T H E  L O V E R S

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SONG
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DADDY ISSUES - THE NEIGHBORHOOD

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A U G U S T  1 , 1 9 9 8

"Where are we?" I ask Royce lightly, his hands covering my eyes, "You will see in a second calm down!" He says, laughing a little.

"But I'm impatient!" I say, giggling a little.

"it makes you cuter don't worry." He says, I smile, biting my lip.

It's been a few days of me sleeping at Royce's, not talking to my parents. They wanted me gone since I was born, and if they leave that's ok, they know where I am.

Not like they'd care though...

"Okay!" Royce says, taking his fingers off of my eyes and smiling.

We stood in front of a dark purple, shiny truck parked in a random parking lot.

"Is this... your car?" I smiles, leaning in and kissing my neck.

"We're driving, sweetheart." He says with a small smirk, walking over to the passenger seat and opening the door for me. I get in, I haven't been in a car... ever. We own stores so we just steal from the stock, and we can't bring them with us from state to state so...

I look around, and watch as he gets in the driver seat, starts the car, and backs out with his hand on the back of my seat.

"Woah this is scary..." I mumble.

He laughs a little, "I love driving, I don't get to do it very often though.."

"And where are we gonna go, Jewwly?" I ask lightly as we drive down the empty roads and closer onto the other side of the island.

"Well... that's something for me to know, and for you to find out." He mumbles, grabbing my face and kissing me lightly.

I smile, leaning my head on his shoulder as he laughs. "God..." he mumbles and I raise an eyebrow. "What?"

He licks his lips as he turns onto a main road, seeing cars going back and forth. "I don't know.... I just never thought I would be so happy." He mumbles.

I laugh, and kiss his shoulder.

He slowly bites his lip, and moves his right hand to grab onto my thigh. His hand was large enough to take all of it between ring and thumb finger. I grab my hand onto his, slowly moving it up my leg so it in between my upper thighs.

And when I stop moving, he keeps moving, until I try to squeeze his hand in place with my thighs. "What are you doing?" I ask lightly, whispering it in his ear.

"Nothin..." he says, turning up the music a little bit and then slowly putting his hand back where it was. Daddy issues by the neighborhood played lightly in the background.

"Royce... if I say something will you promise not to hate me?" I ask.

He smiles, "I never could.."

"I think I..." I start, my heart beating harder and harder. I slowly move my head off his shoulder, placing my hand on top of his on my thigh.

I was gonna say I love him...

"Never mind.." I mumble.

"Oh come on tell me!" He says with a chuckle, turning onto the bridge. I shake my head, "I...." I start, replacing it with another thing, "Can I... Can I move in with you? I promise I'll get a job and I can pay rent and I don't have anything to move in I just- I just wanna be there with you..."

His smile grows wide, "you don't know how happy that made me, Kelca..." he mumbles, squeezing my thigh a little and almost giggling.

How would Jack be right if he's like this? He wants me to move in with him! And stay with him!

"Oh my god..."he says, laughing as his head shoots back. "I fucking love you." He says.

My heart drop as I turn to him with wide eyes. Please... please say you meant it.

"I mean not in that way, I don't like you like that... but damn I love you Kelca. The girls will be so happy." He says, smiling for the rest of the ride.

I smile back, but look down at my lap.

What the hell? How does he not like me like that if he... he kissed me and... and he touched me. And he wants me to move in?! He's just covering his ass because he has trust issues, he's not hiding anything like Koa from me. It's what he always said.

I guess I just... I have to try harder.

I grab my bag and get out my journal, writing a few things down.

"And what are you writing about, Mrs Jewwly?" He jokes with a laugh.

"You." I say, biting my lip.

Mrs Jewwly....

"Oh let me see!" He says as he pulls into a parking lot.

"No!" I scream, throwing my journal back in the back.

He parks the car and I unbuckle, ready to get out since I won, but he does it quicker than me as he jumps into the back and grabs onto my journal.

"What are you doing!" I scream and he laughs, I try to snatch the book out of his hands but I end up falling on top of him, straddling him on the floor of his squished back seat.

"Let me see!" He pouts and I laugh, leaning in and smiling.

"It says how I feel about a lot of things in there, Jewwly. And I can't risk you seeing how I feel about you."

He takes a deep breath and smirks.

"Well the look you're giving me is telling me how you feel already!" He says, pulling me down and holding me close to him, kissing my temple.

And I sit there for a second, cradled in his warm arms, almost as much so as a door handle during a fire.

I was so, unbelievably happy. It felt good to not be under my parents guard all the time.

It felt good to be me.

And when I stand up I ruffle his hair a little and leave.

I look around outside and smile.

It had a large sign made of wood poking out onto the freeway that said "Golden Todd's Starwberries"

And for miles and miles all you saw was strawberry farms.

"I know it's not the best surprise but you told me you loved strawberries and I knew we had a strawberry farm around here-" he starts, itching the back of his neck.

I cut him off, turning to him and jumping on him, "I love it"

He smiles, holding me up as I kiss his forehead.

I would say Almost as much as I love you.... but that would be a lie. Nothing could compare to how you make me feel Royce..

"Thank you so much, Jewwly." I smile, holding onto him.

—

I sit in a field, far away from cars and my parents and all my worries as the sun envelops me in a golden light and a warm, tingling feeling going all throughout my fingers and my toes and my arms and legs. It was the feeling of finally being alive, really.

"Here, Love.." Royce mumbles as he leans over my body, his face blocking the sun like an eclipse, and the golden rays just barley peaking out behind him, or maybe it was just my tired eyes blurring the little sun left that I could see.

He slowly feeds me a strawberry and I smile.

The sky on this island turns pink for only three hours, and then turns a red that covers only a small area like the world was on fire and passion was lifted into the air in its purest deepest reddest form. It was like a 30x30 acre square that the government just messed up on whole coding. And it's a fun thing to know that you can sit in between and be driving past the different places where the pink sky shows up, and meet every single deadline for the sky.

Get to the beach, get to the city, get to the fields get to the third island, and finally get to the fourth island where you only get pink skies for ten whole minutes, and the islands are set up in a way where you can still see it.

I don't know, it's just... fun.

"Royce?" I ask lightly, and he nods, throwing the stems of the strawberry into the far end of the field to decompose.

"Yes.." he asks, leaning down and resting his head on my shoulder.

I love you.

"Can I... can I kiss you?"

"And why would you want to do that?" He asks, smiling against my shirt.

"You know why, why would you ever want to kiss me?"

He laughs turning on top of me and pinning me to the ground. "Because you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I've seen art throughout the world, I live in the worlds most travelled to city. Ive seen possibly the most beautiful things in the world, but you still surpass all of them by so much.

Of course if you said no I wouldn't have done it, but your beautiful and you're funny and you're the sweetest... just the utter-most sweet and forgiving girl.

How could I say no to that?"

I laugh, looking up past his face and at the blue sky that will soon turn pink and then fade to a burgundy-toned black.

"You know you will pick somebody else over me some day, Royce."

"No I won't-"

"You already have..." I mumble.

He laughs a little, "What do you mean, Kelca?"

"She will come up to you when you're vulnerable and I can't be there, she'll drag her finger across your jaw and straddle you and you'll give in because I couldn't be there and her being there just reminded you that I will leave. And she won't."

"But you won't leave... Right Kelca?"

"Of course... I never once will wish to leave you... but maybe you'll go on a trip without me and be scared I won't be there when you get home, or I go on a trip and you get scared I won't ever come back..."

"Not if I trust you-"

"I finally got you to trust me and you're saying if I left you wouldn't immediately go to her?"

"Got to fucking who Kelca!" Royce screams, finally snapping.

I flinch under him, tears coming to my eyes as his hands hold me down.

His face immediately softens, knowing he didn't mean to snap, it was my fault for finally realizing what was gonna happen.

"Kelca I'm so sorry-"

"She has black hair, a perfect body, and she's short. She has brown eyes and she wears this light purple eyeshadow everyday that I know you love. She walks in somewhere and immediately your eyes go to her, and you're saying that if I wasn't in that room that you were in when you stared at her, that you wouldn't go up and get her?"

"No because I have you!-"

"You can't seem to get her off your mind Royce! I can tell! No matter what, she's always there behind me and you're looking at her just like at the party. I had to remind you I existed!" I just... I don't know what's gotten into me recently but...

Jack got to me...

If he "doesn't feel that way about me" then I don't understand... and maybe Jack would be right..

"You don't fucking know shit Kelca! At the party she was fucking annoying and trying to I seduce me thinking her body would work when the night before I had seen one much better." He starts, and when I don't say anything he continues.

"And she of course needed to be my partner so I said yes and left you because you seemed entirely uninterested in me at that point. Every single time I would throw a ball in I would look over at you to make sure you saw and make sure you were proud of me, I wasn't looking at Koa unless it was too give her a death stare. I constantly stare at you and when she walks in of course I look, because I'm nosy and wanna see what boy bitch she walked in with that day. And sometimes.... sometimes I stare, wondering how I stooped so low. Because of course, I'm a whore but I changed. She's a good girl but I could never in my whole life look at her the same way I look at you.."

He still held me down by my wrists, but slowly I soften myself, and tears slip my eyes.

"Kelca... what did I do? What did I say?" Royce begins to ask but I shake my head, wiggling my wrists out of his hold and pushing him in closer to me.

"No no no!" I cry, "You did nothing I'm just..... I'm so scared."

"Why would you ever be scared Kelca?"

"Because she's so much better than me..."

"She has nothing on you Kelca..."

"And you're way too good for me."

"I'm a drug addict who has no family, I'm not too good-"

"But you're the best person on the planet Royce..."

"I've made mistakes-"

"Fuck mistakes. Everybody makes them, but you... you are everything that I think is amazing in a person."

He hovers over me for a second, his eyes filled with an emotion I couldn't quite describe even though I knew exactly what it conveyed.

And he grabs onto the back of my head and kisses my lips.

"I will never let go off you..."

You can pick and choose, maybe do a little guessing on what he lied about that night.

On what I was right about.

Because we all know what's gonna happen.

Hes gonna let go..