Gentle Epiphany // Criminal Minds

Chapter Twenty Five - Still In Love With You

🪐 Daphne 🪐

"Scoob!" Derek smiles wide seeing me walk through the doors, his face instantly dropping once he notices the look on my face. I must look as horrible as I feel. He pulls me away from everyone else with a look of concern. Always the protector.

"Hey....hey what's wrong?"

I shake my head not wanting to confess how pathetic I truly am. I'm so stupid....trying to kiss Spencer again. How am I supposed to be just friends when clearly I don't know what that means. Elle was right.

"I'm fine." I lie trying to walk away but he stops me.

"Daph it's okay to let people in every once and awhile."

I look up into his deep brown eyes. "No. No it's not, because every time I do...I get hurt. And I'm so tired of feeling like this....I just want someone to fix it." My chest heaves with pain trying not to cry in front of him.

"Fix what?"

"Fix me."

He looks at me, really looks at me. This deep sadness blanketing his features pulling me into a tight hug. We stand there quietly for a moment, neither one of us willing to move just yet. I didn't realize how badly I needed this hug.

"Alec..."

"The goat cheese farmer?" He questions his body tensing up against mine his arms still wrapping me up in a hug.

"Yeah that one. I guess he likes to sample his cheese to a lot of women at the same time."

"Son of a bitch. I'm gonna...." He groans stopping himself from saying more.

"I keep screwing everything up. Elle hates me and I'm beginning to agree that I don't know the first thing about being a good friend, when I try to kiss my best friend twice even though he's made it clear he wants nothing more. I just feel like an idiot. An overwhelmed idiot to be more specific." I say barely above a whisper against his chest.

He places a kiss to the crown of my head before his deep voice vibrates his chest against my cheek. "You're not an idiot and Elle is wrong. I think she's hurting about what she said to you just as much as you are hurting. You are the best friend Reid and I have ever had. You care about everyone so deeply, you're loyal to a fault, always trying to find a way to cheer us up when we're sad. I could go on and on about how you make us all feel and I can confidently say that I would not be mad if you tried to kiss me several times."

I slap his chest telling him to behave. His deep rich laugh forcing me to pull out of our hug.

"How about instead of focusing on everything that's going wrong...we focus on what we can control?" He suggests.

I nod my head repeating him, "Focus on what we can control...." I liked that. I can't make Elle answer my calls but I can leave a voicemail and tell her everything I've wanted to say. I can't stop how I feel about Spencer, it's apparent that I want more. But I can take a step back from us and try to create healthy boundaries that don't leave me hurting every time we're together. No matter what happens, I want Spencer to always be in my life.

I wrap my arms around Derek's neck pulling him back into a tighter hug. "Thanks Der...."

"Anything for you Daphne, anything."

He lets me take a moment alone to collect myself before I go out to join our team. I walk in to see James the counselor from the school telling a red headed boy to wait for him up front. His son was annoyed, probably curious about the case like any child would be at his age and here his dad is ruining all his fun.