My Heart's Always With You

Alyce left around 8 later that morning to spend the day with Kellan. Amber told Matt he should move to the futon and try and get some more sleep and he did. She vaguely remembered Willow snuggling up to her and having the small cat’s head on the pillow with hers.

It was around 10:45 when Amber heard Matt moving around and woke up. The first thing she saw was Willow’s head resting on her pillow as the cat slept sounding under the covers. Amber laughed and then sat up. Matt was sitting up as well. “Morning.” She smiled.

“Morning.” The Willow meowed since the talking had woke her up. Amber didn’t waste time with talking. Instead she got up and went over to Matt to kiss his cheek before disappearing into her bathroom. She knew she had morning breath and wanted to rid the problem quickly. When she was done she walked back into her bedroom and looked at him with another smile.

“Do you like pancakes?” She randomly asked.

“Yeah why?” Matt was a little confused at the random question.

“I’m going to go make us some.” She didn’t wait for a reply instead she disappeared downstairs. Matt followed her a few minutes later and appeared behind her while she was stirring the pancake batter.

“You are really sweet have I told you that?” He whispered in her ear causing chills to shoot down her spine.

“A few times. And I’m only this way to you. Tell anyone and I’ll deny it to the grave.” This drew a laugh from both of them. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you stay with me? I mean why did you stay even though you knew we’d have to hide?” Amber’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

“Amber you should know the reason. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, I love you. Do I need a further explanation? I’m not going to let anyone tell me who I can or can’t love.”

“I love you too.” He kissed her cheek and she smiled again. Matt’s arms remained around her until the pancakes were finished and then they tried deciding on what to do. “We could always go see a movie.”

“Yeah but we do that even when we are hiding.”
“We have all day to think. You know what? I haven’t gone for a swim in a long time. I think I’m going to today.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Well Aaron is usually here.”

“Good point.”

“Did you bring your swim trunks?”

“No. I didn’t even bring a change of clothes. Well how about I wait and you go get a change or two and stuff.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to leave tonight either. Alyce probably isn’t going to come back either so you can take the futon. Please?”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

***

“I suck at swimming!” Amber exclaimed several hours later as she sat on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water.

“Well you didn’t drown.” Matt laughed.

“I guess that’s true.”

“You are weird sometimes you know that?”

“Yeah I know. It keeps life interesting.” She moved from the edge and got back into the water. The sun was beating down hard like it did on most days in California. The rain from the previous night’s storm had almost completely dried from the concrete and the ground had already dried out as well.

“I’m sure it does.” Then Amber heard the phone ringing from inside the kitchen. She’d left the door open incase it did ring. She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It would have been the time she probably would have came home for a late lunch. She jumped out of the pool, quickly wrapped a towel around herself, and ran inside.

“Hello?” She answered calmly.
“Ah Amber there you are! Why aren’t you at the store?” Anthony’s voice sounded pleasantly happy today.

“Hi. I came home to eat a late lunch. I was actually about to leave. Did you need something?” She tried to sound nonchalant even though it bothered her to no end that he was checking up on her.

“No, no. I just wanted to see if you were at the house. How are things going? Have you had any friends over?” Amber secretly wondered what was up with the friendly conversation he was picking.

“Everything is fine. Alyce came over last night.” She avoided the rest of the question smoothly as she waved at Matt and bit her bottom lip.

“That’s good. I don’t want you to get lonely since you are all alone.” Amber rolled her eyes at the comment.

“Don’t worry about me dad. Just have a good time.”

“Okay well I’ll let you get back to the store.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” Amber replaced the phone on the counter and went back outside. Matt was sitting on the edge now so she sat down next to him.

“Your dad?” He asked calmly.

“Yeah. He was checking up on me.” A silence fell between them as they both just stared down at the water in the pool. Much to the relief of both of them the silence wasn’t awkward. Amber loved how they could sit in completely silence and not feel the need to fill it, that they were comfortable enough with each other to be able to sit in silence.

“Does it bother you when he does that?” Matt asked finally not being able to control the curiosity any longer.

“Sometimes yeah.”

“I promise you we will find a way to do away with the hiding.”

“I know we will. There really isn’t another choice.”

“I guess you have a point.” They both laughed and Amber stood up.

“I’m going inside. You coming?”
“I’m right behind you.”

***

“I’m glad there aren’t any storm clouds tonight.” Amber stated that night as they walked back into her house when they returned from the movies.

“Yeah, maybe you can sleep tonight.”

“Ha ha very funny.”

“What? It’s true.”

“I know it’s weird that I can’t sleep with wind or thunder outside.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you Amber.”

“Sure you weren’t.” Matt followed Amber up to her room where she laid down on her bed and he sat down on the futon. “The phone is probably going to ring in a few minutes. It’s probably time for me to be checked up on.”

“Maybe not.” Matt tried to offer hope that maybe the phone wouldn’t ring but he didn’t even believe it himself. Then the phone rang.

“I told you didn’t I?” Amber grabbed the handset and hit the talk button. “Hello?”

“Hi Amber.” Anthony’s voice responded.

“Hello Amber!” Aaron yelled.

“Hi dad. Tell Aaron I said go to hell please?”

“Amber.”

“Ugh, fine. Don’t say anything to him them.”

“Did you already eat kiddo?”

“Yeah I went out for Chinese.” Amber looked at Matt quickly.

“That’s good. Are you hanging out with Alyce tonight?”

“Nope. I’m going to crash soon anyway. I’m tired.”

“Well then I won’t keep you up any longer.”
“Okay. Bye Dad.”

“Bye.” Amber hit end the second the word was out of his mouth and sat the phone down. She was glad the conversation hadn’t been dragged out for no reason. She stood up and went to get a pair of pajamas. When she came out of her bathroom Matt was sitting on her bed holding the remote.

“You read my mind.” She said simple as she sat down next to him and took the remote. It didn’t take them long to settle on something and Amber laid down and tried to pull Matt down. “Will you just lay down?!” She finally asked in frustration.

“Yeah.” Matt laughed lying down causing Amber to smile. She let her head find it’s way to his shoulder and his arm wrapped around hers. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.” She smiled and closed her eyes sighing in content.

“Amber is that the black rose that I gave you a few nights ago?” Matt asked looking over and seeing the black rose that was now beginning to lose the life it once had.

“No Matt my other boyfriend gave it to me.” Amber giggled and rolled her eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d actually put it in your room I mean it’s only one rose. Maybe I should start getting you several at a time.”

“No then I’ll get sad when they die.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really know. I just will and I know it.” Another silence came over them as they both allowed their thoughts to fill their heads. Amber was thinking about how much she liked this and didn’t want it to end as quickly as she knew it would.

Matt, however, was thinking of ways to get around Anthony. At first they started off with just explanations and trying to talk to him. They then began moving on to bigger things and differently worded ways of talking to him. He planned on mentioning his final idea to Amber later that night.

It was about an hour later when he realized that she’d fallen asleep. He didn’t want to wake her up so instead he closed his mouth and let her sleep. He watched her until she started to move like she was about to wake up, then he turned his attention to the television screen.

He found himself getting tired and knew that he’d probably fall asleep soon as well. He smiled a little when he heard Amber talking in her sleep. She was mumbling about something shinny and he had to try really hard not to laugh. After that was over he closed his eyes and decided that he might as well get some sleep too.

It was the next morning by the time Amber woke up and realized that she’d fallen asleep on Matt. She looked to see if he was asleep too and when she discovered he was she laid her head back on his shoulder and looked for something else to watch on TV. She didn’t want to wake him up.

Her mind began to wonder to how they could reveal the news to Anthony but since she’d just woke up she stopped herself from thinking about it too much. Besides it just ruined the moment. Willow suddenly pranced up and crawled onto her side.

The cat suddenly began purring loudly and so Amber scratched her behind the ears for a while. The purring ended when Willow fell asleep and Amber realized that Matt and the cat were both asleep so she might as well try and get some more sleep. She closed her eyes and stopped thinking about anything.

She liked being this close to Matt. No like was an understatement, she loved it. It didn’t matter to her, or him, that they were supposed to hate each other. It didn’t matter that Anthony could choose to end the peace between the sides at any given moment. It didn’t matter that if anyone was to catch them they’d be dead.

Matt was just coming to when he heard the front door opening downstairs. He listened and realized that it wasn’t Alyce who had arrived at the house. “Amber.” He tried to wake her up. She looked up at him obviously unhappy.

“What?” Her expression softened when she remembered it was Matt.

“Listen. Someone is here.” Amber listened to the footsteps and quickly thought about where she’d had Matt park to hid his car. No one would look where she’d had him park so that was covered. At first the thought it was Alyce but then caught the footsteps as they walked to the top of the stairs.

“Matt it is probably one of my dad’s main men! Go in my bathroom and close the door.” Amber pulled the covers around herself better as Matt quickly went to hide. She closed her eyes and acted like she was asleep.

Then the door opened. Amber opened her eyes and sat up, throwing in a yawn for good measure, and looked at who it was. It should have been a bigger shock to her who it was, but it wasn’t. “Hi Mr. Marshell. What are you doing here/”

“Your dad asked me to stop by and check on your this morning. I’ll let you get back to sleep.” Mr. Marshell responded.

“Thank. Bye.”

“Bye kiddo.” As soon as she was sure that he was gone she opened the door to her bathroom and wrapped her arms around Matt.

“I can’t believe he sent him!” She exclaimed as Matt hugged her bag.

“You can’t?” Matt wasn’t surprised.

“I guess I’m not. Come on let’s go get some breakfast or something since we are up.” She let him go and headed downstairs. She had just taken the first bite when the phone rang. She wasn’t happy at this point and she knew who it was. “Hello?”

“You sound mad sweetie.” Anthony responded.

“Well gee dad I wonder why! I cannot believe you sent Mr. Marshell over here to check up on me! Why?”

“You said that Alyce wasn’t staying over and I wanted to know that you were okay.”

“Whatever. No I don’t know what I’m going to do today if you want to know. I might do a million things but I don’t know what yet.”

“Okay well your mom wants to talk to you.” She heard the phone being passed from one person to another.

“Hi sweetie.”

“Hi Mom.”

“What are you up to?”

“I’m eating some breakfast.”

“Waffles?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“Chocolate, yup. Well sweetie I’ll see you Monday when we get home. I love you.”

“I love you too Mom.” Amber and Esme then ended the phone call to avoid a bigger fight happening with Anthony. It wasn’t time for him to find out yet. When the phone rang yet again ten minutes later Amber didn’t bother looking at who was calling. “What?”

“What kind of way is that to answer the phone?” Aaron’s voice asked.

“What do you want?” Amber’s mood went from bad to worse at the sound of his voice on the other end of the line. Matt knew who it was just by Amber’s tone of voice.

“Just thought I’d see if you’ve changed your mind about me yet?”

“Never.” And with that Amber hung up on him. After breakfast she and Matt decided that they were going to go hang out at the mall for awhile since Amber needed to be away from the phone for a while.

It was late in the afternoon when they got back and Amber needed a glass of water. She turned to Matt with a smile and asked if he wanted anything to drink. He said that he didn’t so she went to get herself a glass.

She’d taken a few long sips when Matt appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked like he had something on his mind and Amber wondered what it was. But she didn’t have the time to ask. “You don’t think we can hide much longer do you?” He asked suddenly.

“I don’t think so. And besides I’m tired of hiding. Aren’t you?” She sighed knowing that Anthony finding out could very well spell disaster for both of them. Why did it have to be like this?

“I know you are. Yeah, I’m tired of it too.” Matt agreed honestly.

“But what are we supposed to do? I mean when we tell him it isn’t going to end well. Then Aaron is going to lose it and probably try pathetically to kick your ass.” She smiled a bit at the thought of that and Matt laughed.

“I’d like to see him try.” Matt added between two laughs.

“I wanna watch.”

“You can always watch.”

“Thanks.” They smiled at each other and Matt decided to pitch the most drastic idea he’d had the night before.

“No problem. You do realize that it will probably go badly when we tell him right?” Amber nodded yes not wanting to answer aloud. “Well I came up with a back up plan for what to do after we tell him if it turns into a disaster. If you’d want to that is.”

“I wanna hear it.” He’d caught Amber’s attention and she had to know now.

“I love you Amber, I know that. And last night I put a lot of thought into this. I mean a lot too. This was most drastic though. Nothing is going to keep me away from you, ever. And I don’t want to live without you. So I was thinking that if it is as bad as we think it will well I think…” He paused. “I think if it is that we should just go get married.”