Unveiled (Torn #6)(32)
She sobbed, lips quivering as she held her palm against her heart. “Please stop! I can’t—I can’t do this right now.” She stammered before giving me a pleading look.
The back of my eyes stung as if it were burning as I watched her quietly weep. I felt helpless but I knew there was nothing that could shield her from the hurt that will surely break us apart. “If I don’t…I might not have the strength to do this again.” The process itself was killing me. “I’ll try to condense it and I vow to answer all your questions as honestly as I could—I am so sorry…”
Her face smeared with ears, barely glancing at me as she kept sobbing softly. “I don’t want to hear it. Not right now…” she pleadingly cried, hiccupping her words. “I’m not ready. Whatever it is…I’m just not ready.”
“But you must hear what I have to say and I’d rather you hear it from me other than the media or someone else—you have to know my side—”
She wept harder before her knees buckled, letting her knees fall into the ground before she sitting on her heels. “I don’t have that many happy memories—and the little I have—most of them were made with you.” Her shattered small smile dug itself into my heart, my very existence. “I have given myself completely...loving you unconditionally with no reservations for my own safety. I’m sorry…but I just can’t let you finish, Dimi…”
“Don’t be sorry—you have done nothing—not a bloody thing. This was my own fault. My stubbornness and arrogance into believing that it would be me to cause any troubles for us.” Taking a few steps, I knelt alongside her, cradling the back of her head against my hands. “Whether you will or you won’t…I hope someday you’ll find it in you to forgive me. Everything I have said, shown or proved to you before—you must know that they were all real.”
“I know,” she said grasping at my shirt, bunching them with her fingers.
In the middle of the room, on the carpeted floor, holding each other close, I desolately listened to her soft mewling cries. I had come so low that even I couldn’t fathom to forgive myself for hurting the woman I vowed never to hurt. Not only that, but she had gone through so much Hell in such an early age that I felt like the Grim Reaper, adding more injury to her already shaken stance in life, to her already vulnerable disposition…especially since it happened merely days apart from the scare she had with her brother Carter and then the following fight we had right after.
Some protector I was.
There was nothing left for me to do than castigate myself for my irresponsible actions. Though I had vague memories of that night with Claudine, what I truly remembered was spouting off how I felt after the visit in LA. It was wrong—I knew that now but at that time, I simply needed someone to speak to and since she had instantly called me after I got off my jet inviting me for drinks, I went thinking that maybe if I just air out what I felt just this once—then—maybe then I’d feel so much better for the decision I made with Lindsey. There were a lot of wine and brandy but most of all, there were memories of me trying to justify the route I chose to take…but after the third bottle of wine, things became a little blurry from then on. And when I asked Claudine how and why we ended up naked the next day, she shrugged, saying she had no clue either.
Fours after hours I had racked my brain trying to recall events that occurred that night, but every time, I was always ended up with blankness. I admit there were times that I was obliterated and waking up the next day barely remembering anything. And it wasn’t the first time that I ended up naked with someone in bed. So there lied the problem. I wasn’t sure what I had done because I f*uking had no clue.
Would she forgive me if the time came that she was ready to hear my confession? Would she pause, give me the benefit of the doubt, and believe when I tell her that I had no recollection after finishing the third bottle of wine? Gathering her limp body, I softly placed her head against my shoulder while her body sat on my lap. “I’m sorry,” I hopelessly said with my entire heart. Her mewling cries turned into a full blown devastating cry, as if she had just received news that someone she loved had just died. Maybe in a sense, something did die…it was her trust that she had bestowed on me even though she had reservations when it came to Claudine…still she gave it to me or else she wouldn’t be here in the first place.
Seconds, minutes turned into hours before she finally subsided into stillness. She wasn’t asleep but she didn’t appear as if she wanted to move so I remained holding her, not wanting to ruin this tiny precious moment she was giving me. After a minute or so when she started rubbing her cheeks against the material of my shirt, I slowly shifted a little so I can properly gaze down at her, eyes red and swollen, the tip of her nose was pink and with her smooth skin stained with almost dried up tears—and even in this unfortunate time, still, she was the most beautiful thing my eyes ever graced of seeing. Swallowing the heavy lump in the back of my throat, I slowly wiped the remaining wetness that lingered with the pad of my thumb. Deep inside, I was tearful too because I was on the verge of losing her and there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening.
I was a little taken aback when her soft hand reached out to caress my cheek, as if gazing at me with longing. Closing my eyes, I lavished on her touch while my heart cried out for her not to let me go. The intense burning behind my eye sockets made me bob my throat, trying my damnedest not to break into tears too. With her hand still in place, she used her thumb to graze my bottom lip. She then whispered the words I vowed to her professing my love, when I eternally entwined her in my very soul, “Mihi es et tibi sum.” You are mine and I am yours.