His Saviour

Chapter 13

POV Titus

I felt myself waking up, my hands searching for Anastasia. When I didn't find her, I turned around and searched on the other side, thinking that she might have slept there. She wasn't.

I shot up, frantically searching for her. The room was empty so I decided to search for her. I'd rather do that than wait for her to come back. It could take hours and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.

First, I walked into the kitchen, thinking that she was hungry, and left to eat something but I was wrong because the kitchen was empty. Then, I searched in the living room and to my luck she was sitting at the table, eating breakfast like I thought she would. Her back was towards me so she had no idea that I was there. Her parents were both sitting in front of her, eating as well.

I stayed silent, not wanting them to notice but it was too late for that. Her mother was already staring at me, smiling in my direction before continuing to eat breakfast. Normally people would greet you verbally when you walk into a room but they probably found out that I wasn't a fan of that.

I still made no move to get to her, afraid of her dad because of his statue. He was very intimidating and creepy.

Ana seemed to notice that someone was staring at her because she soon turned around to face me. When she saw that it was me, she immediately stood up to embrace me in a hug while whispering 'good morning' in my ear.

"How about you eat something because I am sure that you never ate after I left your house yesterday and you need to eat some calories."

Hesitating for a moment, my head started to nod at her idea. I knew that I didn't want to eat but I also knew that my heart would do anything to make her feel happy.

-

Sitting at the table with breakfast in front of me and three other people around me made me even more nervous than I was before. Eating was a hard thing for me to do, flashbacks of my sperm donor appearing in my head when I thought about it. He always forbade me to eat for long periods of time which made me weak and vulnerable. He had a lot of control over me because of that, destroying my want for food. My head was still refusing to accept the fact that he was not here anymore. He was no longer able to control me but somehow he still did.
His techniques were the reason for that.

It was like my body was frozen. I knew that Ana was saying something but I had no idea what she said because it was as if I was deaf. I wasn't moving at all. I woke up and found myself alone in her room. She was nowhere to be seen which made me frown. I thought that she would stay with me but she did not. Maybe she was hungry and went downstairs to eat something?

I had no other explanation so I made my way downstairs to check it myself. I wasn't fond of walking around in her house, afraid that her parents would find me. I would probably freak out.

To my surprise, the kitchen was empty. Nobody was inside which made my heart beat faster. Where the hell could she be? Maybe she was eating in the living room. They had a table there so it would make sense. My feet were walking to my destination without me noticing until I stood in the doorframe of her living room. Ana was there, sitting on a chair while munching on a stack of pancakes. Her parents were there too, sitting on the other side of the table.

Was I still dreaming or was it real this time?

Nobody noticed me, which was fortunate for me. A part of me wanted to spend time with her but I knew that her parents would turn their attention to me as well which wasn't a good idea.

It was too late. While I was watching Ana, her mother started to look over to the place I was standing. She gave me a small smile before looking at her.

Nobody spoke a word but I saw that they were having a silent conversation. It was similar to ours and the next thing I saw were her eyes. I could get lost in those light brown eyes. They were enchanting and always captivated me when I saw them.

After standing up and walking up to me, she hugged my waist and got on her tiptoes to tousle my hair which was a good way to distract me from her parent's curious looks. I hugged her back, inhaling her calming scent. She pulled back and led me to the table where I now noticed another plate that seemed to be for me. My heart rate picked up, the closer I got to her family but I was able to do it. It was weird to do that because I was never able to do that in the past. Her presence seemed to help me more than I thought and the next thing I felt was her hand on my shoulder, pushing me down to sit on the chair. She copied my movements and moved closer to me.

Soon, she gave me a fork and a knife to eat and waited for me to start. It wasn't surprising that I didn't, nothing new that I refused to eat.

I guess I developed some kind of eating disorder in my childhood. I never noticed that until Ana tried to bring me to eat thrice a day. Since I can remember, I ate one meal a day and if my sperm donor was too drunk I ate nothing. Sometimes he would even tell me how much of a disgrace I was and tell me thousands of times a day that I wasn't supposed to be so greedy. He would tell me that it was selfish and bad to eat as much as I did. These words led me to eat less until I started to starve myself to please him.

I was starting to realize how toxic he was to me but I couldn't change my habits. I lived with him for sixteen years and he had plenty of time to destroy me. And he did, beating me almost daily and abusing me all the time. I had no Idea know how many times I had passed out in the basement after one of his beatings or whippings. When he wasn't abusing me physically, he did it by using words which was even worse because these words still haunted me.

It didn't take me long to realize that. Wounds on your body heal and maybe leave a scar but words cut ten times deeper and take much longer to heal - if they ever did that.

Beatings started to hurt less after some time but words didn't. They didn't stop hurting you until you stopped it all by killing yourself. That was what I tried when she found me on the roof. I just wanted to stop the voices in my head that were telling me how worthless I was.

I was brought back out of my thoughts when I felt her hands on mine. She removed the silverware from my hands and stroked my hair, most likely to calm me down. How was she able to notice my current state and act perfectly all the time? She always knew what to do to bring me back or calm me down. It was as if she knew my body more than I did and perhaps that was the truth. Maybe it was fate that we met.

I watched her pick up my silverware and cut off a piece of the pancake before she brought the fork to my mouth. I didn't even hesitate to take her food which surprised her. Her right brow furrowed but she stayed silent, just continuing to feed me. For some reason, it was much easier to eat something when she fed me. It was as if she blocked the voices for a moment. That feeling never lasted long but she was able to convince me to eat a fraction of my plate which was better than nothing.

That was exactly what happened after a third of the plate. I shook my head and refused to open my mouth as I did before. Ana nodded her head, probably realizing that I wouldn't eat more.

"One more bite?"

It was a question which meant that she gave me the option. Ana knew that she had no chance to convince me to eat more so she asked me to overcome that barrier myself. She gave me the option, encouraging me to try it and I did. My mouth opened one more time and it was worth it. The smile on her face was bright enough to light up the entire room. I could see it in her eyes that she was proud of me and I loved that feeling. It felt good to not be a failure to someone.

I looked up and found her parents sitting at the table, glancing my way while eating the last pieces of their breakfast. Stunned expressions on both of their faces as they looked between me and their daughter.

A/N: Do you like the story so far?

Let me know in the comments what you think about the characters -->

~E