Be a Doll(110)

“I didn’t want to keep you in my life when I loved you and I knew you didn’t feel the same. It hurt to think that you wouldn’t really fall for me like I was falling for you, but then I pushed you away and discovered what it was like to lose you completely. It hurt so damn bad, Lila. My heart was burned to ashes and the wounds left behind kept on bleeding everyday, every hour, every minute, every second. It never stopped hurting, not once during the past two weeks and one day. I’m asking for a chance to show you that a life with me could be good. I want to get a chance at love with you and give you everything you ever dreamed of and more.’’ He traced my lips with his thumb. “You gave my life back and forced me to start shedding the fa?ade I had on in a sordid way to remember my brother, so let me give you the happiness you deserve. I’ll never be easy to live with and I know I won’t be able not to toy with you just to see the fire inside you burn brighter, but I can give you my heart, my body, my damn soul. I’ll give you everything, Lila, because all I have means nothing if I can’t share it with you.’’

“But—‘’

He put his thumb back on my lips and shook his head once. “Look in my eyes, Lila. You can read me a lot better than I’m comfortable with. Tell me you don’t see that I love you. Tell me you don’t see the signs of someone suffering from missing you. Tell me you can’t see I broke my own damn heart.’’ His eyes trailed over my face, starting with my eyes and then down to stop on my mouth and then up again. “Is there a chance that I can stay in your life and show you the kind of life I can give you? Is there a small chance that you want me in your life?’’

“How do I know it’s not a fluke?’’ I traced the ring under his left eye with the tip of my fingers and watched as he sucked on his lower lip, his brows bunched over his eyes. “How do I know you won’t turn your back on me come next month and leave me alone again? I can’t go through this again. It hurts too much, way too much.’’

***





MATHIS


My stomach tumbled, my heart flew through my chest. My whole body vibrated at having her so close without having her. Not once in a million years did I ever picture myself professing my love like a damn fool on a sidewalk. All my adult life I had been distant to everybody, never reaching out to anybody and only striving in my work life and even further back I had no recollection of ever saying I love you to anybody. I never thought it’d be so easy to say the words, but that it would hurt so damn bad to say it and let the words hang there between us when she was trying to put more distance between us, pulling back when all I wanted was to pull her in and tell me that she would give me a chance.

Also, knowing that I hurt her made me want to beat myself up.

My hands cupping her delicate face, I couldn’t look away from her cornflower blue eyes, the way they shone with unshed tears she fought off or how her lips kept on drawing me closer, trembling.

“I can prove to you every day you give me that I don’t want you anywhere but in my life, Lila. That’s all I can do because I can’t get a ruler to measure up my love for you or my commitment. I’m beginning to realize that starting a relationship is a leap of faith. Coming here to Boston was my leap of faith.’’ I kissed the tip of her little nose all red from the biting cold. I couldn’t keep my lips away from her. “Do you think you could fall in love with me one day?’’

She tried turning her head away from me, but I forced her to stay there with her eyes on mine. My blood buzzed at my temples as tension made me shake more. Lila was the first choice I made that was truly for me. It wasn’t for my mother’s benefit, business or anything else. Lila was my very own choice, a woman like no other with the kind of fire in her that called out to my own extinguished on a beach one summer morning nineteen years and three months ago in the ocean.

“Don’t look away from me. Tell me.’’

Her small hands on my chest felt amazing, calling out sensory memories when she would touch me. I craved her skin against mine, the way she begged me to make her come, the connection that shocked me when nothing was between us and we let go.

“This is scary,’’ she whispered, her eyes pleading with me to drop my hands from her face and let her walk away, but the pain inside me, the damn stupid hope I held onto prevented me to. “I have nothing, Mathis. You could stamp on me and burn me to ashes and I would be left all alone. Money wouldn’t put me back on my feet.’’

“You have my heart, Lila. It’s battered, it’s shattered too and it is in bad shape all together, but it’s yours. If you think for one moment I’m a fickle man who changes his mind at every turn you’re mistaken. I want to be with you, but only if you want to be with me and you don’t hold back.’’ I caressed the arch of her high cheekbones with my thumbs and went to drop my hands, but Lila gripped my forearms. I didn’t know where I stood. Did she want me to leave her? Did she want me? I had no idea what she wanted, what she felt.

“Why do you think it hurt this much and I’m scared?’’ she asked me, her quivering voice tugging at my heartstrings, awakening my protective instinct that told me to gather her in my arms and protect her from everything, even her emotions and mine. It was so foreign. “I was falling in love with you, Mathis. You broke my heart.’’