Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (Teacher-Student Romance Robert Downey Jr.)

Hearts Don't Break Around Here.

Robert's POV

I'm selfish, I know.
But I don't ever wanna see her with him.
I hope she can see the shape that I'm in, while he is touching her. He's right there, where I should be.
I must confess that what's happening is killing me. When I turn my back so I don't have to face her, I gulp down what's left of my drink. I push the glass away from me, motioning to the waiter to bring me another one.
Closing my eyes makes me want her even more. Because that's when I see her how I used to. Next to, beneath or above me, smiling, laughing.
I'm empty and missing her ridiculously much. She is close enough to touch and it makes the roaring darkness inside of me grow in a speed that feels uncomfortable. I want to make it right. I should make it right. But how do I do that? How do I even begin to explain what is going on inside my head. Of course I know that I have been cruel. I was wrong and she was right. But until I let myself get dragged down by all the doubt, it was all good. And now she is dancing right there in front of me with someone that shouldn't even be allowed to be that close to her.
How on earth would I be able to get her attention now?
The whole night she hasn't looked at me once. Not even by accident. I mean, I know I look pretty damn good in a tux and she didn't even glance over. She simply didn't care, I guess. Aria doesn't lift her head, when she strides off the dance floor and over towards the restrooms, out of the ballroom.
That's it, now or never.
As subtle as possible, I make my way to the exit, almost hustling after her.
"Aria", I almost shout and it makes her turn around. But instead of my anticipated reaction, which was a smile, she just turns her back and continues to walk away from me.
"Wait up", I say and sound like a little boy, wanting to play with the older kids. But again, she doesn't wait, not even a little.
"Could you please wait?" I catch up to her and touch her arm. She yanks it away, glaring at me.
"What? What do you want?" Her voice is cold and angrier that I imagined it to be.
"Nothing.. I just wanted to ta-
"Good." She continues to stomp off and I follow her.
"Could you please stop walking so fast?"
She stops abruptly and I stand next to her, a little out of breath. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to talk to you," I say, trying to find something inside her eyes that might indicate I could have a shot.
"Has it occurred to you that I might not want to talk to you?"
That hits me somewhere in my chest and I try to hide it with a slight smile. "Sure, once or twice."
She rolls her eyes and then makes a move forward, but out of instinct, I grab her arm with my hand.
"Let go," She hisses and I frown.
"What's with you tonight?" I ask her, impatiently. "You don't look at me, you don't wanna talk to me and now you run away from me, literally?"
"Let me think... maybe it has something to do with the fact that you left me like two days ago, how about that? Is that enough fucking reason for you to leave me the fuck alone?" She screams in my face and I can't help but flinch.
"I know I hurt you, but that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Well, I do not care. I don't care what you want to tell me, because I do not want to hear any of it. Is that clear enough for you?"
"Aria, I really am sorry-
"You know what? You always say that. Every single time, you tell me you're sorry and that it is all going to change, because you have changed. But you...you never do."
There is a slight stutter in her sentences and I know she is trying not to break right here in front of me.
"But it's fine. Because that's what you do. And by now I actually feel quite stupid, for I should have realized it sooner. But I didn't, I let you pull me in with all your charm, your wit and the way you look at me. Just to have you throw me out quicker than I could say 'hey, remember that other time you told me you loved me and then left me out of the blue?"
I don't know what to say. I just continue to stare at her.
"That's why I don't want to talk to you. Because you couldn't tell me anything that would make this right, could you?"
And again, there is nothing but silence coming from me.
"That's what I thought."
"Aria, please let me talk to you."
"But I am, come on, go talk to me, say what you want to say."
"I'm sorry that I did those things and said all the wrong words. But I can't stop thinking about you."
"Of course you can't," she replies, crossing her arms. I raise an eyebrow. There is no reason to get cocky now, Miss Hart.
"We've been through this a million times. But you're not missing me. You're missing the way I touch you and tell you what you want to hear. You miss the way I make you feel, so young and easy. You miss the way I'd let you have me in the restroom of a restaurant or in your office. But you don't miss me, Downey. You miss my body, that's all."
Her hostility is piercing and sending shocks through me, every time she speaks up. 
"That is not true," I say, finding my voice. "That cannot possibly be what you think of me, after all this time?"
"What do you want to hear, Downey?" She whispers. "That I miss you? Yes, I terribly do so. That my heart aches so much I cannot breathe? Yes, every time you look at me. That all I think about is you? Yes, all the time."
I shake my head. "The truth. I want you to tell me the truth."
She sighs. "The truth is that you hurt me harder than no one has ever hurt me before. And that is because not ever in my life have I loved someone as truly and deeply, as I have loved you."
Her eyes shimmer in the dim light of the hallway. And that's when I know that I gotta get better. Better at being someone she deserves to be with. And then maybe we will work it out.
"I'm sorry, I am so sorry.." I tell her and my arms just lift themselves, pulling her into me. She doesn't resist, she has been far too long now. Her body falls into mine and I do nothing but hold her. Hold her in that beautiful dress that could never do her inner beauty justice. Hold her together so she doesn't fall apart. Holding Aria, even though no one could save me but her.
"I can't do this," she murmurs into my shoulder. "I can't let you hurt me again."
I never dreamed that I would meet somebody like her.
"I won't hurt you, Aria. I won't ever hurt you again."
She shakes her head. "Don't say that. Please, I can't bare another broken promise."
"I'm sorry I messed up. But I can't promise you that I won't ever again. I am a fucking mess and I have felt like one for a long time. Everything I am given I somehow manage to break it and... I am just trying to say that when I am with you, I don't feel like such a big fuck up all the time."
My hands take her face in between them and make her look me in the eyes.
"There is a lot of things that I may not know, but missing you is the only thing that I know for sure right now. And I didn't mind you or your family coming into my life and rearranging it entirely. I don't regret any of that. And you know that I don't. You know me, you know my temper and that I'm a mess. But please don't hold that against me. There is nothing else that could be more important to me than you. I wouldn't trade this for anything. And I know that you've been thinking about it, but don't leave. I might not ever get my shit together or be the man that deserves you, but no one in this world will love you better than me."
"I hate that you say such things," she says and I frown.
"You know that I won't go down without a fight."
It's the first smile that shows on her face. "You must think that I'm stupid, right? Because I have seen this all before. I've seen you right where you are now and tell me the exact things."
"What do you mean?"
"You mean so much to me and that's why I'll never let you close to me again. And you might think that I'm cold or unreasonable, but I am just protecting myself."
"Aria, please, what do you want me to tell you? How do I make you change your mind?"
"You don't. We don't stand a chance, Downey."
"How can you even say that? How do you know?"
"Because every time you leave, I just get better at taking the pain. And to be honest, you walked out on me so many times that I've gotten quite good at goodbyes."
Her body moves away from me and out of my embrace.
"I know that nobody hurt you the way that I did. But no one will ever love you like I can." I say and try to make it sound as reasonable as possible. But it is not working. Nothing is working with her. Everything I do just goes to fucking shit.
"I need you," I whisper now, almost begging her to not leave me. To not walk out on me like I did on her so many times before. There is so much I want to say, so many things left for me to tell her. I don't want to wait until she turns around and falls for somebody new. Not ever again do I want to look her in the eyes and see any other man than myself in them. I don't want some other guy touching her, loving her in a way that I never could.
But all of these things don't come out of my mouth. My head is spinning and the fact that the dress she is wearing doesn't really support my rational thinking. The way it hugs her chest and her sides makes me want to grab her and run away. Run away until no one can find us, somewhere only we would know. Somewhere no one knows our names, where we come from or where we will go. There we will just be a man and a woman in love. In utter, breathtaking, once in a lifetime love.
"I cannot do this. I promised myself to not do this to myself ever again," Aria replies.
"Please don't shut me out. I will protect you," my voice is weak, almost trembling.
"How will I know, Downey?" Her eyes are watery and it makes me ache that I am the one making her cry. "How can you assure me that this isn't like the last time or the time before that? How will I know that I can count on you not to leave me. Because I'm not sure how to trust you with my heart again."
I take her right hand in mine and softly caress her palm. "I cannot promise you that I will never hurt you again. I cannot promise you that I won't disappoint you or do you wrong. But what I can promise you that if I ever hurt you, I will be there to pick up what I broke and I will spend the rest of my life piecing it back together. And when I do you wrong, I will stand beside you until you are ready to forgive me. Because that's what you do with people you love Aria, you stand by them and you love them until they will look at you the same way they did before."
Her hand moves up and touches my cheek, her finger sliding down my jaw, over my stubble.
"And it was always you. It has always been you," I say. "I knew it the moment I say you standing in front of that classroom. I was entirely sure about it when you walked through that door into the church this morning."
"I've been waiting so long for you to say this," Aria replies, with a soft smile on her face. And I answer with an even bigger smile on my face. I want to kiss her right now. So desperately I want to pull her close and feel her against my skin. The way it used to feel, the way I used to inhale her sweet scent. Caressing her tender skin.
"But I'm not ready."
Her words cut through me like a thousand knives and I almost choke on air.
"What? Why?"
"I just am."
"Did I come on to strong?" I ask her. "Or did I wait too long?"
"You just did what you had to do," she says. "But I am not ready for what you want."
"But I just want you! How can you not be ready for that?"
"You might be ready to want me, but I am not ready to let you do that."
My eyebrows narrow and I try to remember to breathe, because all I can think of is something slipping away from me. She is slipping away, out of my hands and out of my reach.
"Just, slow down," I try to grab a hold of the situation again.
"I am not rushing," Aria corrects me, but it feels like she's running faster than I am and somehow I am loosing sight of her.
"Don't pretend that you don't want me, if that isn't the truth."
"Oh but I want you!" She cries. "I want you more than I can put into words. But starting again would just mean picking it up where we left off and I can't possibly do that. You hurt me enough to realize that before I save someone else, I need to save myself."
"But I don't need saving, I just need you!" I now shout at her, as if I could shake her awake with my voice.
She looks at me with something in her eyes that looks like a mixture of disappointment and worry.
"Everything I want is for us to be together. But not now. So if you want this, us, then you wait. You wait and you just...stay."
I try to find something in her face that might help me figure her out, but there is nothing there. And I just know what I have to do, what I have to say and finally will.
"How would you feel," I glance into her eyes, "if I told you I loved you."
Aria steps closer to me and places her head onto my shoulder. "I would feel like a girl standing in front of a boy."
"You are the one girl," I tell her and the smiles. "And if you want that, I will be taking my time and spending what's left of my life falling deeper in love with you."
You can hear the music from the ballroom filling the hallway. So she takes my hand and we start to sway. Her face is buried in my shoulder pocket, her breathing is hot against my exposed skin.
"I think that would be a good place to start."
"If you'd ask me right now, I would run away with you," I say and Aria chuckles.
"Isn't that what I am supposed to say?"
"Well, you weren't going to address the elephant in the room, so I took charge."
"You like that, don't you?" Aria asks and I raise an eyebrow. "Being in charge."
"Careful there, young lady," I reply. "If you don't want me to play along, stop flirting with me or I won't have a choice."
Aria sighs, but I can feel her smile against my neck. "We're in love, aren't we?"
Without hesitation, my lips press themselves against the top of her head, giving me the chance to rediscover her scent.
She shakes me up, without me even realizing it. Unlike most women I know, she isn't just one thing. She is everything and all the things combined. I want to spend every minute with her, discovering her and doing it over and over again. All this I just know and I'm sure of it.
Her body is slowly dancing along with mine, brushing against it ever so lightly. It's just a touch and nothing more than the brush of a hand. But in reality it's so much more. It's a treaty. A secret pact that only we know, only our hands could agree on. No one else but us aware of our hearts linked together. Looking from above, it's like a story of love.
And I know she is afraid, I can feel her fear through her dress, I can see it in her eyes. But she mustn't be afraid.
I will protect her. I will be there and I will show up. I will make the wrong things right and light up the dark for as long as she will need me to, because her heart is heavy and hurt. For she doesn't know yet that her heart is with me now.
And hearts don't break around here.