Avenoir

Avenoir - John

The next time I properly held Marlena in my arms was on an island in the Caribbean. In a deserted monastery, no less. I had kissed her on a beach in Miami, pouring my heart and soul into her where we touched, our hands, our lips, our tongues.... By the time we landed in San Christobal, that kiss had settled deep in my soul. I had been avoiding making a decision because I didn't want to hurt her, and I also didn't want to hurt Isabella. Most of all, I didn't ever want to feel the same pain again that I had felt when I lost her five years previously.

But on a filthy mattress, with the lush sounds of the jungle all around us, I held her. I traced the curves of her face with wandering fingers, pushing strands of spun gold hair from her porcelain pale cheeks, and I watched her sleep. I had no idea what had happened to her in the years that she'd been gone, but I could see this – she felt safe in my arms. For the first time since she'd returned to me on the pier that night, her beautiful face relaxed into happiness and contentment. How could I leave her alone when my heart was hers? And hers, mine.

I finally listened to my heart instead of my anxious, fearful head. I had at last accepted that she was real, and this wasn't a dream. She wanted me and dear God, I wanted her. Body, heart and soul, I wanted her. I wanted her so much it physically hurt when I looked at her. And by accepting that, the reality was that if I lost her again, I would be heartbroken, even if I chose to still keep her at arms length. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that if I stayed with Isabella I was protecting myself from heartbreak if I lost Marlena again, the reality was that my heart was hers. As it had always been. She was the love of my life. My soulmate and nothing was going to change that. Not pushing her away, not loving Isabella, not pretending I would be okay moving on without her.

I whispered to her as she slept. Murmured against her silky hair. Soft words of love and devotion that hadn't faded one scintilla in the five years since she'd been gone. Promised her that I was hers forever and that I would make everything right as soon as we were home in Salem. I would go to Isabella and break her heart as gently as I could. And then I would go home and tell Marlena that I was hers and only hers, and I was never letting her go again.

I would make up for the weeks where I had held her at arm's length, not able to give her what she needed, the love, the reassurance, the gentle touches and the kisses. I would give her all the love I had denied her, and I would take her to the bedroom, gently undress her and show her the face of God, as she once showed me.

But I was a day too late and a dollar too short.

We found Roman Brady in the jungle, and I had to watch her walk away with him. I had to give up my family and try and be happy for her.

It was my own fault. I guess she was never meant to be mine.

The next time I held her body close to mine for any length of time, we were sitting amongst broken floorboards. I'd wrecked my knee; she was starving and filthy and I think she'd busted her ankle and been bitten by a snake. Jesus she's something, isn't she? The things she's survived... a single one of them would have destroyed a lesser woman. Or man, come to that.

She had been missing, and none of us had realised for how long. Stella-fucking-Lombard, jealous psychotic lunatic that she was, had thrown Marlena into the basement of that warehouse and she'd been down there for more than a month.

She was a hell of a mess when I ended up down there with her and still, I have never seen anyone more beautiful than she was when I pulled her out of the rubble of the initial demolition blast. She's a survivor, that's for sure, and we kept each other going down there, while we waited and prayed for someone to find us. And we talked. We talked about our past, and about loving each other so much that we never thought it would end. I remember us saying that we were happy that if we had to die, that we were together.