The Promise of Tomorrow - 8

Heya people!
Just a quick thanks to my commenters and a reminder that this story will be finished very, very soon! A few of you said it reminds you of the totally amazing movie A Walk to Remember, and I agree, but that's what I felt like writing at the time, so I wrote it! Hope you guys aren't too mad with me - my next story will be a completley different and won't be as depressing.
......I think.
:)
p.s; Love you, too, Miniman, but you know that already! :)
p.p.s: Guys, all of you are wrong. I'm much, much younger than anything anyone mentioned. Pheobe was the closest. I don't know why I tried to hide my age - I guess I thought it would change people's opinions on my stories if they knew I was so young. But now, I kind of want to get the secret out, especially since Gabriella something-or-the-other copied my work from Buzzle and used it as her own. When she was confronted, she kept on repeating 'I'm only fourteen, I'm doing my best for my age, I'm sorry, I'm only fourteen'. In actual fact, she was older than me about the time that Fatal Attraction (the story she copied) was written, so she was trying to defend herself with her young age to someone who was younger than her!
I've only just turned fourteen myself!
:)
Hope this won't put you off my stories, because as you can see, I'm quite mature for my age. ;)
Love all of you guys and please comment on this cuz it will make my day!
So, finally.......
Enjoy!

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

I couldn’t face school the next day. Or the next. Blaze came. Mum told me he left numerous messages on the machine when she didn’t pick up. She said he sounded sad. When he first visited, mum turned him away, saying I didn’t want to see anybody. The second time he came, he simply set up camp on our lawn.

She told me that he went to school, but that was about it. He came back and sat there, waiting for me. He even slept there. Mum felt bad for him. She left food out on the porch. She told me I’d found a keeper. I had looked at her with tear filled eyes and shook my head.

"Shame he hasn’t."

After a week of wallowing, she sent me back to school. I drifted through class and avoided Blaze, which was hard seeing as I sat centimetres away from him in registration. He tried to get me to talk, captured my face in his hands, but I turned away every time. I was silent, my lips pressed together in a hard line.

I cried during break and lunch, curled up on a toilet seat so nobody could see my feet. My face pressed into my knees so nobody could hear my sobs.

I began to feel achy. More than usual, bruises were appearing everywhere. My period came faster and heavier. I knew what this was. It was getting worse. I was tired all the time now. I wanted to curl up and sleep. I wanted to curl up and sleep and never wake up again.

I walked to my classes like a ghost, feet barely touching the ground. I had lost my appetite and was a whole lot thinner now. It didn’t bother me. Who did I have to maintain my body for? No – that wasn’t fair. Blaze never ever gave up on me.
He was always there. He walked me to classes silently, even though I wouldn’t talk to him. He waited for me outside the girls’ toilets when I was done crying, to see if I was all right.

One day, after a hard crying session, I pushed through the bathroom door to see … no one. No one at all. I didn’t blame him. There was only so much you could hang on to. And my behavior really was inexcusable.

Then, as quick as lightening, Blaze shot out of nowhere and grabbed me. He lifted me clean off the ground and dashed back into the closet he had materialised from. I was light as a feather, but he was breathing hard. Not from the exertion of carrying me, I saw.

His eyes were bright with tears and his face lined with sadness.

"Ella." He whispered in a way that you might sigh, and then, for once without asking for my permission, he leant down and kissed me.

No matter how weak I was, I was able to exercise the appropriate response to this. Which was to reach up and run my hands through his hair, to pull him down closer to me. I pressed myself into him. Part of me was marveling at the cliche situation (making out in the janitors closet) but every other part was concentrated on him.

Every drop of blood yearned for him, and I moved myself in his arms so I could wrap my legs around his waist and lock my arms around his neck. He kissed me back with a rising level of enthusiasm. I was suddenly too hot for the confines of my once perfectly comfortable clothes.

I wanted him in every way before I lost him in every way.

When we finally pulled apart, both of us were breathing raggedly, and his face was a mirror of mine; flushed, confused, deprived.

"E-Ella – w-what is this?" he stammered, pulling me against his chest and wrapping his arms around me so tightly that I couldn’t have escaped had I wanted to. Which I most definitely did not want to.

Then I was serious again, and my eyes filled up in the same way that they had so many times those past few weeks.

"Blaze, I have to tell you something."

He took it harder than I thought he would. The memory of his eyes filling up with tears and his face crumpling will forever haunt me. Well, not forever haunt me. Will haunt me till the end of my days and then beyond, if there is a beyond.

He had dropped my hand and stepped back. He was shaking his head in denial.

"No." he whispered. It broke my heart, but he had to know. I nodded.

"Yes."

That was when he turned and burst out of the closet, without another word, without another look in my direction. I ran after him, sobbing again.

He was on the lawn, his face in his hands. When I sat beside him, not touching him, he lifted it. I saw tears. I saw desolation.

With a strangled sound from his throat, he pulled me roughly into his arms and held me tightly. We cried together.

"I’m sorry." I managed to choke out between sobs. "I’m so, so sorry."

"I love you." Was his only reply.

A teacher passed by once, and saw us hunched there on the lawn, evidently cutting class. She walked over and was about to tell us off when Blaze raised his face. It was more beautiful than ever through his devastation - his eyes shone with unshed tears and his cheeks were flushed a healthy pink.

She then glanced at me and instant understanding changed her face. All the teachers were obliged to know about my condition nowadays; she left with tears in her own eyes.

"Why didn’t you tell me from the start?" Blaze asked, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms even tighter around my waist. I pressed my face into his neck and breathed deeply. His scent comforted me; it was a mixture of aftershave, washing detergent and him.

"I’m sorry," I repeated, not having any sane answer for him. He let out a little cry and hugged me tighter. This made the lump in my throat more prominent, and soon we were crying again.

"So, are you d-dying?" he asked when we regained our breath. It was hard for him to get the words out, I could tell - his expression was so strained that my tears welled up again. I reached up and smoothed his frown lines out.

"Yes." I said truthfully, my voice hoarse from all the crying.

"Come with me." He said, pulling me up. He drove us down the familiar path to our special, secret place - the stream. We walked slowly and silently; we wanted to revel in our togetherness, now that we knew that there wasn’t much time left. It was like there was a limit put on our relationship, and we were dragging it out, trying to make it last longer.

In the same silence, we undressed to our underwear and slipped into the pond. He put his arms around me and pulled me into the deepest part of the water. We floated, not talking, not kissing, just touching.

I dunked my head under, and he followed. In was ethereal under there – the water swallowed us up, so it was like the real world didn’t exist anymore. My hair floated around me, and then around him as he smiled a weak smile and pulled me to his chest.

I laughed, and bubbles escaped my mouth and floated to the surface. Blaze placed his hands on my hips and pressed me into him, landing light kisses on my shoulder and neck. Still laughing, I pulled away and swam to the surface. We both took in gulps of air before returning to our underwater world.

It was beautiful and peaceful there, like a dream, or maybe death. I kissed him; he tasted of clean water and peppermints. I tangled all my limbs with his till we were unrecognizable as two bodies. His skin felt like silk under the water - even all the wonderful calluses on his hands. I explored him with a tentative touch.

My fingers found the hills and valleys of his obvious six pack, and then the round, hard curves of his biceps. He shuddered lightly beneath my skin, and then he did some investigation of his own. His hands made trails of fire all over me as he explored the curves of my shoulders, my waist and hips, and then my legs.

We swam to the top so we could breathe, but his hands still claimed what I had long since decided was his. I leaned over and kissed him as he moved his fingertips lightly down my thigh, then to the back of my knee to hitch me up around his waist. I obeyed more than willingly, hooking the other leg around as well so I could reach his lips easily.

The feel of his hands of my back, pressing me into him, was enough to drive me crazy. This was heaven - a taste of heaven - and I would be bumped back down to earth soon. That was not something I wanted. I wanted him, and him alone, forever.

"I love you." I said between kisses, and he groaned softly.

"Why?" he whispered into my mouth. His breath tasted sweet and warm. It felt so right that I would be breathing in what he breathed out.

"You became my everything. How could I not fall in love with you?" I whispered back, stroking the wet tendrils of hair on his forehead away gently.

His eyes glowed a dark, brooding brown; the green no longer visible in the sunset.

"Am I really the one you want to spend your last moments with?" he asked, and his voice cracked twice. I wiped away the tear that had escaped onto his cheek.

"You’re the one I need to spend my last moments with."

His mouth got pretty busy after that, and soon talking had become impossible.