Her Shadows, His Secrets

“Hanna, are you falling in love with me?”

I look down at my hands, and I try not to cry, but it happens. I have to do what I know best. Run. Hide. And accept that I’m better off alone. Always have been and always will be.

“Take me home.” It’s all I say, and he doesn’t argue. He watches me for a few moments while I avoid all contact. Staring out the window, I let the tears fall. How do we go from passionate sex to me being ready to say one word that has me breaking as I prepare to say it?

We don’t speak the entire way home, and the second we pull into the driveway, I open the door, and he still says nothing. I shut the door, then turn and face him. He doesn’t give me his eyes, and this makes it harder to do, but it’s all I can think. My fight-or-flight instinct has kicked in.

“I’m sorry, Theo. This can’t happen anymore.” I shut the door, and the tears fall, unhindered. I just let them break free from my eyes, like the pain breaks free from the confines of my heart. I haven’t known him long, but somehow, I felt something. A beat in my heart that was for someone else and not just for the sole purpose of living.

Almost a month here and he is giving me feelings I hate to admit. But it’s better to end it now anyway. Before my heart aches and yearns for him more. His job will be done soon, and we’d have to be done anyway. It just makes sense. It’s all we have. I get to the door, my ears ringing, the tears falling hard and fast. I tremble, my hands shaking as I struggle to unlock the door.

Suddenly, arms encase me, and his closeness warms me.

“I hate you for making me love you,” he growls in my ear, moving my hair to the side and kissing my neck. I grip the door and drop my forehead, my chest shaking as I cry harder at his words. “Baby.” He runs his nose against my neck.

“You don’t love me. You just want to make me feel better. You pity the life I lived, alone and unloved. You can’t love someone like me.”

He reaches around me and grabs my stomach, squeezing, damn near clawing at me. “I love you. I hate it. Every fucking second. But it’s not pity. I love you, because you made me love you. It’s your fault.” He kisses up the column of my neck.

“You won’t let me in. You use me. Then you shut me out. How can you call that love?” I turn then and face him, showing him the heartbreak he’s caused. The havoc he’s rained down on my life in such a short amount of time.

“Because if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t fear you. I wouldn’t be crazy and mad and obsessed and in rage because I want to consume you and make you feel the misery I do.”

My heart weeps. “Loving me causes you misery?”

“Yes, because it means I can’t let you go. I can’t walk away anymore.”

“Why does that have to be misery? That knowledge that we love each other brings me peace. You are the only person who has seen me for me,” I admit, hoping he’ll let down barriers, ones I have let down so many times for him. I flourished unashamedly under his touch and told him my darkest desires. I told him my past and let him be there when I needed someone to collect the pieces after I read those letters.

He asked me today to need him. To cling to him. And I know that is love. He craves love, but he does it in a way that he feels he can still control the situation. He tries to make love seem scary, but really, it’s freeing. I’ve never been in love, so this first time should scare me, especially when it’s with a man like him. But Theo doesn’t scare me. He frees me.

“You understand what happens now, Hanna?” he asks, but honestly I don’t.

“No. What happens?” I ask, cupping his face and looking up into his vulnerable, honey eyes. I’ve craved so long to see the full Theo. The one with no bars, no walls, no arrangements, but the man who can show what he deems weakness and that I declare as strength. It’s only been one month. It felt a lifetime, but it really wasn’t. We are in love. I finally found love, and it’s with the most complicated man. A complication I am so thankful to be lost in.

“It means you have to teach me. You have the control,” he admits, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around me, kissing the rolls of my stomach. That makes me insecure, but I don’t want to ruin his admission with my discomfort. “You have control now. I’ve never rendered control. But to you, I crave for you to have it.”