‘Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light.

I have loved the stars too fondly, to be fearful of the night,’

- Sarah Williams, (The Old Astronomer)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When Azelie woke up, she found herself not wanting to open her eyes. Last night had been one of her good nights, the nights where she got some sleep and didn’t have any of her usual nightmares. The reasons for this, well he was sleeping right next to her. She slowly opened her eyes to find him looking sleepily at her, a silly smirk playing on his lips. God, she loved him.

“Good morning,” he mumbled, his voice still full of tiredness. Azelie found it hard to not physically swoon at his voice, Jesus, Cole was hot in the morning. His arms were wrapped around her body, holding her close to him as she looked up at him, returning the smile.

“Morning,”

“No nightmares last night?” he asked, as Azelie began to yawn, rolling from her side and onto her back as she stretched her arms out. Cole removing his arms so she could move freely.

“Not a single one,” She answered, “Sleeping with you always seems to stop them,” Azelie added, looking back at him, his green eyes shining.

“Sleeping with me?” He repeated her words, the smile on his lips turning into a confident smirk, “So we slept together... I must have been very drunk last night because that memory seems to have escaped my mind and I’m certain that would be something I remember,”

“Shut up you asshole! You know what I mean! Stop twisting my words,” She cried, turning onto her side and slapping him lightly on the bare chest that wasn’t covered by the bed sheets. Azelie somehow managed to hold back the drool. She loved how normal this all seemed, them sleeping together. With other teenagers, sleeping together would mean sex; but with Azelie and Cole, well it meant literally sleeping together, “And speaking of you being an asshole,” Azelie added, pushing herself up from the bed.

“Shit... I was hoping you had gotten drunk enough to forget about that,” Cole swore, realising that she had remembered.

“Cole, don’t you think you drunk enough for the both of us last night?” She replied sarcastically, “What was wrong, and don’t give me your usual bullshit - after the events of last night, I think I’ve earned the right to know what’s going on,”

Cole let out a sigh as he pushed himself up straight, and leaned back on the headboard of the bed. The bed cover slipped down more to reveal more of his chest, which resulted in Azelie chanting over and over in her head, telling herself that she was angry at him and to not, under any circumstanced look down at his chest.

“You’ll freak out if I tell you,” he sighed. He couldn’t tell her yet, not until everything was certain. There was a chance that everything had been a huge mix up, Nothing was for sure yet, he wanted to wait until then. But then last night.. all his old feelings came back again, and he couldn’t handle them. He knew that if they were right, he was going to have months more of the anger and sadness, and he just wanted to withhold everything, for one night. One night where he could escape everything, all the possibilities. So he drunk the pain away, and got angry at Azelie when she tried to get him to explain everything. She was reminding him of everything, so he pissed her off so she would leave him alone. Obviously, Azelie had different plans.

“So? Don’t I freak out about everything?” Azelie questioned, not seeing how serious the thing that was bugging Cole was. He glanced at her for a moment, and she sent him a small smile as she shuffled slightly closer to him, leaning back to resting her head on his shoulder, giving her a great view of his chest. So much for not looking.

“Look, the thing that’s bugging me... it might not be something to be worried over, you know, it might be a mistake. I’ll be finding out tonight, so if it’s something to be worried over, I’ll come over and talk to you and tell you then, okay?” Cole explained. He really was going to need Azelie if it was true. He wouldn’t be able to go through this alone. Azelie nodded slowly, understanding Cole. No point in worrying her if there was nothing to worry over, right?

Azelie glanced at the clock on his bedside unit which told her that it was 8am and she suddenly realise that the longer she stayed with Cole, the longer she risked being caught sneaking in by Ted, who wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for the ‘I fell asleep at Kelly’s’ excuse. She pushed herself away from Cole and out of the bed, running her fingers through her hair as she did, hoping that it wasn’t too knotted.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” Cole questioned, realising that she had to leave. He didn’t want her to, but he never wanted her to leave him, he just knew he would have to accept it.

“Are you sure you’re not still drunk? From the amount of drink you had last night you should either be still drunk now; or too hungover to drive me home,” she said with a knowing smile. “I’ll be fine walking home, you just get some painkillers down you and stay away from milk,” He just smiled warmly in reply, knowing that she was right, she usually was.

“Guess I’ll see you tonight then,” he said, watching her as she walked towards the door. She glanced back at him, her golden brown eyes meeting his green ones.

“Only if there’s something to worry about,” Azelie replied as she opened his bedroom door and slowly walking out of his room and into the hall, closing the door behind her.

Azelie crept down the hallway, constantly checking that there was nobody around to spot her. She slowly walked down the steps, praying that they wouldn’t creak under her weight, but they didn’t - she was ninja like all the way down stairs. When she finally reached the front door, she was sure that she had made it without being caught, that she was safe. Azelie opened the front door, thanking every God she could name that it wasn’t locked before suddenly somebody yelled out, Azelie freezing in fear as they did.

“GOODBYE AZELIE!” A voice shouted, “I do hope you enjoyed your little sleepover,” They added. Azelie turned her head to see Cole’s father leaning over the stairs banister with a smirk formed on his face, “Although I do hope that for all our sakes that Cole wore protection because I am not looking after what ever-”

“DAD! Shut the fuck up!” Cole shouted as he ran out from his room, practically jumping on his father to get him to stop talking. Azelie let out a little chuckle of laughter as she realised what she was doing before she was caught. She quickly left the squabbling father and son and escaped from the house. Azelie ran all the way home, barely stopping to catch her breath so she could get home without being caught by Ted.

When she reached her house, she decided not to take the risk of entering through the front door and instead decided to opt for climbing up the tree to her room, the same one that Cole had climbed to get to her room two night ago. After a little struggling to climb the tree she made it up to her window before noticing that the window was open. Azelie, at this point should have been stuck in the tree because she remembered not opening her window. Azelie hardly opened her window, apart from when Cole was climbing through it or it got too hot in her room. And since she had closed it when Cole had left yesterday morning and that it wasn’t too hot in her room since it was the middle of October, the window should have been closed. But it wasn’t. Azelie tried to think for a second about all the reasons her window would be open, but she couldn’t remember a single one. Deciding to just leave it for now, she began to move from the tree to her window, finding it easier than she had expected. However, as soon as she stepped into her room, she found her answer to why her window was open.

“Okay, that tree is getting cut down,” a voice spoke and Azelie’s head snapped to her left to find Ted sitting on her bed.

“Shit,” she swore, her eyes going wide as she tried to blink away her uncle, wondering if she was caught in one of her nightmares.

“Oh yes - shit is the right word to be using here,” Ted smirked, raising his eyebrows at his niece.

“I was at Kelly’s?” Azelie lied, although it sounded more like a question than a statement. Ted just laughed at her in reply, shaking his head at his niece.

“Sure you were, if Kelly is actually called Cole,” Ted smiled, “Did you..” he trailed off trying to figure out a way he could ask his niece without embarrassing her even more than she already was.

“OH GOD NO!” She shrieked, realising what Ted was asking, “Ted stop! For God’s sake stop! Me and Cole are just friend! Okay, just friends!” She added, her eyes growing wide as she tried to explain to Ted that her sleepover at Cole’s had been completely innocent, “Cole got a little too drunk last night so I walked him home to make sure he didn’t get killed by a car or something on the way home and when I got to his house, it was really late and I just sort of fell asleep on his couch,” she said, telling a little white lie at the end, but he didn’t need to know that. Ted opened his mouth to reply when he was interrupted by Liam whom had been woken up by Azelie’s scream of terrors.

“Ted, what are you doing to Azelie? Stop torturing the poor girl!” he cried as he stood in the doorway to her room, an eyebrow raised at Ted. A smirk grew once again on Ted’s lips as he tried to act all innocent.

“I didn’t do anything! I’m just a poor worrying uncle who is asking where his niece has been all night long,” He replied. Liam just rolled his eyes at his boyfriend, not believing him for a second.

“Just leave her alone! I bet when you were her age you would disappear for entire weekends without your parents knowing so just cut her a bit of slack!” Liam said, his words causing Ted to scoff slightly.

“Excuse me, my parents always knew where I was! It was her mother who was the party animal!” Ted lied, Azelie rolled her eyes at her uncle. She had remembered the tales from when she was growing up about her mother’s party crazy brother. Apparently, Ted had been the one who liked to go to parties and, despite being younger than her, dragged his sister along with him to influence her.

“Now I’m sure that’s not true!” Liam scolded, “Come on, Ted! Just leave her alone,” Ted let out a loud sigh as he pushed himself off Azelie’s bed, not bothering to fight back this time.

“Fine then,” He said, sounding like a stroppy teenager. “But that damn tree is getting cut down,”

“No it’s not,” Liam shouted as he turned away and walked out of Azelie’s bedroom, Ted following him out. Azelie could hear then arguing from the hall way, causing her to remember her and Cole’s fight from last night and how easily it was forgotten. One minute, they were at each other’s throats and the next, they were the best of friends. That was what she loved so much about how close they were, no matter what they were fighting about, it all really didn’t matter. They were just silly fights that brought them closer together.

Azelie lay on her bed, a million thoughts running through her head. She spent the entire day messing around her room. She finished the painting she had started on Saturday and finished off a few of the books she had started over the past few weeks but hadn’t gotten the chance to finish. Ted and Liam had been out of the house since around mid-day to go to some out of town art thing and weren’t home until after tea so she was alone for the majority of the day, living in a little bubble of peace. For the entire day, she didn’t hear anything from Cole so she assumed that whatever he had been worrying about hadn’t been worth it. It was the middle of the night and Liam and Ted where in their beds sleeping, while Azelie sat on her bed, wondering why she just didn’t kiss Cole instead of messing up the moments where they almost kissed. He had kissed her while Ted was in hospital, couldn’t she have claimed that she was getting even? The last week had been filled to the rim with ‘almost kisses’; kisses that she ran from, kisses that he run from, kisses that turned into a puddle of sick (quite literally). There were so many that it was driving Azelie mad. Just for once, she would like to relive that memory from the hospital. Just one more kiss. She could claim it was a mistake, that she ‘slipped’ and her lips just happened to fall onto his.

Azelie knew for a fact that she had totally and utterly fallen in love with Cole. She hadn’t accepted it fully, she didn’t want to. All that love was to her was pain and death... it couldn’t end like that for her and Cole. Everything was too perfect to end like that. All she wanted was to kiss him over and over until her lips grew numb - and that would be the end of it, they would go back to being friends before going to different universities and over time losing contact. Then one day she would maybe see him across the street, happily married with somebody that wasn’t broken and completely mental. Then, she realised that kissing Cole would mess everything up. It wouldn’t be as simple as she wasn’t to be. To him, they were friends and it would just have to stay that way.

A tap at the window pulled Azelie from her train of thought. She pushed herself up on her bed while looking around the room, wondering if she really heard a noise or if it was just her mind playing tricks on her. But then a second tap followed, and a smile grew on Azelie’s lips as she rolled her eyes slightly. She jumped out of her bed and ran over to her window, pulling up the blinds to reveal Cole, who was practically hanging off the tree outside her window. She pushed her window up, before stepping backwards to let Cole inside. Confusion began to wash over her emotions as she tried to figure out why he had decided to climb through her window.

“Cole, what are you doing? Why are you here? It’s 1 in the morning for god-sake! I mean seriously a girls gotta sleep!” Azelie whispered loudly at Cole, trying to keep her voice down so that she wouldn’t wake up Ted and Liam, who were sleeping down the hall. Cole just looked down at her, a smirk playing on his lips. Her mind went blank as she smiled back at him, only a single thought running around her mind.

‘I love you,’ the words choking her at the back of her throat, ready to be spoken - but of course Azelie would never try. Suddenly she remembered from everything earlier, everything about what Cole had been worrying about.

“What is it Cole? What’s wrong?” Azelie questioned, her heart pounding in her chest. Was he moving or something? Did he have a girlfriend or was there something wrong with his father or Lily? Questions raced around her mind as she waited for him to answer.

“Calm down, Azelie! Jesus! Breathe!” Cole smiled, “I don’t know yet, and I won’t know until morning,”

“Okay, I was really freaking out for a second there,” She replied with a smile playing on her lips, “But seriously - what are you doin-” she questioned him for a second time, her brown eyes not looking away from Cole for a second. She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. He wouldn’t let her and instead of interrupting her to stop her nattering on, he simply stepped forward slightly, softly wrapping his hand around to the back of her neck before his soft lips finally met her’s.

She didn’t even have time to think about anything, her mind too busy celebrating the fact that he was kissing her as her lips reacted to his automatically, not even stalling like she had back in the hospital. This time she kissed him back straight away, without even thinking about it, like it was the was the most natural thing in the world. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her thin body closer to his, trying to close any space between them. One of her hands was holding on to his hair, pulling it slightly while the other was wrapped around his neck.

Sparks flew between their lips as the kiss deepened. Azelie forgot about the concept of breathing, at this point she didn’t mind if she died from lack of oxygen, as long as she got to continue kissing him. The kiss was better than the one in the hospital, Azelie wasn’t freaking out about it this time, she had wanted this for so long, and now that it had actually happening, she never wanted to let go of him. It wasn’t just that, there was something about this kiss that made Azelie’s toes curl slightly, it was maddening, almost desperate, as if they had both been trapped in the desert for weeks without water and they had finally found water and now they never wanted to stop drinking. Azelie jumped up slightly, breaking this kiss for a second, as she wrapping her long legs around his waist, now finding herself at the same height as him, making it easier for him to kiss her. They continued to kiss, Azelie afraid to break the kiss for a moment, giving him time to realise that he was kissing her, giving him time to tell her that it was all just a mistake.

He slowly began to walk over to her bed, slowly leaning down to put her on the mattress before climbing on top, Azelie now underneath him as he continued to kiss her. Now lying on the bed, he pulled out of the kiss to look down to her, his deep green eyes full of happiness as they looked into her eyes.

“You okay?” He asked, checking if she was freaking out about the kissing. He didn’t want her to be freaking out about anything, he just wanted it to be fine and perfect. Azelie’s mind went into overdrive with sarcastic replied as she began to nod. Her? Fine? Pah - she was freaking over the moon! He had kissed her! Oh God, it was perfect! Just perfect. She didn’t care that she loved him and he didn’t love her back. It just didn’t matter for Azelie at that point. She was underneath him, and they were kissing. To say everything was fine, well, it was just a bit of an understatement.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. A smile grew on his lips as she replied as he leaning back down, their lips meeting again.

They continued for a few minutes, and although it felt like hours of bliss for Azelie, when he finally stopped kissing her, she still wanted more and more. She just wanted to continue kissing him all night until the sun finally rose. He finished with a kiss on the forehead, his lips lingering there for too long as he climbed off of her body and lay down on her bed beside her. With his arms still wrapped around her body, pulling her close to him, Azelie stretched out an arm and turned off the light next to her bed, a smile playing on her lips as she closed her eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Enjoy the good times while you can...