I'm Only Me When I'm with You

Chloe's POV

It was Friday night, a couple weeks after the Edison Group escapade. Derek and I were laying out in the yard behind the house Aunt Lauren and Kit had rented for all of us – Tori, Simon, Kit, Aunt Lauren, Derek, and I - to live in. It was somewhere in Canada, I wasn’t sure where though.

“Ha, found it,” Derek growled softly dragging me out of my thoughts.

“Found what?” I questioned.

“Orion,” he replied.

“Who?” I questioned, slightly puzzled.

“The constellation,” he answered, pointing up at the sky.

“Where? I don’t see him,” I said, trying to follow his finger.

“You see the three brightest stars in a row,” he said in a low growl, without waiting for a response he continued “That’s his belt. Now follow my finger.” I followed his finger and saw a vague human shape.

”I see it now,” I told him. A cold breeze blew over us and I instinctively snuggled into Derek for warmth. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder making me feel safe and secure, like nothing could ever happen to me.

We lay there in content silence. I placed my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, steady and ever-present, just like him. We lay like this for a while listening to the symphony of crickets.

Then Aunt Lauren yelled from the back porch that we had to come inside and go to bed. Aunt Lauren acts like she doesn’t mind Derek and I being together, but I see the looks she gives him. He disgusts her. We had a couple of arguments and she stopped the snide comments, at lest while we were in the room.

I went to bed thinking about Derek. I was only truly happy when he was happy. I didn’t want to go anywhere he couldn’t. He drives me crazy half the time by yelling at me. But the other half I’m trying to convince him that what I feel is real. The strangest thing about being with Derek is that I’m only my true self when I’m with him. I drifted of to dreamland with a smile on my face.