Stolen Hearts (2012 Wattys Finalist)

Chapter 19 - All She Wants

"Every day since then, I've asked myself the same question before I go to sleep. Do I wish I'd been in the car with them or am I glad I wasn't in the car? Maybe the whole first year after the accident, I wished I'd been in the car. Then, I started to feel better and there were more days when I was glad I wasn't in the car. It took a few years, but I was able to make a new life and I was happy again. Then – I came here and –." She stopped and he saw tears run down her cheeks.

Robert moved closer to her so he could take one of her hands and hold it in his, saying gently, "I know." He still had no idea how she hadn't gone completely mental and thrown herself off the balcony.

She wiped her tears away with her sleeve and looked up at him sadly, saying, "When you came here, it broke my heart to see how scared you were. I wanted so much to help you so you wouldn't feel so bad."

He didn't know how he felt hearing her describe him as scared. All he remembered feeling those first few days was the rage that never seemed to go away. But when he thought about it, he realized he had been scared underneath all that rage. He felt intense shame again, remembering how he'd treated her back then.

"It wasn't long after you came here, I was surprised how I answered the question – night after night – it was always the same. I was glad I was alive because I was here for you – helping you. Even if all I could do for you was cook a meal with you, so there was at least one part of your day when you weren't all alone, I felt better." He had no idea she was feeling like that about him back then. It made him feel even worse, remembering those days when he had so much anger towards her and barely spoke to her.

"Then, when we spent more time together, I got to know you, and I saw what a good person you were. You were so kind to me and took care of me. It's been a long time since someone cared about me. I felt safe with you. You have no idea what that meant to me." It was starting to dawn on him how she fell in love with him.

She looked down at their hands and said, "I started to have feelings for you. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't help it. I knew you wouldn't want me to feel that way about you. I knew he wouldn't like it. But the way you made me feel – I've never felt like that before. I decided I wanted to know what it was like to love a boy as special as you. And – I wanted to know what it was like to be in love – just once."

Robert had no idea how she could be strong enough to say that without crying because he lost it completely. He leaned over and cried in his arms while he continued to hold her hand, overcome with despair. He had done this. He was responsible for this. He had made this poor girl fall in love with him. He should've known she was so emotionally starved she would've fallen for him the moment he was kind to her, the moment he showed her any compassion. But what the hell other option did he have, he wondered bitterly, treat her like the fucking bastard?

He shouldn't be doing this, he thought, and he struggled to pull himself together. She deserved to have her say without him falling apart. And he needed to get control over himself so he could figure out how to fix this disaster he'd created.

She'd been holding his hands, rubbing his knuckles with her thumbs and he pulled his hands out of hers so he could wipe his face with his shirt sleeves. Then he took her hands in his and looked at them, waiting for her to continue. He'd never noticed how beautiful her hands were before. They were slender, just like the rest of her, and her fingers were long.

"I never intended for you to know I loved you. It was already so hard for you to be here, and I didn't want to make things worse. It was enough for me just to love you in my heart. That's all I wanted. I feel terrible you found out like this. I'm so sorry, Robert." She'd been protecting him, he thought suddenly. All along she'd been protecting him from her feelings.