I Hate this Part

[Cole Kessler]

The last three weeks had been insanely hectic for Cole Kessler. Everything going on in school, Sam graduating and leavig him at Hammel alone, well mostly. He still had Zac, Jalen, and countless othe friends there. Still, Sam graduating left them barely any time to hang out. Vermont's University schedule didn't match up with Hammel's so Cole an Sam could only hang out on the weekend.

But with a new year, Cole decided it wa time to change things up. Last week he'd applied for an apartment and today here he was moving out of the dorms and into said apartment. As he and his dad loaded his couch into the bed of the truck, Cole took a breather and wiped the sweat from his brow, "Ya'know, it's nice to have my own place now. But I hate this part of the process."

"Really, son?" Allan asked him, "I figured you'd be used to it by now. All the moving and shit you've done in the last few years." He chuckled.

Cole returned his father's chuckle with a combination laugh-sigh of his own, "You never get used to moving, dad. You taught me that."

"Well, at least I taught you something. Is that everything in your room that's yours?"

"Yeah, that's the last of it."

"Well, then let's go." Allan said as they both got in the truck, a 2012 Chevrolet Silverado z71.

Cole's dog, Hoss, sat in the console's place between them. Cole's hand rubbed his dog's head. It had been almost three months since he'd seen his pet. The dog had missed him, too, he knew. Hoss's head rested in Cole's lap for the duration of the ride and jumped up when Allan killed the truck. He followed Cole as the boy went and unlocked the front door, propping it open with a doorstop.

He and his dad began unloading everything, starting with the couch and bed. The hardest part of the unloading process? Carrying the bed upstars. As they unloaded the tv to finish things out, Cole and his father took a moment to cool off in the air conditioning.

[Taeyeon Kai]

She had heard that Cole wouldn’t be living in the dorms anymore, moving into an apartment in town. Ever since his best friend had moved to the university, she’d had a feeling that Cole needed someone to talk to. Never mind that she was the ex-girlfriend; she was also his friend, someone he could talk to if he needed it. Since today was a good day to go see him, and maybe help him move in, Tae got dressed in her pink corset top and a pair of jeans and got into her car to head over there.

After stopping at the store and grabbing a poster of his favorite band for his housewarming gift, she grew more nervous. Really, Kai, a poster? It was pathetic. She didn’t have any time to change her mind, though, because she was pulling up in front of Cole’s place. She noticed the truck and smiled; Cole’s dad always had the coolest vehicles.

Walking into the front door, she looked around. “Cole? Mr. Kessler?” she called out, clasping her hands in front of her, the poster between them. “Is anyone here?”

[Cole Kessler]

Cole had dove through three full glasses of water since they'd finished unloading everything. He was leaned against the kitchen counter when he heard her voice. The voice of a girl who'd loved him since the day they met. He felt they'd been together forever, in reality it had only been a few months. But already, he knew his heart would belong to her forever, "In here, babe."

Allan looked up from the sink, his eyes falling on his son, "Babe, huh?" He asked, gulping down his water, "Guess I missed that memo."

"I'll tell you later, pop. There is something I've been meaning to talk to you about anyway." Cole said as he turned around and knelt down, "Hoss, c'mere, boy. Someone I want you to meet." Hoss moped over from his pallet of blankets Cole had made for him to rest on. The pureblood labrador itself was six human years old. He remained on his knee petting and coddling Hoss as they waited for Tae to come in and join them.

[Taeyeon Kai]

She took a moment to look around the apartment, appreciating Cole’s use of space. He would be comfortable here without feeling boxed in or spread out, and there was enough space to throw a small party, which she guessed he would throw once he was all moved in. She took a deep breath, smelling clean carpets, a faint smell of paint, and Cole’s cologne, as well as something equally familiar belonging to his father.

She heard his voice and winced; she really didn’t like being called that when they had been dating, and now he was falling back into the mannerisms as they progressed into their friendship. She navigated the apartment until she found Cole and his dad relaxing and smiled at the older Kessler.

“Hello again, Mr. Kessler,” she greeted with a smile before looking at Cole. Her eyes widened as she looked at him, her heart beating in a new tempo. He had gotten his hair cut and his face shaved…and it looked really good on him. Added to his height, the width of his shoulders…well, let’s just say that the young woman was having a new appreciation of her ex-boyfriend.

She gently bopped Cole on the head with his new poster. “I told you not to call me babe, remember?” she chided him gently before noticing what he was kneeling by. “Puppy!” she exclaimed happily, falling to her knees beside the Lab as her hands started stroking the golden fur. The dog barked once, giving her a doggy grin. “Aren’t you sooooo cute!” she told the dog, laying a kiss on the dog’s head. "This must be Hoss, huh?"

[Cole Kessler]

"Taeyeon." Allan said with a nod of his head. He still liked the girl, and he knew Cole still loved her, but it was really all he could say.

Cole rubbed his head on the spot where she'd hit him, "Sorry, Tae. It's a habit you know." He said with a laugh. He smiled as Hoss immediately took a liking to the young woman, "Yeah, he's my spoiled little buddy." Cole said as he patted Hoss on the side.

Cole took another glass and filled it with water, followed by filling his own, and Hoss' water bowl. As he sat the bowl on the ground, Hoss headed for it, forgetting about the young girl that he'd just met. The dog's quick slurps confirmed what Cole had thought. He'd been just as hungry as the boy and his father. Hoss coughed and took a break from slurping the water up. "Well, slow down, bud." Cole laughed, "Ain't been here but a few hours and you're already trying to die on me?"

Cole was joking of course. Hoss had done stupider things since coming into Cole's ownage. Many of them Cole could never figure out why. He looked at the rolled up poster in Taeyeon's hands, "That for me?"

[Taeyeon Kai]

Tae walked as the dog walked away to drink, and she could understand. It was hot outside, and Tae felt like she could use a drink herself. She watched as Cole found her gift and she smiled gently, a pink flush spreading across her cheeks. “Yeah, a housewarming gift,” she explained, unrolling it to show Linkin Park on it. “Not much, since I just found out you were moving, but I thought you’d like it.”

She put the poster on the counter and looked around. “You picked a nice apartment, Cole,” she told the boy, flashing him a bright smile. “At least it’s clean…unlike some of the other ones around here.” She shuddered, remembering a time when she had to visit a sick co-worker at her apartment, and remembering all of the dirt and trash and the bad smell…it had been horrible.

She did a little twirl and looked back at the Kessler men. “So how is everyone back home, Mr. Kessler?” she asked Cole’s dad, her eyes curious. “Is Ms. Cheyenne still in good health? And Cole’s little brother?”

[Cole Kessler]

Cole smiled as she unrolled the poster to show him. IT was a nice gesture of her. In fact she'd been the only one to come see him, let alone get him a gift. He took the poster, "This is going up.....," he said walking into the living room ,"right now." He placed it against the wall and pushed a few thumbtacks into it, one per corner, "Perfect." He said with a satisfied sigh.

He looked back over his shoulder at Taeyeon, "Thank you, Tae. It's not much, but thank you. It'll be the start of my new collection." He smiled. He turned to face her full front. It still felt strange, her being around him and them not being together. Even after everything that had happened between them, Cole couldn't bring himself to let her go. Most girls that had broken up with him he'd let go easily, but this one was proving difficult...., he still loved her. He quickly broke her gaze and lit a cigarette, "Another plus about this place? I can smoke inside." He chuckled.

Allan adjusted his lean on the counter to remain comfortable, "Everyone home is fine, Taeyeon, thank you for asking. Cheyenne is doing good, she wanted to be here, but someone had to stay with Cheyne." Allan broke eye-contact, "Actually, Cole, I've been meaning to tell you, son...."

"Tell me what?" Cole asked as he sat on the couch.

"Your little brother isn't doing very good, Cole. The cancer is still spreading. The doctors're doing all they can, but they're not sure how it keeps spreading." Allan stepped closer to the sink, a tear evident in his eye, "They're giving him a few months at the least, son."

Cole's body and face didn't show anything. Inside, though, it was like he'd just died. His little brother was dying and Cole couldn't do anything to save him. He took another drag off of his cigarette and blew the smoke into the air. He couldn't show anything in front of Tae. SHe'd seen him cry once, but that was different. They were together then.

[Taeyeon Kai]

He placed it on the living room wall and she laughed gently; of course, he would place it there. It was just so him. She just looked around, looking at all the scattered boxes and stuff, not minding the cigarette smoke when Cole lit up. “You’re going to kill yourself faster if you do that, Cole,” she told him sternly, putting her hands on her hips. Of course, he had offered her one when they had first met, and she didn’t mind the smoke, but she didn’t want Cole dying.

She was still in love with the man.

But the moment Allan started speaking, Tae turned to face the men, her eyes going wide at the news of Cole’s half brother. That was just awful, hearing that news after her own comment at Cole about his smoking…she covered her mouth, suddenly ashamed at herself, before looking at Cole. She read his body language and knew he was hiding his distress from her. Knowing that she had no right to do what she was going to do, she walked to Cole and took his hand.

“Please excuse us, Mr. Kessler,” she said with the utmost respect before dragging Cole to the room with his bed in it. Knowing it was safe here, she turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting on her tiptoes to hold him close. “I’m so sorry, Cole,” she whispered in his ear, holding him tightly. “You can cry, it’s okay…I promise I won’t tell anyone. Even though we’re not, you know, I still care for you.”

[Cole Kessler]

Cole found himself wrapped in Taeyeon's arms rather quickly. It was comforting to say the least, but it brought back too many memories. "I know you do, Tae." Cole said as his arms wrapped around her waist. It was surreal for her to say she still cared for him, especially considering that he felt the same way about her. He felt a tear escape his eye as she finished whispering to him.

Cole wanted to let it all out, but he didn't want her to see him that way. Her took in a breath of her hair and laid his head on her shoulder, "I want to cry, but I can't. I can't let you see me like that again."

He heard a knock at the door, "Cole," his dad said cracking the door open, "Hoss is out back and I'm headed to the store. Someone's gotta get your groceries. And it'll give you plenty of time to get this outta your system." He said, pulling the door to, leaving Cole alone...., with Taeyeon.

The emotions were becoming to much to bare and Cole's face was starting to show it. His eyes were full and his bottom lip was rolled under his teeth. He buried his face into her shoulder and finally began to let it all out, his sobs and cries drowning out anything he could hear.

[Taeyeon Kai]

When his arms fell around her, that feeling of instant safety and security fell around her like the softest of blankets, making Tae re-evaluate what was going on between her and Cole. They were friends, had been lovers, and he had helped her get over Robbie’s betrayal…but these feelings that his touch evoked in her made her feel like a selfish bitch for what she had done to him. Breaking up over a text message, all because she was scared of how he made her felt…never mind that he was the love of her life, that she would do anything for him.

They had rushed the first time, and Tae had panicked.

His head laid on her shoulder and she kept her arms around him. “It’s okay, Cole,” she murmured before his father spoke through the door, shutting it as he left. That sound, the sound of the door clicking closed, seemed to trigger Cole’s emotions into overdrive, for she felt the wetness against her neck and down her shirt, her body pressed to his as his arms tightened around her.

She laid her head against his, closing her eyes and letting twin tears streak down her cheeks. She knew the acute sorrow of loss well; it had happened when her parents had given her away, leaving her bereft of the comfort of her home and the loving embrace of her parents. Cole was losing a battle with his brother’s cancer, and she couldn’t help him.

“I’m sorry, Cole,” she murmured against his ear, pressing small kisses to his skin to try and comfort him.

[Cole Kessler]

Cole's sobs and cries finally began to die down after about twenty minutes. He pulled away from Taeyeon as he finally stopped, the tear trails still extremely vibrant in the light. He wiped the trails away, turned and looked out of the window from his bedroom. The sun was beginning to set, clouds rolling in from the western horizon. The light from the sun reflected something from something in the sky. Cole smiled as the plane seemed to just scoot across the pink and orange fire colored skyline as if it were a caterpillar moving across a leaf.

He took a moment to drink it all in and let it calm the storm inside him, something that had been getting worse lately. There was truly one thing that could erase it from him, but she wanted merely what they now had, or at least that's what she had told him. He turned to face her and stepped toward her. He looked upon her face and saw that she had cried. too. His mind briefly flashed back to the night in his car after they'd had dinner.

He brought a hand up to cup her cheek and wiped one of the tear trails away. He wanted so badly to kiss her, to go back to the way things were, but he didn't want to ask. Would she have him back? He was unsure of it, but he knew what he wanted deep inside. As a new tear rolled from his right eye, the single tear trail made it seem like something straight out of a Hollywood block-buster.

He moved his lips closer to hers, as if he was going to do this no matter the consequences. The thoughts and possibilities ran through his head and then it hit him. He hesitated, a thought grabbing hold of him. What would she do if he did this? A slap to the face and her storming off, them never seeing each other again? Cole shuddered at the thought, and gave his lips a new destination.

The dry skin of his lips met the flesh on her forehead and left just as quickly as they'd touched. "Thank you, Teayeon." Cole said as his slate-blue eyes gazed into those pools of dreamer colors that occupied the woman in front of him. "For everything."

[Taeyeon Kai]

She held him as he cried his tears, holding onto her like the rock she was. She would always be the rock of her family, the person who stood proudly and cradled those close to her as they were the turbulent ocean, their waves crashing on her surface and leaving her with their pain. The tears fell for him, for his brother, for the loss their family would have to endure once Cheyne was gone. Her arms tightening around him, her grip bringing him closer to the comfort she offered.

She felt a sense of loss when he released her and faced the window, and she stood there, looking over the broadness of his back. As a girl, she knew that, like guys, girls had special parts on a male that they loved, like arms or legs or faces. For Taeyeon, it had always been a man’s back; it held strength but also comfort, the dip between shoulder blades the perfect place for a woman to rest her cheek and cry there if she had to. As it was, Tae was taking that extra step to do that when Cole turned and faced her.

She tilted her head back when he stood close to her, his hand cupping her cheek and flooding her body with warmth. Her eyes looked into his, watching the shift from slate grey to pearly blue that she was so fascinated with. Distracted by his eyes, she didn’t realize that their faces were drawing nearer until he hesitated. Her eyes, half-lidded in preparation of a stolen kiss, blinked when his mouth moved north and lingered on her forehead for a moment before he pulled back, looking down at her, showing her how he felt in those eyes of his.

He still loved her.

“Thank you, Taeyeon. For everything.”

Those words woke her from the spell he wove on her, the spell she had wanted since she had met him at the park and tried to explain to him why she had done what she had done. They had rushed the first time, tumbling into something she wasn’t ready for mentally, and that’s why she had broken their hearts by ending it. This time, she felt, they were going to do it the right way. She looked up at him and mimicked his actions, cupping his cheek and standing closer to him.

Without any warning, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, lingering a moment before pulling away.

[Cole Kessler]

Cole's mond and body were caught off guard as he felt the wetness of her lips press to his. She pulled away and hee looked upon her again. Her dreamer's eyes enthralled him and he took her against the wall. The two's lips met once more in an unrelenting, violent, passionate exchange. Each of them sighing between breaths as they tugged at each other's clothes.

Downstairs Cole's father had returned from the local WalMart with a hefty load of groceries for his son's new apartment. He heard the rustling upstairs and stepped up to Cole's bedroom door. He could hear what was going on and decided to leave them be, went back down and put up all the stuff that needed refrigerated, including the beer he'd bought to help his son cope with the news of his little brother. Allan took the time to write out a note telling Cole he was leaving the truck for the boy and taking the Firebreather home for the summer and maybe the fall.

Meanwhile, Cole and Tae were tangled together, getting really heavily into it. Cole's mind flashed back to the night they'd met, the feelings from that night flowing back through him in what felt like deja vu. He growled and pulls his lips from hers. He gazed into her eyes with his own and finally spoke, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

[Taeyeon Kai]

Once she had stepped back from the impromptu kiss, it had taken Cole all of three seconds before he had pinned her to the wall, his body taking her to new levels of passion as his kiss awakened the desire she had always felt towards him. It had been a few months since they had last done this; the last time had been in the backseat of the Firebreather, and she had come out of that with the imprint of the stickshift on the small of her back.

Pretty soon they were on his bed, her body writhing under his as his hands took her to new heights that were both familiar and terrifying. She was falling under the same trap again, that place where nothing else mattered and the only thing she wanted was him, the man above her growling a question that he should have known the answer to. She looked at him, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and knew this would be one of the worst ideas she could possibly do, but gave him the only answer she would ever give him.

“Yes.”

A couple hours later…

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She knew it had been a bad idea from the start, but she had done it, and now she was paying for it. It was midnight, almost her curfew, and the moonlight highlighted the rumpled bed in the middle of the room. Her eyes, having such good night vision, located the sleeping man on the bed, the covers pooled to his waist, deep in the throes of sleep that only lovemaking could give a person. She didn’t want to leave him there, but she had no choice.

Slipping on her shoes, she stumbled and fell into the wall connecting to the doorframe. Wincing at the noise, she looked back and saw him still asleep, so she quietly closed the door behind her. Feeling a bit uncomfortable in her shirt, she straightened it out and heard something hit the carpeted floor. Tae bent over and picked it up, a necklace that had fallen down her shirt when she had stumbled. Knowing it to be the one that Cole had tattooed on his arm, she smiled fondly at it before slipping it around her neck.

No sense giving it back now.

She snuck quietly through the apartment and out the front door, making sure it was locked and closed tightly before heading back to her car. She felt lucky that her engine was quiet as it started, heading out carefully before hitting the gas on the way home. Her free hand clutched the necklace around her neck, knowing it would be a miracle if he never found out she had taken it.

[Cole Kessler]

Sunrise:

Cole woke to a beam of sunlight shining through his window. His eyes fluttered open as his hand came up to sheild them from the brightness. His thoughts flashed to memories of what had happened barely ten hours ago. His eyes, still full of sleep, glanced around the room. "Taeyeon?" He asked sleepily, but the question fell on emptiness.

She was gone, nothing in the room or apartment for that matter that belonged to her. Cole sat up out of his bed, tears already there in his eyes. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his palms. He wiped the tears away and stood up. His body completely uncovered as he walked to the shower and turned the water on.

As he washed his body and exited the shower it hit him. Last night had been a mistake. Not that they'd kissed, made love, or any of that. But the fact that she had been there, and that Cole's dad had told him the news of Cheyne's sickness. It had caused Taeyeon to take him upstairs, caused him to cry in front of her, caused them to embrace, caused them to touch period. His face was blank and he didn't know what else to think about it.

He slowly got dressed and headed downstairs to the living room. He was about to set down when he heard a whimper at the back door. He walked over and opened the door, "C'mon, boy." He said as he opened the door and Hoss casually walked inside. As Cole sat down, Hoss climbed up next to him and laid on the couch cushion, his head resting on Cole's hip.

Cole's attitude usually reflected in Hoss. Almost everytime Cole would get saddened or depressed, Hoss would mirror him. It was only fitting that Hoss was moping around just like Cole would if something didn't change.

Cole looked at his favorite dog, the one he'd had since he was a puppy, "Wonder if this is how she felt when Robbie did this to her?" He asked the dog. Hoss always had a way of answering him, but this time he merely looked up at his owner with a blank stare.

He patted the dog's shoulder as they just sat in the apartment, Cole trying to figure out exactly how he felt. Betrayed? Depressed? Alone, for sure, but it was worse and he couldn't find an emotion to match it. He sat there with his dog and could not even summon the will to take up the remote and watch TV. This had taken his inner storm into overdrive.