A broken heart

Chapter 22

Suddenly the sadness, guilt, and self-hatred set in, and my eyes dropped from her face. Immediately, she knew that something was wrong.

"Detka, what's wrong? Did I say or do something wrong?" (baby)

I sighed. "No, angel moya. No, of course you didn't. This is all on me, on my own shoulders." (my)

"Then what's wrong lyubov' moy?" (my love)

I sighed even deeper this time. "I was just thinking about how your love for me has always been in your eyes whenever I would look at you. You never tried to hide your love for me from me, but I can't make that same claim. I have hidden and tried to hide my love for you from the very moment that we met. I even tried to kill my love for you. And I hate that about myself, I hate that I tried to make myself not love you, I hate that I tried to convince you not to love me, I hate that I tried to make you think that I don't love you. And I really really really hate the fact that I have pushed you away over and over and over again, day in and day out since the moment that we met. I hate..."

"Hey." She cupped my chin between her fingers and brought my eyes back up to hers.

She reached out and cupped my cheek gently her eyes shining, with her never ending love for me, so very brightly. "Please don't feel that way detka. I know the reasons behind why you did what you did, and I don't blame you for it. You were scared and worried and I can't fault you for that. You were protecting your heart and the future you thought that I was fighting for. You didn't know how things would turn out for us; I, on the other hand, did. I had already looked towards the future, shortly after we met actually. I have seen several possible futures for us, some in which you gave in, and we were together and happy forever having several children together. Another was soooo much more painful, for the both of us. In that future you never gave in, and we were both miserable and alone for the rest of our lives. Continually fighting and ignoring what we felt for each other until we died heartbroken and alone in a strigoi attack reaching out for each other. But we were unable to touch, even our fingertips before we both died just out of reach of each other. A third you were turned, and I came after you to try to free you from spending an eternity as a strigoi. I managed to free your soul, but I couldn't live with the fact that I'd had to kill you. So, less than a month later I walked right straight into a massive active strigoi nest all alone. I killed almost fifty of those bastards before they captured and tortured me for months on end before they finally killed me. A fourth you were turned, and I came after you again this time you caught me and turned me. When I awoke as a strigoi we slaughtered and enslaved millions and millions and millions of people over hundreds of years. We ended the entire dhampir and moroi races. There was another where you were turned, and it took me a little while, but I finally got Lissa to restore you. But after that you turned your back on me and started worshiping the ground that she walked on. You thought that she was the real reason that you were a dhampir again and you told me, 'Love fades. Mine has'. It was several months after that before we were able to reconcile. All of the futures that I saw for us, in the ones where you never gave in were hell for not just the both of us but also for everyone around us. Well, everyone except for Tasha, even though you never agreed to be with her. She was always hanging around rubbing in the fact that you didn't love me. She even sold her house and karate studio and moved to court so that she could try to convince you and make it even more painful for me. And damn did she. Those times without each other were torture, you nor I ever smiled or laughed ever again. The only futures that we were ever happy in are the ones in which you admitted to me that you love me, every bit as much as I love you, and that we were together in. In none of the others were either one of us ever with anyone else. No matter how many times Lissa tried to set me up with someone, they just weren't you. And most of the ones where you were turned, either one or both Lissa and Tasha both tried to get you to be with them instead of me." (baby)