Ignitable

Ignitable - Chapter Ten

Cade...

Maybe there is a god after all?

Maybe there is something called fate?

Or maybe, I'm just one lucky bastard?

I don't know what I have done to deserve having Sophia strolling back into my life, carrying a pretty little picnic basket in her very lovely hands, but I'm just glad that she has. I wouldn't even like to say how many times I have thought about returning to her shop. It's just an embarrassing amount to actually confess to. So when Jennifer called through to my office to tell me that Sophia was wanting to see me, I was elatedly stunned. Seeing her standing in my office doorway, I just can't put into justifiable words how it felt. I had to stay composed, guarded even. The woman who has become imprinted in my every waking thought, literally came to me.

No needing to go and see her.

No needing the Lapley charm.

She had willingly come to me.

I have finally been given my second chance with Sophia. This is where I mustn't screw things up. For the first time in my life, I care about what someone else thinks about me. I have never given a damn about anyone and no one has ever given a damn about me.

But I give a damn now.

A bloody big damn.

I don't know whether what I have to give Sophia will ever be enough? But I'm willing to try because she is willing to take a chance on me. No one has ever done that for me.

No one has ever been able to push through my defences.

Yet Sophia has.

She doesn't even know it, but she is changing me.

She is making me want to change.

I want to be a better person. I want to be a better version of myself.

I don't do all of that romance shit, but I'll do it for her. Just to see that beautiful smile of hers, the smile that I know lights up the darkest of places, I will do it.

On the night that I first met Sophia, I thought she had underestimated me. What I want, I usually get. But when she left in the middle of the night, with not as much as a goodbye, I knew then that I had underestimated her. She is as delicate and as beautiful as a petal on a flower, yet as strong as the falling rain. Everything about her is attractive and beguiling. Her striking grey eyes are things that I could get lost in for days and days. But it's not only her natural beauty that excites me, it's how connected I feel to her. I have spent my entire life feeling unconnected. My mother's unconscionable actions towards me as a child, made me an unreachable man.
Yet somehow, some wonderful somehow, Sophia has reached me.
For the first time ever, I am wanting to be reached. I am wanting to be connected.

So I have to do this right.

I have to get this right.

Until Sophia, my life has been empty. So empty, I have been emotionally hollow. Mother ensured I would be hollow. She ensured I would become a lonely man. I think I just grew up becoming more and more immune to all of that emptiness and loneliness that mother wanted me to have. It's not until you actually meet someone who starts to fill your desolately shit life, do you realise just how empty and lonely you have been.

In just a short and sweet time, Sophia is now filling my world with her beautiful and enlightening self. At the centre of my dark life, is my precious girl. I know that she is going to be the one who will navigate me through the many avenues of my miserable world.

Am I falling too quickly?

Probably.

Am I wanting too much?

Probably.

Remember, I'm a selfish bastard. But I'm really trying hard to rectify that. I am wanting to do things differently now. Sophia, is different. The thought of me ever hurting her, actually hurts me.

I have been conditioned to not care, yet here I am—caring.

And I think she cares about me. I think she maybe didn't want to at first, but found herself caring anyway. For that reason alone, I will do my damnedest to make this work. I will make room for her being remarkably in my life. I think Sophia herself is a woman who has many rooms in her heart, I am now just hoping that there's still enough room for me.