Always

Mia Keller had fallen in love with Matthew Nicholls on that first day in kindergarten. Back then, love was easy. It was a kiss on the cheek and someone sticking up for you. Which is exactly what Matt had done for Mia. Mia consistently got made fun of, for whatever reason. From an early age, she would much rather be found with a book then running around on the playground. She was constantly berated for how smart she was and how she excelled in school, even when she was young. She was too smart for her own good, is what she always thought.

But it didn’t matter. Because it’s not like Matt would ever let anyone get close enough to her to actually touch her in anyway, both physically and verbally. He was protective to a crazy degree, but it was comforting. Or at least she thought she remembered it being comforting. 17 years was a long time ago and her memories of kindergarten had long since passed by.

She and Matt had gone their separate ways for a few years during middle school and elementary school but they had become that couple the summer before their sophomore year of high school. Mia and Matt were borderline inseparable from that point on. A year after they graduated from high school, they moved into a house that they shared with Matt’s friends and bandmates, Oliver Sykes and Lee Malia. The house was cramped and there was constantly a party going on, but it was home to her. Anywhere that Matt was to be found felt like home to her.

It was unspoken of knowledge that one day Mia and Matt would settle down and get married. Three years after moving in and the four friends still shared their flat together, each of them grateful for one another. While Lee, Oli and Matt were gone more than they were home anymore, they all relished in the fact that they had a girl waiting for them at home. Mia was as much a friend to the boys as she was a girlfriend to Matt. She just assumed that it was impossible to have one without the other.

So as she laid there, beside who she knew was the love of her life, she was only thinking about the impending summer that they would spend apart. Summer was still a couple of months away, but it was already weighing down on her. Her favorite boys had all agreed to a summer playing the Warped Tour overseas in America, a place she loved to visit but would never be her home. And despite promises of her being able to come out for a few weeks, she knew it wouldn’t be the same as having them home or her being on the road with them most of the time like she was when they toured around home.

“Your thoughts are keeping me awake, love,” A voice grumbled near her ear. A voice that was tired from the fact that his perfect girlfriend had been tossing and turning for the better part of three hours. It was a quiet night at the flat, Oli had gone out while the other three had opted for a simple night in. Which meant that all of them had ended up in bed by midnight.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” She whispered, rolling over in the cage that his arms created for her to face him.

“It’s alright, I was barely asleep anyway,” He said and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. This Matt Nicholls was one that was reserved strictly for Mia’s eyes. Sure, his friends knew that he was a softie with all things Mia related, but she was the only one who ever really and truly got to witness it, not that he tried very hard to hide it. He was a sucker when it came to this girl and he didn’t even mind it.

“What’s wrong?” He asked her, moving her hair out of her face so that he could catch her face in the light that came in from the moon through the window.

“Just…I can’t keep the monsters away, you know? I feel like such a dork all the time. You’re not even leaving for two months but I just can’t wrap my head around it. I’m so dependent on you that it scares me sometimes,” She said softly, reaching for the pack of cigarettes that they shared. It sat in its usual spot, propped up against the lamp so that they could each get their nicotine into their system with their morning coffee. Finding a lighter was usually a different story altogether, though. But Matt produced one as she sat up and offered him one, which he declined.

While the Matt that Mia saw was entirely different than the girl others new, there was a different Mia around Matt as well. To a stranger, Mia would probably seem pretentious. She wore the shades appropriately though. She had seen enough of Oli’s problems with being in the spotlight to be wary about her and Matt attracting any sort of attention. That’s probably what caught Matt’s attention to begin with. Even while being bullied, Mia somehow demanded a sort of attention to her. She came off as such a bitch, even when people were taunting her at such a young age. She always joked that it wasn’t so much bitchiness as it was being sure of herself. But when Matt left, she changed completely until he returned.

Mia was not one to second guess her decisions or anything about the way that she lived whenever Matt was home. But the minute he left, it was like Mia had lost herself. Sometimes she hated that about herself, but she knew that it was just because she loved Matt so much. And when he went away, it was like half of her heart was gone too. He was everything to her. And she was everything to him. They were a perfect couple.

“Babe. You’re going to be fine, as you always are. And I’ll split it in half by flying you out halfway through, alright? It’ll be just like a regular US tour for us. Besides, you’ll dream of me every night,” He told her, accepting her offer of a hit off the cigarette. Sometimes the way that Mia thought drove Matt crazy. She spent most of her nights up in bed thinking about anything and everything.

“I hope you’re right,” She said softly, finishing the cigarette and tossing the butt into the ashtray that was always right where they need it.

“I always am. Besides, you’ll be able to find me whenever you need to,” He said, pressing his forehead against hers.

“How? You’re going to be an entire ocean away,” She replied, her fingers moving softly around his neck and back.

“Mia. It wouldn’t matter if you were in a crowd of a million people that was a hundred thousand miles away, I’d still find you somehow. You are a part of every single breath that I take,” He said in his usual perfectly timed manner, causing his lovely girlfriend to catch his lips with hers.