Trying Not To Love You

Part Eighty One

Chapter Eighty One

Lying in her bed, she held Sonny his head on her shoulder, their legs entwined, and Martha sighed. Finally he was accepting that he needed her, that they were meant to be. After finding him, a broken man at the door, she’d led him up to her room and half undressed him before silently pushing him into her bed, loving the way he was clinging to her so desperately. As rewarding as it was, to be there like that, they couldn’t not talk about things, this was what had got them into the catastrophes of the past, not talking.

                “You ok?”

He nodded against her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

That made her shudder, “me too. For a minute I thought you were going to win,” she lifted herself onto an elbow and looked down at him in the half light.  “I was almost going to give up, finally walk away.”

Smiling sadly he reached up to cup her cheek, to cherish her, and the moment, and the fact that he was with her again, “you made me think. Really think.” When she nodded, encouragingly, he sighed, “I couldn’t deal with the emptiness in my life without you. I’ve never loved anyone, and so I’ve never lost anyone. Not since my mother,” he gave a self deprecating laugh at that. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. For the past few months, every time I thought of you...it caused me pain, anger...I thought that being with someone else, being away for you was what I needed, to clear my head...to get free of you.” He gave a half smile, “but the pain and anger were because you weren’t there, that I wasn’t with you. It wasn’t you that was killing me, it was being WITHOUT you. I didn’t know how to deal with how I feel about you.”

She smiled at that, and he added, “the only person I ever remember making me feel like this was my mother. And she let me down. The pain when she died...it was nothing compared to the pain over the next few years, when everything went wrong...and it was all her fault. I think I just felt the same way when we were apart. I hurt, I blamed you, and I was scared of where it would take me. I’m not a nice man Martha, most of the time.” He took her hand and placed it over his chest, “I’m dark inside, damaged. I ruin everything I have; I don’t want to do that to you again.”

She shook her head, “no. You’re not. Yes you screw things up, but I’m kind of starting to realise you don’t intend it. You just meander through life protecting yourself. Maybe you don’t know how to BE loved. Which is really sad, because really, inside you have a lifetime of love to give.”

                “I don’t know how to control it...the fear...the need...the desperation. It overwhelms me.”

                “So you brought in ‘she’ who will remain nameless.”

He shrugged, “she was a barrier. With her there...you hated me, and it was easy to push away the pain...it was easier to hide, wasn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes, “I honestly don’t think you’ve processed this until now, have you?”

He looked apologetic, “I have lived all my life at face value, I don’t think about things. Not like that. But every bloody time you speak to me...you keep making me look at myself...and it’s not a pleasant sight. I don’t know the man I saw in the mirror tonight. I hate him.”

Grinning, she rolled so that she was half on top of him, “well if it’s any consolation, I’ve never made a fool of myself over a man, I’ve never wanted to. Whilst I’m not on a destruction mission like you,” she laughed as he blushed, “I mean I was just as bad...I pushed you away, never wanted to face up to things, then I listened to my family...let you run away.”