A/N: Dedication goes to CarelessWhisper because I also like her. ...that is all. btw, if you haven't had a dedication, but you are a fan, you can get a dedication quite easily, all you have to do is comment three times, each comment on a different chapter. First one to do so gets the next dedication!!!
Now read! And please, please, please! Tell me what you think! I live for yur guys comments!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Her Details
When someone retells a memory, they only seem to include the things that they find vital for the tale’s progression, the key points, so to speak. But in reality, there is so much more; the real story is in the details. It is in them that one comes to know, comes to feel. Those bits and pieces that seem so insignificant: the voice, the heart, the need, the instinct, the knowledge, her eyes, her hair, her breath, her body; they make up the very foundation. Because the heart’s wisdom and the brain’s emotion are the most powerful of any factors. They are what lead any and every decision, cause every effect. What is counted as unimportant and unspoken, are perhaps the most extreme truths of all. The forgotten remnants.
I remember noticing each one.
~William Edwards
the voice *July 7, 2013*
It was the moment I heard her speak, her fragile form quivering, entrapped in my arms. Her one word of terrible fear and pleading, the whispery note infused with a delicate tie of hope. Hope, not for my ability to keep her safe, but rather, for my willingness. Desperation woven within the syllable. That single strain of need.
And I was changed.
So many people wanted me. But never had someone needed me. Not like this, not with so much of themselves in every single breath. As if without me, they would cease to exist. She was terrified. Not of the man behind her, but terrified that I would leave her. Maybe that’s why-
That is why I looked at her differently.
Her voice didn’t destroy, her plea healed and added. It made me more than I was.
the heart *July 8, 2013*
It was when I heard his name cross Claire’s lips, the name of the man that had been the first of her terrors. Darvey. I hadn’t known until that early morning: seeing red wasn’t metaphorical; it was literal. The hazy edges of my vision could attest to that as rage curled hot in my chest. The moment I’d learned what he’d done to her, the pleasure he’d taken in utterly destroying the happy naivety of my young Roza.
I thought of her as mine from that second on, all at once fiercely protective and totally possessive of her. I spent that night divided, holding her to chase away the demons of her past, or tracking the same monsters on my own. You'd think that the time that I placed her in my heart would be filled with love and tenderness, but, for me, it was an anger near to madness.
the need*July 9, 2013*
It was when I left her. I’d gone home to clear my head, dark circles bagged under my eyesfrom my second sleepless night. Needing to shower and shave. Her screams tearing at me from the background of the phone. Claire pleading with me to speak, knowing that my voice might calm her, might be the only thing capable of doing so. My hands shaking on the wheel as I raced back. Her near immediate calm the moment her hands found the front of my shirt.
I didn’t know it, but I loved her then, at that moment. Simply because she needed me. Not just someone to hold her, but me in particular. I wasn’t in love with her, by any means, but I did love her.
the instinct *July 7, 2013 - Present*
It was how I learned to feel her meaning in every move, how familiar I became with the smallest actions in her habits and the curves of the way she moved. How I began to recognize and how I still do. It was every little thing she did, and every minute way I reacted. It was knowing, in a single glance, exactly what she wanted.
I didn’t even know Jacen that well.
the knowledge *August 9, 2013*
It was seeing her, hands bloody and raw. It was seeing the images scratched on the wall, part charcoal, part pencil, part red. It was seeing her nightmares come to life in front of me. It was knowing her fears more deeply than I ever had before. It was realizing the extent of which she needed me. It was the horror of her eyes wide, unseeing, and wild.
I would never leave her again, not for more than twenty so hours, not for a night the like of the dreams she’d shown me. I couldn’t allow that, not when I could do something to stop it.
her eyes *August 14, 2013*
It was the day I noticed how deep they were. How her wide-eyed innocence seemed to cling to her, despite her awful past. How the dark brown was complete, yet soft; unlike most, her eyes had no slivers of another color inside them; they were all-consuming in their depth. And when she looked at me, it was like she was touching my soul.
That was the day I stopped, stopped touching others. I mean, I tried once or twice afterwards, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Every time I looked into another woman’s eyes, all I could see was Roza staring back at me. And while I didn’t care about the random girls, the squealing fans, didn’t care what happened to them afterwards, or how they coped with my inevitable rejection, I did care about her. And I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her, even if it was just my mind putting her face on every hopeful.
It was a secret. Something I hid from the others because I didn’t want them to know. Didn’t want them to see how much she’d changed me. Didn’t want to admit, even to myself, how much I’d shifted.
her hair *August 21, 2013*
It was the tenderness that filled my limbs as I brushed the silky strands from her face after a particularly long night. The way they wove between my fingers. The way the texture seemed to mesmerize, hypnotize in its velvet feel.
At first, I didn’t realize why that seemed so significant. It wasn’t until much later that I saw that it wasn’t so much the feel of her hair, as it was the privilege of touching her.
her breath *August 29, 2013*
It was the way her breath swirled on my bare chest as she slept. How it made me alert and aware in a way I hadn’t been in several weeks. The goosebumps that rose along my forearms. The slight tightening and tensing of each separate muscle as I strove to control impulses that I hadn’t controlled in years. The guilt and shame I felt the moment my mind had sense again.
August 30th. It was the first time I wore a shirt to bed. The first time since I was a toddler in full onesie pajamas. That was when I began to notice my physical reaction to her presence. That was when being around her, began to get hard.
And the worst part was: I couldn’t leave her alone.
Because she needed me.
her lips *September 4, 2013*
I still don’t know why they caught my attention so effectively, from that day on. Right before I had to leave on tour.
And yet, I still couldn’t admit, even to myself, how undeniably attracted to her I was. Because I knew that any attraction would be disastrous to her healing.
And I loved her.
