𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐔𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 | Isabela x Reader

Hold Me Without Hurting Me

You sit by your desk, pen in hand and ready to fill the pages of your notebook that you easily filled each night in the past. But tonight, you had experienced a first. A first wherein your hand stays in place, ready to write but unable to jot even a single letter or word. Millions of thoughts swirled in your head, almost feeling like a prisoner unable to get out of the prison called the mind. If you had any wishes to be granted, it was to escape it; escape the feelings that your brain is unable to keep up with, circuiting and malfunctioning in an overload of all the things it's trying to process at once.

Was it even humanely possible to love two people? No matter what you did, you couldn't erase the feelings hidden deep within your heart. It was like a storm inside you that you couldn't contain, a tornado that you're swept up with, throwing you in a loop repeatedly as if it were merely playing games with you.

You didn't want it.

And each second you spend with Dolores left your heart with guilt. Even if she still loved Mariano. Maybe it was because you knew she liked you more than you liked her. Maybe because the storm that is Isabela is something you would throw yourself into, even if you're left scarred and damaged despite Dolores being the place where you could be safe.

You were torn, now more than ever. Your idealization of love differed the moment you realized your feelings for Isabela. Your idealized love; comfort, solitude, someone to come home to. And although Isabela had just started to make you feel those things the last you met, you loved her even before then. The Isabela that fears showing weakness, the Isabela that forces herself to be someone she isn't.

All that Isabela ever made you feel was irritation and annoyance. What was it about her that made you fall in love? The arrogance she had? The confidence in her stance and smirk? The way she was a lion at the same time as a sweet lamb? The fact that she could carry herself perfectly yet appear so fragile with all the vulnerability in her eyes?

"It's all of those things." That was the Isabela you wanted to protect, the Isabela you pulled close that intimate midnight, the Isabela that still looked breathtakingly gorgeous even as she cried. "The you that loves Mirabel, but doesn't know how to express it. Just like how I can't express how much I..."

But you couldn't bring yourself to say it out loud. People have always stated that to love others, you had to learn how to love yourself. Maybe what you were feeling wasn't love at all, since loving yourself seemed like such an impossible mountain to climb. What more to love two people?

Dolores lets out a low groan in your bed, her arms searching underneath the fleece blanket with her eyes still closed. "Where are you?" She questions, her voice slightly hoarse with the sound of sleepiness clear in it.

"I'm right here," you whisper, your hand reaching out underneath the same blanket and intertwining your fingers gently with hers, thumb rubbing the back of her hand comfortingly.

"You still can't sleep?"

She starts to try and sit up, her free hand just about to rub the sleep out of her eyes but you get up from your seat quickly. Leaning by the bed, it creeks slightly as your weight settles on it. With your own free hand, you gently push her back down, stroking her hair gently before placing a chaste kiss on her forehead.

"You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine."

She pulls you to lie down by her, an arm snaking around your waist while sneaking her head into the crook of your neck. "Of course I'll worry. It's been weeks." Her breath tickles your skin, your bodies sharing an intimate heat that you feel each time she holds you. The tenderness in her voice makes you want to cry, it was the same way your parents used to talk to you. Dolores always tried to be careful and gentle. But it was that in itself that ruined you. "Talk to me, amor."