nevertheless~

part 49

TESSA'S  POV

Words have seemed to leave my mouth, the air has stopped, and there is just plain, bright and brilliant silence around us as we stand outside the hall in the foyer. The oxygen has been knocked out of my lungs. Not taken away it's knocked from right out of me. Not being able to breathe is a different feeling and not finding any oxygen around you to intake, so that a little bit of life can return to you is an entirely and soulfully different feeling, it's like, there's ample oxygen around but you can't get to it.

"Y... You love me?", is what comes out of my mouth after a great deal of struggle and that too comes out in soft stutters.

"Yes!", he says, sounding all sorts of helpless. There is a fragment of my conscience right now, telling me to believe him, telling me to trust his words and say, 'Yes, Hardin. I love you too.', but there's another part of my conscience, the one that has been burnt far too many times. The one that trusted too many awful men in her life and now is scared to trust any that come back in this life. Once bitten twice shy and I have been bitten and your heart is not the place to get bitten in, it hurts, it hurts like hell if that happens and besides, I don't even think I can believe my own words right now when I think about the times this had happened with me.

"I'm...I'm going back to the room. You've not had dinner. I'll see you upstairs.", are my next words as I try to get out of his reach, backing away further from every step I take. I can't tell him I love him when I just accused him of cheating on me.

"Tessa, no!", he runs after me, pulling me by my wrists.

"Hardin. Please. What do you want from me? I clearly am not good enough for you. I need to sleep, alright. I have work tomorrow. You have the day off, I don't. I need to attend the maker's meeting.", I try to jerk my hand from his grip, but he has too tight of a clasp on my hand and he doesn't let go.

"What the fuck do you mean, you're not good enough for me? Have I ever said that to you? Did I do something that made you think that? Did I say that?", he pulls me back, and reluctantly but I do take a step in his direction, a tiny step that means nothing but to give him the little assurance before my next words slice us in half.

"I don't need your words, Hardin. When your boyfriend lets another woman flirt with who his girlfriends were trying to fight within a meeting, it doesn't say much more than that, he doesn't want you around", I say, finally twisting my hands from his grip and I take it back.

"Tessa, please will you just listen to me? I am here, telling you, that I love you. I love you, Tessa. I. FUCKING. LOVE. YOU!", He says, taking a step forward towards me with each of his words.

"I know....", the pool of tears that were in my eyes, falls down, breaking free from the cusp of hurt I am holding in my blue heart.

"I love you. I really do. Have you seen me watch anyone the way I watch you? Have you seen me need anyone else more than you? Tessa, I never had a mother, I never had my father in my life for a long time, and I still managed because I didn't need them in my life, you fill a void in my life, which I don't think anyone else will fill. I need you baby. I love you", he says, his hand coming to hold my face, both his palms under my chin, the pads of his thumbs swiping the beads of tears that fall from my eyes.

"You believe me? I have never liked so many things about anyone altogether. I don't like Claudia, she means nothing to me other than a colleague. I haven't sat across meetings with her, thinking how much I would like to take her back home, it was you, Tessa. It was you who I have fantasies about, it was you I wanted in my bed each night with me, It was you I wanted to talk to when I was fucking angry at some file that went wrong. It is you who I search for in a room full of people when I need someone to give me some leverage.", he says, and as much as his words heal my heart, my heart breaks and shatters with each sentence of reassurance he gives me, each sentence a lover tells to his love, only I can't say any of that back to him, which is why I say what I do next.