| 70 |

| 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐞 |

I'm finally going back home.

I can't believe it. I'm finally going back home.

Last night I was twitching with jittery energy, unable to sleep. My mind was completely occupied with thoughts about going back home.

I'm running on only two hours of sleep with only a piece of bread in my stomach as I stand outside the school with my bags, waiting for Dad.

I'm wearing sweatpants with the drawstrings tied a little tighter with a long sleeve t-shirt that feels a bit loose on me now. My hair is combed and tied into a low ponytail. My hands feel rough and dry with all those dishes I had to wash for my punishments. My face looks kind of pale and red too.

Those three months were hard on me, with no phones allowed, restricted freedom, strict dress codes, limited food choices and eight hours classes.

But I did it.

I fucking did it.

I paid attention in class and did well on the tests and exams. My only motivation was to get the hell out of here and back to Castle.

I graduated and now I finally get to go home.

My eyes keep searching for Dad's car. My fingers twitch in anticipation of seeing him. This is the longest I've been without seeing him. I've never been this long away from my Dad. Ever.

Everywhere around me, parents are here to collect their kids. Some students walk out of the school and head in a direction without a pause or looking around.

I keep looking around until finally – finally – I see his car.

I nearly jump in my place, my heart leaping in excitement as I stare at Dad's dark car rolling into the parking lot. I don't know whether to run to him or remain in my place and wait for him to come to me.

He parks the car and gets out. My breath gets lost for a moment as I look at his dark hair and chiselled face. His grey eyes meet mine the moment he steps out of his car.

He walks towards me, his eyes doing a quick assessment of me as he does so. His pace quickens when he meets my eyes again.

I can't stay still anymore. Before I know it, my legs take off in his direction. I run towards him. My heart aches with how much I missed him. Within seconds, we near each other and I throw my arms around him, burying my face in his neck as he lifts me up to him.

I hear him exhale a soft breath of relief as he hugs me closer, tightening his arms around me. I close my eyes and relish his embrace, feeling like a small girl underneath his arms.

The hug goes on for too long – too less. Finally, our arms loosen, and we pull away from each other. I look up at him as he sets me down on my feet. His eyes are tired and his cheekbones sharper but other than that he still looks the same.

His eyes search my face, hesitation on his face as if he doesn't know what to say. Then maybe he decides to fuck it because a huge grin breaks across his face. He touches my head, my shoulders, my arms.

"Missed me?" I smile up at him.

"The house was so quiet without you." He says softly.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, then add. "I'll make sure not to get caught next time."

His eyes narrow. "How about promising to behave next time?"

I shrug, mumbling, "Yeah, maybe that too."

He opens his mouth to say something but then stops, shaking his head. He brings his arms around me again, pulling me towards him.

"Damn, you really missed me." I chuckle, closing my eyes and hugging him tighter.

He helps me carry all my bags to the car before we set off towards home.

We start off immediately in a conversation as if no time passed at all and we've been separated only for three minutes instead of three months.

"I still can't believe you got sent to that school because you did something illegal." He mumbles. "Is there any other thing you did that I should be worried about?"

You mean beating up Castle's abusive dad. Breaking into Maddy's house to collect dirt. Offering four grand to drug addicts to help me beat up Castle's dad. Driving your car illegally without a license and helping Sean get away with murdering his parents.

"Nope."

Dad releases a sigh of relief. "Okay."

The next question I want to ask makes me nervous. I play with my fingers, bite my lip and ask, "How—how's Castle?"

A sad smile comes on Dad's face.

"He's...he's getting there."

I furrow my eyebrows. "What...do you mean by that?"

He shakes his head. "I can't imagine how hard this must be for him. He barely talked, barely ate, barely moved. He started going to school and I found out that he was getting bullied."

My fists tighten. "Bullied by who?" I question, then realize how demanding that came out.

Luckily, Dad didn't notice.

He shrugs. "A bunch of people. Riley was there with him the whole time and they became good friends. I talked to the principal and made sure whoever bullied Castle doesn't get away with it. For a few days, he seemed fine, but then one day..." A grim look comes on Dad's face as his hands tighten on the steering wheel.

"One day what?" I ask.

"I found him in his room, holding a vodka bottle."

My eyes widen. "What?"

He nods, then shakes his head. "I quickly took the bottle away and asked him why he would choose that. Then he just broke down in front of me saying that he didn't want to live anymore."

My chest pangs with crushing pain. "What...?"

"We talked about it, and I told him that I'd help him in any way possible. He told me about his abusive father and how he's been the one taking care of everyone since he was thirteen. He showed me his..."

Dad swallows hard. "...scars. A lot of them." He blows a steady breath through his mouth. "I nearly marched up to his father's house to beat the shit out of him when I saw how much he hurt Castle – both mentally and physically."

No wonder where I got my violent impulses from. It is a heredity thing.

"Castle started going to therapy." He shrugs. "So yeah. He's getting there."

I inhale quietly, processing everything. So much happened to him and I wasn't there.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you one more thing."

"What?"

"Sean and his parents disappeared somewhere. Sean has been skipping school and missing football practice, so his teachers called but no one answered. So they asked me to go and check in since they know we're neighbours. I went to their house, but no one answered. I'm guessing they had an emergency and had to leave?"

"Yeah, maybe." I try to keep my tone casual.

"Do you know anything?" Dad looks at me.

I shake my head. "Nope. Nothing."

He shrugs. "Maybe they'll be back in a while."

"Maybe." A grim look comes on my face that I hide by looking out the window.

We continue talking about random stuff the whole two hours back home.

We finally reach and my heart stutters looking at the familiar house after so long. I get down the car and help Dad to get my bags, but he shakes his head, nudging me towards the house.

"Go in and meet Mom first. She's been waiting forever."

I give him a nod before running toward the porch. I ring the doorbell and not even a second later, I hear footsteps running in my direction. The door pulls open and my mom's face appears in the doorway, looking anxious and excited. She looks down at me and her face bursts with happiness.

"Finally!" She throws her arms around me, pulling me close.

"I missed you." I hug her back.

She pulls away quickly, throwing a glance at Dad. "He's in the kitchen. Go meet up and I'll stall Dad with your bags for a bit."

I give her a grateful look. Giving her another hug, I pull away and run towards the kitchen.

My heart clenches with excitement and anticipation of finally seeing him.

I'm at the kitchen's doorway within two seconds. Nothing could have prepared me for what I see next.

Castle's standing near the kitchen island, his hands fumbling with a napkin. His head snaps up when he hears me. His eyes widen and his mouth parts open. He gazes at me in disbelief.

There are dark circles under his eyes. He looks even skinnier now. There are traces of exhaustion and tiredness on his face. But except for that, he still looks the same. He's the same Castle. My Castle.

I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. I don't know what to say.

What should I say first? 'I missed you'?. 'You look as amazing as you always did'?. 'Come here and kiss me'?

My heart feels so heavy at finally laying my eyes on him. Has it really been three months since I last saw him? Fuck, why is my stomach clenching so much?

For a moment, none of us say anything.

Then I take a step forward into the kitchen.

His head perks up, taking a small step towards me too as if the reaction was automatic. There's a pull between us that's hard to ignore so we're both stepping towards each other.

His blue eyes meet mine and some sort of electricity passes between us. Our arms move at once, tugging each other closer until my front is pressed against his, and my head is crushed to his chest.

Everything falls back into place.

I can't believe it. We're finally together again. My arms feel like clamps around his body, but I don't care. I hug him tighter, pulling him closer to me as if I'm going to wake up from another dream and realize this all is not real.

I hear him breathe out a sigh. A sigh of relief. A sigh of bliss.

Emotion bubbles up in my throat, and I try to remain calm, nuzzling my head further into his chest. I missed him. I missed him so fucking much. I'm never, ever, separating from him ever again. I'll fucking damn the person who tries to do so.

For a long moment, we stand there, in each other's embrace, arms tightly around each other. I pull away to look at his face again and melt when my eyes meet his soft ones. Needing to feel him against me once more, I reach up. He gets the hint and leans down. Our lips touch and this zap of energy springs into me. My hands grip his shoulder and his hold my waist. His mouth feels like a good welcome back home. I still remember every curve and corner of his lips and slide my tongue out to feel him.

"—I think there's a rat in the kitchen!" Mom's loud voice interrupts our moment.

"Where?" Dad asks.

Castle and I pull away immediately, getting the warning from Mom. We force ourselves to take a few steps back at a safe distance. My body immediately craves his touch. I don't want to move away from him. I want to be close to him until there's no space left between us.

My parents enter the kitchen a second later. Dad's eyes fall on me, and they soften automatically.

"Castle was making those wraps for you." He tells me.

I look at Castle to see him rubbing the back of his neck.

"Thank you," I say to him with affection.

He nods back.

"Your bags are in the living room. We'll take them up later." Dad tells me. "I got an email saying that your report card and high school diploma will be mailed within a week."

I nod.

He shrugs, tiredly, muttering under his breath. "I guess I won't get to embarrass you on your graduation."

The school I was trapped in doesn't hold graduation parties, ceremonies, proms or anything.

"Thank God." I breathe out but deep down a twinge of sadness envelopes me. I won't get to have a graduation ceremony with Castle and Riley.

"Alright then." Dad speaks out, "Holly, you go freshen up and we'll get lunch ready."

I nod at him and walk out of the kitchen, not before glancing at Castle and giving him a small smile. He gazes back at me with longing in his eyes. I force myself to walk upstairs and away from him.

Soon.

Soon, Castle.

A sense of euphoria washes over me when I enter my bedroom.

My sweet, gorgeous, warm bedroom!

I fall onto my bed, face-first, rubbing my cheek against the familiar fabric of my sheets and blankets. Ugh, how much I missed my own room! In that school, there was just this one big-ass room with bunk beds where all the girls slept together.

I spot my phone on my dressing table and perk up, jumping off my bed to grab it. Switching it on, my phone is immediately flooded with a billion notifications from my social media apps, messages and missed calls. I skip all of them and go straight to Riley's contact.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

Forty or so minutes later, I'm showered, dressed, caught up with Riley and move downstairs into the kitchen. I stop when I see Dad standing on the last step of the stairs.

"Finally. I was coming up to ask what took you so long," he says.

"Sorry." I give him a sheepish smile. "I got busy with Riley."

He nods. His eyes do the thing again where he takes me in head-to-toe, before softening.

"Crazy how three months passed by right?" I ask.

He nods. "It was hard." He looks up at me, swallowing. "Don't do anything like that ever again, Holly." His tone sounds heavy. "I couldn't sleep at night being worried sick about what might have been going on with you in that terrible school."

My face softens. "I'm sorry."

"Don't hide anything from me ever again. I know I'm strict with you in some matters but I'm always ready to listen to you. If you're going through a problem, I'm always here to help you."

"I know." I lower my head.

"You couldn't call me or contact me. I was really worried."

"I handled myself just fine," I reassure him.

He stares at me, silently.

Fuck, I hate making him upset. I hate watching my dad be anything but happy and annoying.

After a moment he slowly nods, gesturing towards the kitchen. "Let's eat then."

★・・・・・・★

Our couple is FINALLY reunited!

The next and LAST update will be shortly put up (maybe within 20-24 hours) I'M SO EXCITED TO FINISH THIS BOOK.

Btwww, do you people have any fan cast/face claim for Elias?

Words: 2,400

Date of publishing: 18th August 2023