Make You Love

Chapter 22 ~ Craig

Dedicated to 1LoneAlpha

Baby, I've been beating my addiction to my girl friend since sixth grade. Loving her and hating her because she didn't love me back. I nabbed Novah in cold, slippery blood. So what? Happy
now? She hadn't really taken up much space in my life. She was good in bed. Had nice, firm tits that bounced when you hit her hard enough, but that was all. The thingy I had with her was nothing near how I felt around Isla.

Every damned person within twenty feet of me shut up. Throwing back my head, I shrieked at the top of my lungs. Then their mouths hung open, almost drooling. I was sick, sick of hiding my true feelings from everybody.

"Let's just get this god-damned trial over with and throw my ass behind the bloody prison for bloodier twenty-five years. Cause I don't give a shit no more about what nobody thinks cause I'm tired of thinking and figuring out this shit..." I was hyperventilating, opening up my rage that had been buried within.

"Watch your language, Mr__"

"No, you shut up!" I glared at the judge.

She gasped. Rapped her hammer on her desk, screaming, "Order!"

"Fuck you. Fuck everybody in this stupid courtroom. You motherfuckers don't understand what's it's like, do ya?"

Security guards jumped into action. They grabbed my hands, heaving and panting, struggling to pin them behind my back.
"In your dreams." I spun around on my heels, wrenching free from their grasp. I took advantage of their shock to seize the first one by his head and bang it on the edge of the witness box. I'd killed someone for love already. What did it matter if I killed another one? He was spitting out blood, coughing and rasping. "Fucking asshole," he swore.

I felt the cold, hard tip of a Glock digging into my temple.
"Shut the hell up and keep your hands where I can see them," another guard scoffed. I leaned my weight into him, throwing him off balance for just a moment. Well, short. But long enough to achieve my goal.

"I swear to hell, if you move, I'll shoot you. So help me God and your momma." A trained professional he was.

I let my hands hang limply by my sides. Before he could decipher my moves, I swung my hips and punched him below his belt. His groan afterwards assured me that my punch hit home.

"If being a guy is a job, you should fire me. I'm tired, ok?" I yelled at no one in particular.

As I scanned the arena, my gaze landed on the one face I'd been itching to see all morning. She'd pulled back her hair in a ponytail and secured it with a diamond hairpin. I guessed she must have been to the stylist lately, because her black curls sported hues of silver here and there. Our stares locked and held. The loud chattering of other witnesses drowned out, and it was just me. Her. Together. She waved, hurrying out the door.

I sprinted over to her before she could make it there. There was no way in hell I'd let her leave me again. This was it. We'd come to our dead end.

"Remember those times you said..." I swallowed hard. The atmosphere between us switched to another level.

"That you didn't know love?"

"Yeah. And the last time I checked, it was none of your fucking business." She clenched her jaw.

I took her hand in mine. Softly, waiting to see it she'd push me away.

"You're a murderer, Craig. I don't care if you're sorry or not sorry but it's wrong. All of you're wrong! You shouldn't have killed her, okay? She was my sister too!" Tears glistened in her eyes. She wiped them with her sleeve but they kept flowing, betraying her hurt.

"You hated her," I hissed.
"When she died, you expected me to be happy."

She stiffened up. Recoiled like a cobra rearing it's head to strike.
"This isn't about me. Don't change the subject, dickhead. Walk you over to that judge sitting there and tell her you sorry and you ain't gonna do no shit like that again. How could you do that to me? I trusted you."

"I did it for you!" I cried.

All color drained from her face. I followed through with my confession lest she change her mind.

"I been thinking about when you'd say that you hated love back then. It was tearing me up, Isla. You drove me nuts. I didn't know what to do around you anymore because I was crazy about you and you kept pulling me close then pushing me away and claiming that your dad hurt you and you'd never find love again and___" I paused to catch my breath.

"And I wanted to fix you. Make you love. Make you feel what's running through my head all the time. Everytime I'm walking the dog and I just see some girl in front of me and she's got black curls, I start chasing after her, thinking it's you. But then she turns around and tells me to fuck off and I realize that it isn't you but that isn't helping matters because you're still on my mind. We've been hanging around each other for seventeen years, Isla. Do you even like me?"

"Are you crazy?"

"Do you even like me?" I pointed my index finger at myself.

She shook her head. No.

"Okay, but I don't care. Because I love you."

"Oh my God," she moaned, snatching her palm away from mine.

As she clutched her bag in readiness to leave again, I grabbed her waist, meshing her to my torso. She mewled. Her fingers traced the biceps of my arms softly.

"I've been crushing on you since forever. And I didn't give a shit about whether you give a shit about love because that's shit and you'd better put up with my shit."

"What's your shit?"

"I love you." I cupped her face in my palm. Tons of currents raced up my spine.