BEHIND CLOSED DOORS | 18+ |✔

35

Unlike Charlie, Anthony made sounds when it stopped. So she knew even without looking out of the window, that he was here, right in front of her house. Antonia wanted to run out to the door and greet him, but that would mean that she had forgiven him. 

So she did not. Instead, she waited for the doorbell to ring, and quietly, very slowly, she went to the door, trying as hard as she could to keep the emotions from showing. 

As soon as the door was unlocked, it flew open, and the big, looming figure of the man fell upon her, consuming her in his powerful arms, while his broad shoulders formed protection around her. She was completely engulfed in him, her face buried in his chest—her ear pressed flat right above his heart. The beating sounded fast and erratic as if it would escape the rib cage at any moment. 

His heart was beating the same as hers. 

She should have known, that her resolve would crumble the moment she would see him in all his glory, that she was not strong enough to resist him. But she had tried. She had tried to be angry at him, she had tried to be cold, she had tried not to forgive him. 

It was just her love that cancelled out all her bitterness. 

"Why did you do this to me?" the words came with sobs and tears, "How could you do this to me? Is this all I am to you? Just a woman who you come to after five months, knowing that she will accept you no matter what? Or are you here just to fuck?" 

She tried hitting his chest with all her might, but his arms held her tightly. He was quiet, his face in her neck, his breaths falling in jerks. The air around them was still, the only sounds being her sobs and his shaky breathing. 

"That night, you asked me..." he spoke, his mouth beside her ear, giving her the same butterflies all over again, "why I fought Clementine. And I told you, that I'd tell you later." 

He very softly detached herself from him, holding her face with his hands and touching their foreheads together, "But I never got to tell you." 

"Got to?" Antonia laughed mockingly, "You left! Not me!" She tried to push him away, but his grip on her face was strong. 

"I know" he whispered, "it was hell without you, Antonia." 

She wanted to say the same, that her days were grey without him, but all she could manage was a pathetic sob. 

"I'm sorry," he grazed a thumb under her eye, "I left you all alone. Please, please forgive me." 

"I hate you..." Antonia wept loudly, "I hate you so much!" she felt as if she had been gathering tears for this particular moment because this was the most she had cried in the past five months without him. 

"Hate me all you want," he whispered, "but then make sure you love me equally. Because," he brushed their noses, "I don't know what I'd do if you ever stopped loving me." 

So he knew, Antonia's anger found a new summit, he knew my feelings for him and yet, he had decided to leave. 

"Why did you leave?" she asked. Enough of the tragic heroine shit, she wanted answers. She wanted explanations. 

"That day," he dropped his hands to his side, "I lied about Cardiff." 

"I know," Antonia stepped back to put a distance between them, "why?"