Chasing the Sun

Lilly paid for her over indulgence the next morning with a severe headache that made her swear off alcohol for the rest of her life. She had few memories of anything past the jagerbombs Fiona had bought her when they first entered the bar, though Lilly had a vague recollection that she may have gotten emotional at some point. It wasn’t brought up by Gerard or Fiona, so Lilly could only pray her emotional outburst was something small, trivial and nothing too embarrassing. Fiona had taken on the duty of driving back to Dublin, letting Lilly suffer her hangover in the backseat with a somewhat solemn Gerard. He had been quiet in her parents’ house, which Lilly had put down to him feeling awkward around her parents when they knew he had been in her bed. She thought that maybe he would relax once they were in the safety of her car, but he still remained pensive and barely responsive. If Lilly had been in a better frame of mind, and in less pain, she may have questioned it, but her head was too fuzzy to give it too much thought. The splitting headache and general sluggishness was enough to contend with, and she wondered how she was even able to function somewhat normally in front of her parents that morning. They weren’t stupid; they knew she had been drinking, but she had been able to hold it together enough for them to not lecture her or Fiona over their drinking, as they were apt to do whenever they saw their children overdoing it on the booze. It was a parent’s prerogative, she supposed, but it never made it any easier to listen to them, especially when she remembered the number of times she had witnessed them stumbling about when inebriated, and as they got older, the next day vomiting that came in the aftermath of the odd night out they'd had. Lilly had always laughed at them, feeling no sympathy as they puked their guts up, rather she would just wonder why on earth they would let themselves drink to the point of two day hangovers. Now that she was older, and suffered the occasional hangover as a result of not knowing her own limitations, she was more sympathetic to their plight.

“You gonna stay with me tonight?” Lilly asked Gerard softly, avoiding speaking too loudly for the sake of her delicate head, which couldn’t tolerate loud noises in her current state.

“Sure.”

She let it slide for the rest of the journey, praying that the ibuprofen would kick in and give her some kind of peace from the pain she was in. Fiona was in a slightly more cheerful mood, but she kept conversation to a minimum when she saw the severity of Lilly’s condition. The radio filled the silence in the car, and overall it was a pleasant experience to just sit and relax.

By the time Lilly and Gerard were back at her place, the painkillers had kicked in, and her mood had picked up. Gerard was still quiet, though, and it started to worry her when he barely spoke two words to her as they sat on the couch. She was cuddled up to his side, and he had one arm slug over her shoulders with his hand resting on her upper arm. She wondered if she should bring it up- she knew she could have just been suffering from a dose of ‘the fear’, but she highly doubted it. Paranoia set in, and she racked her brain to come up with more memories from the previous night that may account for Gerard’s sudden silence. Nothing came to mind, and she would have normally assumed that Gerard would tell her if she had done something.

“Is something wrong?” she finally asked, frustrated and unnerved that she may have done something the night before to upset him.

Gerard turned his head to face her, his dark eyes slightly glazed with tiredness.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” she automatically replied.

‘Are you sure about that?’ Inner Voice butted in unhelpfully.

He shook his head, a bitter look marring his handsome face.

“Do you even realise you’re lying?”

Lilly’s defences automatically bristled at his accusation, and she unconsciously moved away from his embrace in her anger. If she were being truly honest with herself, she would admit that her offence over his words stemmed from the fact that they were true on some level. She didn’t trust him not to disappear, or to run off back to the United States once he got over his hurt.

“I’m not lying!” she spoke with vehemence that tried to hide her guilt.

“You practically admitted it last night, Lilly. You’re afraid I’m going to leave you, how on earth does that equate to trusting me?”

Lilly pursed her lips, knowing there was nothing she could say if she had indeed spilled her guts the night before. She cursed her drunken stupidity for blurting her feelings out.

“I…What did I say last night?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“No,” she shook her head sadly.

“You said you think I’m going to leave you.”

Lilly sighed, wondering what she could do to rectify the situation. Was there any point in taking it back, when he knew it would be a lie? If she admitted it, it would certainly be something they may never come back from. She should have known that she would be the one to screw their relationship up.

“Okay, fine. I can’t help but worry that you’re gonna leave one day. I don’t think it’s completely irrational to be a little scared of that. You’re angry with your family right now, but that'll change. Don’t say it won’t, because it will. Mikey is your brother, and sooner or later your anger will fade, and you’ll want to go back to your family. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you decide to go back…I can’t go with you. And that really fucking scares me.”

Understanding flashed in Gerard’s eyes, his anger fading, but not completely eradicated.

“Let’s say you’re right, and I decide that I want to go back. Why couldn’t you go?”

“I wouldn’t get a job. My qualification would mean nothing over there. I worked too hard in college to have it suddenly mean nothing. Not to mention the obvious fact that my family and friends are here. I’d have nothing over there.”

“You’d have me. Wouldn’t that be enough?”

“You’d get sick of me relying on you, Gerard. I’d have no job, no social outlet, because my social anxiety would only get worse, living somewhere where I feel out of place. You like to come and go as you please, and that’s okay,while I have stuff to distract me here, I won’t have that if I leave everything behind. I’d be fucking miserable, Gerard. Not at first, because I’ll just be so happy that we’re together that the isolation won’t bother me. But eventually it will. I’ll get sick and tired of being on my own while you’re at work, or decide to go out with your friends, or don’t come back, because you’ve stayed out all night.”

“God, you’re so negative at times. Maybe you won’t be able to get a job teaching, but you’d find something. You’re college educated; you got good marks.Someone would hire you. You’d make friends, Lilly. The real problem is that you don't trust my feelings for you.”

“How can I when you come and go as you please? You drop by when it suits you, you come here drunk half the time. You tell me you love me, and I believe it. But how can I trust you won’t disappear when I don’t see you or hear from you in days. It just seems so easy for you to forget about me when it’s convenient for you. I know I’m overreacting, and maybe I’m just being possessive, but I can’t help it. It makes me insecure when you do that, and it doesn’t matter how many times you tell me that you love me, it’s never going to not make me feel insecure. You know everything about me, and in return I feel like I know so little about you. How can I trust that?”

Lilly was met with a blank expression, which revealed nothing of what Gerard was thinking. She had only said what she felt, and believed it wasn’t wrong or irrational for her to feel that way.

“Is there any point in this, if that’s how you really feel?”

Her heart dropped when the words slipped from his tongue, but more than that, she felt angry.

“How about you just, oh, I don’t know, not fucking disappear all the time? Why can’t that be a fucking solution?” her quiet voice was drenched in white hot fury.

“I don’t fucking disappear, Lilly. When I’m not with you, I’m at home in my apartment. Occasionally I go out with the guys at work, but I’m not off messing around.”

“Then why don’t you reply when I text you?”

“Because sometimes I just need time to myself! It shouldn’t be a big fucking deal.”

“It wouldn’t be, if you just told me that!”

“Right, because you wouldn’t take it personally if I told you that?” he said with heavy sarcasm.

“Of course not!”

He didn’t reply to that, only glared at her with an angry stare that matched her own.

“I didn’t know it bothered you so much. You should have said something” he finally relented, sounding almost apologetic.

“I didn’t think it would make a difference.”

She wasn’t expecting it when he suddenly wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a strong hold that never failed to comfort her, no matter how angry or upset she was.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better. No more disappearing,” he promised, sounding sincere as his warm breath hit her cheek and his warm body cling to her.

“I’m sorry too.”

“How about I buy a pizza, and we can just have a nice evening now, okay?”

“Perfect.”

He ordered the pizza and they went back to their previous position on the couch, where they remained for the rest of the evening.

Notes

Here you go! Hope you enjoyed! Oh, for the readers of my 'My Way Home' story and it's sequel, I have taken the story down with the intention of rewriting. I found myself wishing I had given it a different ending, so I'm rewriting with plot changes and a sequel to 'Kids' is a certainty. When 'Give 'Em Hell' is finished, I shall start reposting. I really hope you guys reread, as there will be plot changes.

Lyra