His hands were in my hair, his lips were on my neck, and my mind was lost to the rhythm of his heartbeat as it slammed against my chest. 

The heat from his body was a welcome change to the chill that had entered my bones through the cracks in my skin after I learned about my mother. 

The pads of his fingers as they glided along my body were a prickling balm to the distracting thoughts flowing and eddying in and out of my head.

Kalen was my distraction and my salvation, though somehow even his hands and his tongue couldn't keep me from the force of the grief sliding unbidden into my mind. 

He pulled away suddenly, noticing the way my body locked up the moment I realized it. 

"Are you okay?"

"No, not really."

I pushed the words out from swollen lips and a raspy throat. 

Kalen immediately grabbed my chin in between his hands and angled my face up towards his, analyzing the mist in my eyes and scooped me up in his arms. 

His warmth was all encompassing, something I needed even if I didn't realize it. 

He was my subconscious need and my conscious want. 

The stride from the door to his bed was unhurried and gave me an unobstructed view of navy colored walls and matching bedding, sports posters hung up all over the walls along with a few stray photo frames with both his family and his roommate's family in them. 

I noticed his father wasn't in any of the photos by his bed. 

The bed that he deposited me onto so gently it was like he viewed me as fragile or vulnerable—something breakable. 

The soft rays from the late afternoon were trying to peek through navy curtains, dust motes sparkling through the light beams like glitter. 

Kalen's eyes were on mine, but I couldn't meet him. 

The bottom of my chin quivered but still I didn't relent. 

I breathed in a ragged breath through my nose, the ache in my throat intensifying as one escaped my left eye, then two, then suddenly there was a river running down my cheeks and I couldn't stop it. 

Why couldn't I stop it?

His hands were rubbing circles on my back, but why was he comforting me when he was practically a complete stranger to me?

Why was Kalen the one making me feel safe, when no one else who was supposed to take care of me was?

My father hadn't even called me once. 

"I don't know why I'm doing this.  She didn't even w-want me.  Why should I cry over her?"

"She was a part of you—she gave birth to you.  Whether you see her as your mother or not, that still means something.  You're allowed to grieve what you could've had with her."

"There was no hope with her.  You remember that day I ran into you at that coffee shop?  That was the day she told me she wanted me to be in her wedding, not to apologize for all the shit she's put me through my entire life.  Not to apologize for abandoning me when I was a k-kid...no, because that would mean actually owning up to what she's done."

"You can still be upset about her death, though, Gracie.  And you definitely shouldn't keep it all in and try to distract yourself from it like you were trying to do with me."

"I wasn't though, I—"

"You were using my tongue as a tool of mass distraction, don't try to lie about it.  Don't worry though, I don't mind.  As long as sometime in the future you'll see me as something other than that."

"That's not all I see you as, though."

Leaning up to peer into his eyes which had softened from the burning desire to a warm navy in the dim light of his room, he reached up to cup my cheek in his hand. 

I leaned into it without thinking, not realizing just how quickly he'd become someone for me to rely on—someone I leaned into subconsciously without even realizing what I'd done. 

He brushed his thumb along my lower lip, shivers rocking through my body at the small action, his eyes searing into my very being as he kept my gaze and burned me all the way through with it. 

"It doesn't matter—I'll be your distraction, Gracie.  If it's all you want."

Was that all I wanted? 

"I...have no idea what I want."

Pressing a warm kiss on my hairline he pulled me in even closer. 

"That's fine, too.  You just let me know when you figure it out.  I'll be here."

His warmth was intoxicating, and so was his bed.  I melted into his embrace, resting my cheek on his chest. 

Wasn't this what I'd been wanting all along?  Someone to hold?  Someone to make me feel safe, to make the pain go away? 

For the first time in a long time, my mind wasn't going a million miles a minute. 

I wasn't micro-analyzing every interaction I'd had that day, agonizing over projects and essays and assignments that were due, pushing back the negative thoughts that tried to creep in anyway even despite the millions of other things I used to distract myself from them.

"Kalen?"

"Hm?"

"Distract me, please."

"And how would you like to be distracted?"

"Tell me something."

"Something like?"

"Something like...tell me your favorite memory from your childhood, and I'll tell you mine."

"Okay."

He grew silent for a while, like he was concentrating on this one specific moment, and then he spoke. 

"My mom took me to a sunflower field one time for family pictures.  My dad obviously hated it, and apparently I was being a little shit from the way my mom used to tell it, but then she stopped caring about my dad.  She threw me on her shoulders and we took pictures together without him.  She spun me around and the photographer put on some music and we danced like we didn't care that my dad was being an asshole, but he was still there in the background like a shadow on our day.  After, he went back to work and she took me out to get ice cream and she let me pick a movie to watch and let me steal all the popcorn, even though I dumped way too much salt on it.  Looking back now, I realize she was just trying to distract me from his behavior, but it ended up being one of the best days I ever remember having with her.  She was diagnosed with cancer six months after that day."

"I'm so sorry—"

"No, don't apologize.  You can tell me about your favorite childhood memory, though?"

"Oh...that might be a hard one."

He cringed as if it were his fault that my childhood, like his, hadn't been the best, but we ignored it. 

"I guess it was a few years ago, I was twelve.  My dad was in rehab again and Franny's parents had taken us all to dinner to celebrate after one of Colby's games, I don't really remember.  They were always taking us out to eat, letting me go do things with them like they were my real family.  I remember Franny said something about them adopting me, and that's when her parents asked me if they could formally adopt me, out of nowhere.  I remember I burst into tears right there at the table.  Of course, I said yes, but...neither of my parents would sign over their parental rights, so.  Yeah.  But a week later my dad came home and had his shit together for at least a year, and things started to die down with him for a bit.  But yeah, any memory with Franny's parents are the best ones."

And it wasn't until telling Kalen about them that I realized how much I missed them, desperately. 

They'd been calling a few times since I found out the news about my mother, but I didn't have it in me to talk to them yet.  Once I heard Suzanne's voice, the tears would never stop.

"So your best friend's parents are more like your real parents then?"

"Oh yeah, they're the reason I made it this far.  They taught me how to fix a flat tire, do my taxes, apply for a job, get scholarships, all of it.  If it wasn't for them I'd still be back home in that house with my dad working at the same bar he frequents on the nights he's out of rehab."

"And what do they think about you skipping your mom's funeral?"

"In my mind, she wasn't my mom—she was my egg donor.  She might've helped create me but she wasn't the one who raised me.  I don't need to see her lying in a casket."

"But don't you want that closure for yourself?  For you, not for her."

I tucked my head under his neck further until his arm wrapped around me and I was in a warm cocoon in his embrace. 

"Yeah.  Maybe."

"Just think about it, you don't have to make a decision until tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah.  I'll think about it."

And then a cloud must've swam in front of the sun because suddenly the room dimmed and my eyelids grew heavy. 

His arm became a comforting, safe blanket and the steady inhales of his breath and beats of heart thudded against my ear a sweet lullaby as I fell asleep to the sweeps of his fingers in my hair and his lips on my forehead. 

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think of Gracie/Kalen's relationship?

Until next time my lovely readers,

Kristen :)