THE COLOUR OF LOVE (Wattpadprize14)Completed

Chapter 5 - Confrontation

 Cole stopped and stood still so as not to alarm her.  He saw the nervous expression on her face and smiled softly, hoping she would see him as a friend and not someone who would harm her.

“What …. do you …. want?” she stuttered.

“To help you.”

Why he said that he had no idea, but it was the only thing that popped into his head at that moment.

“I don’t need help. I’m fine, thank you,” she said, looking at him curiously.

“When you jumped ….. I thought ….. well …. I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry, but I just felt that you needed help.”

Cherrie thought that he looked really concerned for her and decided to drop her guard a bit and be a little more approachable.

“Thanks for your concern,” she smiled, “but as you can see, I’m fine.”

“Yes, I see and I’m glad.”

Cherrie noticed that he looked suddenly very sad and she saw tears well up in his eyes.

“But you …. appear not to be too fine!” she exclaimed, with a worried frown on her brow.

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she noticed a stray tear fall down his cheek.

“Ummm, are you okay?” she asked gently.

It was not his intention to blurt it out, but the words just tumbled off his tongue before he could stop himself.

“My wife …… she ….. committed suicide!” He almost choked on the word suicide.

Cherrie’s heart went out to him and she moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically.

He put his hand up to touch hers and squeezed it.

“Thanks,” he said emotionally.

He looked into her eyes and was startled to see how blue they were. It was like looking into the ocean.

“That’s why I tried to stop you.  I was too late to save my wife and I thought that if I could stop you from doing something to hurt yourself, then in some way it might compensate for not being able to save my wife.”

The sorrow in his eyes was too painful for Cherrie to bear. She took him by the hand and gently pulled him to follow her.

“Come, let’s find somewhere to sit and we can talk.  Perhaps if you relive the moment, I can help you to see that you did everything you could at the time.”

Cherrie hoped that this was a possibility and clinging to the thought that he was not responsible for his wife’s untimely death, weaved her way through the orchids with Cole following silently behind her.

Cherrie heard the sound of running water and turned round to Cole and said, “Can you hear that?”

“What?” he questioned.

“Running water. Can’t you hear it?”

He stood still and listened.

“No, I can’t hear anything at the moment.”

“Well, I can definitely hear running water and I think it’s coming from this direction.”

Cherrie nodded towards her right shoulder.