Riley gets up slowly. She moves in my arms and when she realises what I’m doing she pulls away from me, turning onto her back and covering herself with the duvet up to her chin.
“Riley,” I say, the emotion in my voice nearly betraying me. She shakes her head and gets up, wrapping herself in the sheet. She seems small, defenceless. My gut instinct is to run to her and hug her, make her understand that I’m here, I’m here for her, that she can tell me anything and I’m ready to take it all on.
I get up and go over to her but she hurries away to go sit in the armchair. She hugs her legs to her chest, curling up into a ball.
She’s closing me out.
I kneel down before her. “Trust me,” I tell her gently, trying to catch her gaze.
“I can’t.”
“You can. It’s going to be alright, I promise you.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
She shakes her head and looks elsewhere.
“I’m afraid of you,” she says in a whisper. “Afraid of wanting you so badly that I feel it coursing through my veins. The need I have to inhale you, to hear your breathing. Afraid to come out in the open and show myself for what I really am. Afraid that it’s all too much, that you won’t be able to accept it and that I really am that problem you’d rather not deal with.”
Then she turns her head slightly and looks at me.
“Afraid that you’ll break my heart again, Ian O’Connor – and that this time I won’t be able to repair it.”
I close my eyes and swallow the rest of my hope that I could take care of her, and love her as she deserves to be loved.
