Everything Between Us

Chapter Thirteen - Slate

Olivia was here, and she was storming up to me as angry as I had ever seen her. But then she stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes travelled over the door I had been painting. I saw her face crack in two as pure pain showed.

And that's when she turned to me with the saddest expression her face and started to yell at me the agony in her words showing, "So you're just done? You are going to give up on us because you saw a random guy trying to force himself on me. I was trying to push him off of me when you saw me."

Wait, what?

She continued, "Instead of helping me, trusting me; you ran. Without even letting me explain, you ran away because you were afraid of getting hurt again, because even though you said you had forgiven me you're still punishing me for a mistake I made six years ago. But what about me? What about everything between us? It's just all over, because you're afraid?"

She sobbed as she yelled these words at me, wrecking everything I thought I knew. The paint brush I had been holding sat on the tarp below me. Without a question in my brain I moved to her, my urge to comfort her took over me disregarding any other feelings I had. I pulled her into my arms holding her tightly as I tried to digest what she had said.

My voice cracked as I muttered, "He was trying to force himself on you...and I walked away and didn't help you." I couldn't believe myself and my actions as Olivia sobbed harder in my arms.

Everything became clear in that moment. She was everything I needed and couldn't give her up, no matter what I had thought and how much of an asshole I had been.

I removed her from my chest and tilted her chin up at me. I felt guilt spear through me at all of the tears, me and my ignorance had caused her.

"I am so sorry, I love you and I was an asshole. I should have never done that to you and I should have trusted you. Since I moved back you have been there for me and loved me even when I was awful to you."

I dropped to my knees, starting to tear up at the sheer stupidness that I had done. I might've messed up the best thing that ever happened to me, I buried my head into her stomach pulling her to me tightly.

I look up at her feeling the broken and openness in my expression as I say, "I am so sorry, Can you forgive me? I was so stupid. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I always have wanted you and only you."

Her eyes widen as she realizes what I am about to do, she drops to her knees tears streaming down her face even harder as a small smile manages to cross her face.

"Will you marry me?"

She laughs through her tears and kisses me passionately. The tears streaming down both of our faces mix into the hungry kiss, our tongues lash at each other as we say everything we can't in words.

She pulls back wrapping her arms around my neck, her chuckling cutting through the tension in my body, "Yes, of course I will marry you."