Ian
She bites her lip and starts to shake.
I suddenly grab her face in my hands. Just touching her throws me down into the deepest, most terrifying abyss.
I pull back instantly.
“I can’t touch you,” I tell her honestly. “I…can’t. I couldn’t even think straight, I could never let you go.”
And then she’s the one to touch me. Her hands slide slowly down my face. “Well then don’t. Don’t let me go.” She says, her eyes full of sincerity. Eyes in which her soul shines with all of her sweetness, her strength, her pain and her fear.
“I don’t know how it happened, or when, I don’t know how to tell you the exact moment my heart started beating again, but it did: just for you.”
My knees go weak in her grasp, but she holds me.
“You can’t…You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know what matters. I know that you’re a good man with a big heart. That you love your family more than anything on earth. That you stayed here when everyone else left, to defend what you had. I know you love your brothers, even if you insist they’re a thorn in your side. I know that you’re fun, cheeky and impulsive, but you have a tenderness that comes out only when it’s necessary: and when it does, there’s a warmth that could heat the entire world.”
I drop my gaze because I can no longer hold my head. Even if I’m twice her size, even if I could blow her away just by breathing on her, I can’t fight what I hear.
“I know you thought you were doing the right thing, that you thought you were helping me. I know that when you realised your mistake you were overwhelmed with guilt. I know that you suffered for it, that people have hurt you and that you’re afraid that I will too.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t stand it. Not if it’s you doing it.”
“Ian…”
“I couldn’t watch you leave me again. My heart just couldn’t take it. I need something that’s all mine, Riley. Mine alone. Something that stays, someone who will be with me for the rest of my life. Always. Not someone who takes off at the first problem, someone who turns their back on me and leaves me alone with nothing in my hands and an empty heart. I need…”
She stops my monologue, squeezing my hands. I look at her and then my heart melts in her fingers. “I am yours,” she says. I feel the knot in my throat, my eyes burning and my heart pounding.
“I am yours, Ian,” she repeats, as the first tear falls.
I leave her hands and caress her face, drying the tear with my thumb.
“You’re crying, Riley. You’re crying.”
She nods as her tears turn into sobs.
“God Riley…” I pull in towards her lips. “Tell me again,”
“Yours, Ian.Only yours.”
And a second later my lips are on her face. I kiss her tears and gently breathe in her skin. I kiss her eyes, her cheeks and then put my lips on hers, afraid that this impossible dream may vanish before me.
But then her legs give way, and she falls into my arms.
“Riley what’s wrong?”
I lift her, bring her to the bedroom and set her on the bed. I touch her face and another wave of tears arrives, ready to drown me.
“What’s happening? What is it? Tell me.”
She takes my hands and places them on her belly. A bolt of lightning stops my heart.
“We…we’re yours.”
