The Final Female

Chapter Seventeen

Dinner was quiet. The log benches and makeshift tables were filled with disturbed silence. Eyes flickered back and forth between me and the wall. Particularly the section of the wall that opened into the unknown outside.

What was Benjamin doing now? Milling around the wall, trying to find a way in? Walking back towards his pub? In search of Lincoln? 

Dead?

I shut my eyes and sat stock still. 

"Alex?" Jays warmth brushed my right side yet the skin never met. He didn't ask if I was ok. He knew that was a question with an empty answer. 

"You should eat."

My mind went to my stomach, and how it was empty.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

Shaking my head with a sigh I leant my head against his shoulder before I even knew what I was doing. I didn't care though as the warmth strengthened.

He stilled for a moment before his hand crept down and gently rested upon my knee. Smiling silently to myself I lifted my hand from my lap and connected it with his. 

The stares grew tenfold. 

"Don't pay any mind to them mi ultimo amore." He sighed under his breath.

"You haven't called me that lately."

"I can stop if you don't like it."

"I don't mind. I wish I knew what it meant though. I mean I have an idea. My, something, love." I said shyly as I memorised the way his hand curled around mine. It was an innocent touch and yet I felt as if it was the most intimate thing I had done in my life. 

"My last love." He whispered so only I would hear.

I stilled.

"It's creepy isn't it." He laughed lightly.

"No. Just... scary."

Silence filled the gap between us as chatter began picking up and reverberated around us from the men enjoying their dinner. It wasn't an awkward silence though. It was reflective. I think we were both coming to terms with the fact that 'something' was happening between us and neither of us knew how to approach it. 

On one hand, I still felt filthy. Unworthy. Something that no real man looking for a real woman deserved. 

And I was scared. Scared of emotion. Scared of something tangible and it being ripped away with the rest of my reality. 

On the other hand, I think Jay was being cautious. Cautious of what he head learnt in the last days. Hell, in the last few hours. If I was in his position I wouldn't know how to approach me either.

After all I'm a ticking bomb. He saw that in the stables. 

I'm blemished. I'm bruised. Im scarred. I'm used. 

"What's going on in that head of yours."

"Nothing out of the usual." I reply to his soft try at opening me up.

His hand wrapped around mine tighter and he stood up away from the table, pulling me slowly with him.

"Come on. I want to show you something."

Without a single doubt I followed him. Zee's eyes followed us as we left together but he made no move to stop us. I think I even saw a smile. 

Jay's hand was warm in my cold calloused fingers. The wind rushed around and between us as we ventured towards the shopping centre. As we got closer memories of what seemed like a lifetime ago but was only 2 nights ago swarmed my head.