I Love You to Death(72)

He’s right about one thing though, I was happy, really happy and I really want to tell him why, but he keeps talking.
"I just want to make you smile again Ash and more than anything, I really just want to be with you." He stops and takes another deep breath before he continues, "Asha, I can’t not be with you, I really can’t. Haven’t you ever felt like that? That you needed someone, wanted them more than anything?"
I hear the pleading in his voice still and feel my heart catch in my throat at the things he’s saying to me. I can barely breathe now. Yes of course I know what he means. It’s exactly how I feel about him. He buries his face in my neck again, pressing light kisses on the skin below my ear. He’s working very hard to convince me and I’m liking it.
"The fact that on top of all that, you are just so damn beautiful, is really the icing on the cake Ash," he whispers, gently grazing my skin with his teeth.
Now my head is spinning. Now, I’m really liking it.
I’m so confused though and I don’t know what to do. I want to protect him, but I want so badly to be with him. I’ve never met anyone like him, never met anyone who lives as they want to, unafraid and so sure of what they want, so willing to fight for it. Luke says he wants me. I know he sees exactly who I am, what I’ve done, the real me. But most of all, I know I really want him.
But still I can’t.
I pull back and put my hand on his cheek and he leans into it. "But I’m so afraid you will die because of me," I say quietly.
He closes his eyes, his beautiful face showing only fierce determination. He opens them, pulling back to look at me. "Asha, when you ran away from me tonight, that felt like dying to me."
I can’t take my eyes off him. I look right at him and I see the sadness and the hope and the want in his eyes and I want to unburden myself.
"I do want to be happy Luke, and you are right, I was happy, so very happy. And it was you, it was you who made me that way," I eventually say, watching his face as he listens to me. "But I don’t know how to do that again, how to make all of this, okay. How do I do that without hurting you? What am I supposed to do Luke, what do you want me to do?" I beg, choking the words out and wishing he had the answers.
He looks at me like his heart is breaking. His hands are holding my face, forcing me to look at him now as he says, "Ash, I want you to believe me. I want you to be happy and do all of the things that you want to do. But most of all, I just want you to let me love you."
And before I can say anything more, he kisses me and I give in. My broken heart starts beating again and that scared part of me disappears. I cannot stop this now, because I no longer want to.
I want to believe him. I want to be happy again. I want Luke and I want him to love me. I want to be able to love him. I want to be given that choice.




At the stroke of midnight when a new day dawns, but chaos and death are strongest
∞

Playlist:
1. 100 suns – 30 Seconds to Mars
2. Tongue tied – Grouplove
3. It ends tonight – The All-American Rejects
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I’ve always been a night person, long before the nightmares started. I like the darkness, the silence of night. I like being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. It’s a time when you can remain hidden from everyone, when no one can see you or hear you or know you. But it can also be a time to show yourself, reveal all of your inner fears, your inner desires because you know that come dawn, a new day will begin and the night and all that it holds will disappear.
But the darkness, the night, it can be dangerous. As much as I love it, it would sometimes scare me. It brings out the worst in people and it’s where the monsters lurk.
∞

I remember when Sam suggested we get our own place. It had been twelve months since I’d gone to Boston and we were still living in the apartment he shared with Simon and Brandon, which now felt very crowded. Things were starting to get heated between the guys too. I’d overheard things and I know Sam had said stuff to them. I didn’t know what to do, but I was beginning to think maybe I might have to move back home, that somehow I was going to have to find a different way to make this work before I destroyed it.
When I said to Sam, "Maybe I should just go back to Providence and commute?"
He simply replied, "Or maybe we should just get our own place?"
His suggestion made me smile, made me so happy because it made me realise he wanted to be with me and this thing between us was important to him, like it was to me.
I said yes right away and then we started looking.
It was tough at first, because everything was just so damn expensive and Sam was only working part-time because he was still studying. I hardly had extensive qualifications, so the waitressing I was doing did not rake in the big bucks. Still we were both incredibly happy and I remember thinking again, that out of Nate’s death, I was so lucky to have been given Sam. I thanked Nate every day for telling Sam to look for me, to come and find me.
We eventually found the tiny apartment I still live in now and after that, everything was great. We finally had our own space where we could come home to only each other, every night. Finally it was just the two of us and as I savoured it, I tried desperately not to think about what I’d been doing to the people closest to me all my life.
A couple of weeks after we moved in though, I decided I had to tell Sam about me. I think it was guilt that drove me to do it. Here I was, now living with a man who I was madly in love with, but who I was petrified of doing something terrible to. I wasn’t sure how it had all gotten this far, and I knew sooner or later I was going to have to get this out. Tell him the truth about me. Fortified by a few drinks, I broke the news to him.