Page 41 of Once Bitten

We were too close to pretend I didn’t hear his question, too close to even ignore it.

“I guess,” I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me, “I guess, I just haven’t met anyone I wanted to be with. Or anyone who wanted to be with me.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“It’s sweet of you to say so, Finn. But you don’t know me.”

“I do.” He insisted.

“No, you maybe knew me, but you don’t know me.” I replied more harshly than I meant to.

He paused, and took a deep breath. “No, I do know you. What makes you you.”

We grew quiet as we heard the guards make a final round of the park for the night before slamming the gate closed, with us still inside.

The pause in conversation gave me time to think of my answer, and I decided that whatever was going on between us, there was no use in being anything but brutally honest.

“You want to know why I’m not in a relationship? Why I haven’t married? Why I’ve never been with anyone even remotely long enough to even consider marriage? It’s because of you! YOU! You say you know what makes me me. Well, YOU made me me, who I am today. I was seventeen, Finn. I was madly in love with you. And then you played me, on the most important night of my young life, you teased me, you flirted with me, you made me think...think that there was something between us, and then you just tore my beating heart out of my chest...and left me standing there, alone. In the night.”

I pulled away from him and ran toward the shelter of the small gothic chapel in the middle of the garden. I could hear Finn running after me as I ducked under the stone arch leading into the darkened entrance. He caught up to me, grabbing my arms from behind and spinning me to face him, pushing me hard against the cold, stone wall.

“God, Kara, please, please forgive me, forgive me, sweetheart, just forgive me” He pleaded, his voice breaking as he stared into my wet eyes.

“YOU BROKE MY HEART, FINN!” I yelled at him, and watched him flinch.

His hands, still strong around my arms, pulled me away from the wall, forcing me to stare into his eyes. “I broke MY heart that night too, Kara. I was broken after as well.” He dropped his hands from my arms and stood in front of me, head lowered, dejected.

The anguish in his voice twisted my heart and I clutched at my chest, trying to sooth the coil of pain knotted between my lungs. I wanted to believe, god, I wanted to believe him so much. I wanted to believe that that fateful night had hurt not only me but him as well, if not as much, than at least in some way, that it had left an impression on him too.

I wanted to believe when he drove away from me, when he got home that night, when he woke up the next morning, whenever he thought back on it, that he regretted what could’ve happened between us, regretted that he had hurt me, changed me and my attitude towards love forever.

His face showed his torment as he spoke, but I couldn’t let myself believe him. The last 15 years had been spent hating him, playing his words again in my mind every time a man got close.

“What happened that night, Finn? I mean, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense to me. You say that you broke your heart as well, but you’re the one who pushed me away, DROVE away! Just because I didn’t want to have sex with you. But how could you blame me? We were 17! I was still a virgin and we’d NEVER had any sort of relationship that would suggest I would sleep with you, and then suddenly I’m supposed to give it up after one weird and crazy night? And don’t blame it on being drunk, I’d seen you drunk before, it never made you act the way you did that night.”

The questions hung in the air, echoing in our ears even in the silence of the deserted garden.

Finn didn’t speak right away, but I’d waited 15 years for an answer, I could wait a little longer.

“I really am a monumental idiot.”

“Finn,” I reached up to stroke the side of his face, coaxing him gently. “Talk to me, tell me, it won’t change what happened, but it might change what happens next, for the both of us.”

He paused, I could see him trying to form the words. “Do you know what it’s like to secretly be in love with someone for 10 years?”

Was he kidding?

“Yes.” I did.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I was in love with you.” It was time I admitted it to him.

“I was in love with you.”

His declaration, spoken so softly, stabbed me hard right in the heart.

“Shut up, Finn. Don’t mock me, we’re beyond that now.”