

"Maybe it's better if we never met, it would make both our lives uncomplicated," He drones, his head looking on the gravelled road.

"W-what.." I gasp.

"You heard me," He says slightly more confident now and it stung, it hurt me, it reminded me of what had happened many a time ago.

"No, no, no you are not doing this again!" I hiss, I let go of his arm angrily and stomp off.

Anger bubbled in me and I ran, I ran so fast down the bridge, across the beach to my car. "This was the last warning; never would I ever trust Alex ever again.

*

I know what he said shouldn't have affected me, but it did. All I wanted to do was lay in bed for a little while. I knew I shouldn't, my body have fallen into a deep slumber, an unknowing sadness and all my mind wanted to do was think about him.

"No, no more of this stupidity! You will not let him affect you like he had 10 years ago," I scream at myself, looking at my dishevelled hair and blotted eyes in the mirror.

I turned to my draws, lifting up a black hairbrush and roughly untangling its knots. "Urg," I moan.

I looked at my reflection, my usually hazel eyes were bloodshot. I held heavy bags under my eyes, contrasting my pale skin. My thin fingers grasped at the black lead of the hair brush, raking it through my usually vibrant chestnut hair.

"What have I done?" I murmur to myself, I then figured I should go out, somewhere peaceful, somewhere I could be alone and collect my thoughts.

Once I strained my hair, I twirled my locks into little waves, then rushing to my closet to place some black combat boots, cream flared sweats and a short sleeve black skivvy. The sweats hugged my thighs but loosened beneath my knee, and my skivvy held little patterns, the same colour; black. I grabbed my purse, placing my phone, lip-balm and some change before heading out the door, keys in hand. The car clicked and before long I drove to the destination I so longed to see for a while, the zoo.

Yes, it was probably very childish but the peace of watching families and animals roam around, playing and laughing made me calm, weird? I guess so, but I didn't care.

I had made my way to the ticket booth, "Attendees?" a scrawny young man questioned.

"One," I said almost immediately, his black hair was curved to the side and his circular orbs were almost a pale green.

He smiled, "One ticket up, enjoy your day!"

I smiled, "Thank you, you too!" before rushing off.

I had beelined straight for the butterfly sanctuary, pushing the door in and glancing around at the dancing colours floating above my head and around the place.

I sighed, closing my eyes, "funny seeing you here," a voice joked.

I turned, rolling my eyes, "Alex.."

I turned my heel and went straight down the stairs, "Can you wait! I wanted to apologise," He starts, reaching for my arm but I pulled it away. "You said it was best we never met, let's stick to it!" I hiss, before walking off, now all I wanted to do was leave and go home.

As I ran down the cobbled road, leading back to the main area, my phone beeped.

…: Stop. Can you stop running!

Me: Leave me alone…

…: Stop acting like a child.

Me: No Alex, you stop acting like a child, fess up!

To that I received no reply and made it back through the gate to hear a "that was quick," mumble from the ticket guy to which I replied, "Yeah," and I walked straight to my car.

"Oh my god, you are fast," A voice pants.

"Jesus, stop following me!" I yell

"No! I need to say my peace,"

"Don't talk to me when you can't even communicate with me properly!" I hiss

"Okay, fine…" he mumbles.

I raise my eyebrows, "Hm?"

"My parents got affiliated with some gang, now of course you were a huge threat to this gang, I'm not sure why, but, I think it had something to do with your father and the information he knew. Anyway… the gang had threatened my parents that they would kill me if I hadn't broken up with you, my mother had taken this to heart and immediately told me to stop seeing you, I couldn't say anything to you that day because they were watching this was the day I was supposed to end it, to break you. I could never tell you because until recently they had been keeping tabs on me, I had outrun them and eventually they started contacting you. The more you know the more danger you're in, they're probably here right now, although I have tried hard to escape them," He spurts out, eventuating in him taking a deep breath.

My eyes widened, "Never would I have thought it would've been this bad, maybe I thought you had gotten involved in something, but, never something this big," I sigh, biting my lower lip.

He reached for my hand, "Now that you know does it make you feel better?" He questions, obviously relieved that he had told me.

I nod and gulp, "Now that I know do you feel a huge weight off your shoulders?" I ponder, rubbing my thumb in little circles on his palm.

He nods and then looks down at my lips with such hunger.

"Can I?" He asks, looking into my eyes wanting to claim his on mine.

I pull him towards me and plant a passionate kiss on his, my lips tingling from the sheer contact of him on me.