How to Break Her Heart

step 4: love her

 On her 11th birthday, the police find her in a narrow alleyway, naked, half-starved, and left to die with a smile on her face.

-

She begins to fall for him on the fifth day of Wilona's 30-day deadline.

He can see it from the way her gaze lingers on him when he leaves to get them both lunch. They still sit together at the secluded table in the corner of the lunchroom.

When he comes back, her smile is softer, more wistful, and when she thanks him, she's breathless.

He's scared. He doesn't want this.

But he does want this.

He's so confused.

A tiny part of him, the ugly, disgusting part of him, wants to see her hurt. To see her broken for once, the way she made him feel that day in the rain a lifetime ago. It wants to see if Wilona's twisted experiment will actually work.

But another larger, stronger part of him wants her to love him. For none of this to be because he has to trick her and then crush her. The bigger part of him wants to envelop her in a big hug, and kiss her, and tell her she means the world and more to him. He wants her to kiss him back and tell him she loves him.

Because he still loves her.

He loves her.

I love you, he tells her. But she doesn't hear. It's in his mind he says it after all.

Instead he tells her, out loud, "Let's go out."

"Okay," she chirps. "Where do you want to go? Kenny's Pizza? I don't know if they're open today but-"

"No," he replies, his voice so soft that she has to strain to hear him. "Go out with me."

She still looks confused and he looks into her eyes, his gold ones uncharacteristically serious.

"On a date," he clarifies. "You and me. Let's go on a date. To a restaurant. Wear your nicest dress." Oliver frowns as he turns around and walks away. "I'll pick you up seven thirty sharp."

He doesn't wait to hear her response.

x

At seven twenty-nine, he drives up to her dilapidated apartment building. It still looks the same as four years ago, maybe a bit more rundown.

He skips the stair with the hole in the center and makes his way up to the second floor. He gets to door 207 and takes a deep breath. He's dressed in the typical white and black suit and hides the white gardenia behind his back.

She opens on the third knock and he can't breathe.

She's dressed in a simple off-the-shoulder emerald dress that falls just below her knees. She's also wearing small golden heels that puts her height up to his chin. But it's not the dress that stuns him. It's the look she gives him when she realizes who's at the door, her chestnut eyes so big and hopeful.

Like he's a prince come to sweep her off her feet, to save her from an impending doom. But he was the dragon in disguise. It is a look he doesn't deserve and he looks away, thrusting the single flower out at her. 

He blushes and mutters, "Here, this is for you."

She does a happy little gasp, her lips glossed red, and takes it gently from him. "Thank you."

He waits patiently for her to put it in a small vase and fill it with water. When she's ready, he takes her hand and leads her to his car. Strokes of orange, salmon pink, and lavender lined the sky.

Oliver holds her left hand tightly during the long car ride to the restaurant. He opens the door for Cinderella like a gentleman and she steps out of his carriage to marvel at the restaurant's expensive decor.

Then the Dragon disguised like a Prince leads her to his lair.

x

"What are you thinking?" she asks one day.

His head is on her lap, her nimble fingers tangling and twisting in his hair. Her ever-present notebook is beside her, opened to a fresh page for when inspiration strikes. She asks him this because he has been staring at her with a solemn look for quite some time.

He doesn't respond immediately. Only gets up abruptly and pulls her into a hug.

"Wha- What are you doing?"

"Just thinking of how beautiful you are."

She stutters out a bunch of incorrigible words before he brings her face up from his chest and shuts her up by molding their lips together.

Soren Easley has her first kiss under the white almond tree 16 days before the deadline. And many more kisses after that.

x

Five days before the deadline, Oliver confesses to Soren Easley that he loves her.

That he's loved her since the day she was brought to the Orphan's Heritage Home, when she gave him her bread and they took an oath that they would take care of each other forever and ever and ever.

He loved her the day she brought a mutt to the orphanage and named him Terry and fell for her harder when she hid the pup from the supervisor who didn't tolerate stray pets in the Home.

He loved her when she grinned and said she was so happy for him when he told her he would be leaving. She comforted him when he started crying, bawling, saying he didn't want to leave her, that they were supposed to stay together forever and ever and ever.

But you need to, Maddox. Who else is going to take a troublemaker like you?

He had only cried more, loved her more.

Take this chance - go live your life. Then, when we both have better lives, we'll find each other and be together forever and ever and ever.

He changed his name to Oliver that day. It was the only condition his foster parents had to follow to keep him. He only wanted one person to call him by his real name. They agreed, thinking it was just a phase.

It wasn't, and he loved Soren Easley even in the coming years. He loved her when he met her again at school and avoided her like the plague. He loved her when he started dating Wilona. He loved her even while he knew he was going to break her heart.

He still loves her.

He loves her now and forever and ever and ever.

Soren Easley smiles then.

She smiles the most sincere, loving smile that she's ever formed on her sweet face and tells him she loves him too.

For forever and ever and ever.

x

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