Forgetting Love

16

"What are you doing here?" I squeak. My body is tense and I hold my legs. He shouldn't be anywhere near me.

He shrugs. The sight of him makes my toes curl and stomach get tight. "I said I wouldn't go in the room," he says. "Out here is fair game," he jokes. I don't laugh. "I wasn't trying to find you. I just kind of stumbled upon you in here."

"Please go away," I beg weakly.

"Why are you so scared of me? I won't hurt you," he sighs exasperated.

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?" I retort back. Why won't he listen to me and just leave me alone? That's all I want.

He looks annoyed at first, but then his face softens. "You've been crying," he says softly to himself. He slowly starts to get closer to me. "And you look exhausted. Have you slept?" Concern is etched across his face. He looks so believable that he almost has me fooled.

"Get away from me!" I flinch away from his touch.

Chris frowns. "You didn't eat, did you?" He asks flatly. I don't answer him. He already knows. "Come on," he urges. "Let's get you taken care of before you waste away to nothing."

He tries to grab me but I dodge his touch. I roll over the piles of toys to get away from him. "I'm already nothing." I look at anything but him. Maybe he'll go away if I ignore him enough.

"You are so much more than that. Don't you see? You are my everything."

"Go away," I cry as I scrunch in to a ball. He keeps getting closer and there is nothing I can do about it. There's nothing I can do about anything. I start to shake. He can't touch me!

We sit in silence for awhile. He's thinking about something. It really bothers me that I don't know what it is. It could be anything,

"You've asked me a few times why I chose you," he finally says breaking the silence, "and I've always said its because your different from everyone else." He sits next to me on the floor. Our bodies are only a few inches apart, but he doesn't try to touch me. "Well I'm going to tell you when I knew you were the one. Then I want you to tell me whether or not you are worthless or nothing, ok?"

This sparks my interest. I've been wondering for a long time on how I doomed myself to this. What did I do wrong to deserve the devil's attention? I nod slowly, "Ok," I mumble. I keep an eye on him. If he gets any closer to me, I'll scream. This is already hard enough.

"Ok, so, I guess I'll start from the beginning," he says unsure. "I was a sophomore in college. I wasn't really looking for a girl at the time. I was more focused on trying to get my degree; be normal like my mom wanted me to. But I was willing to find the one if she was special enough.

"I took some of the more basic classes since I wasn't overly sure what I wanted to do. Your brothers, Devan and Evan, were in the same psychology class as me. That's how we met and we became close buddies. Some of my best memories from college happened with them. We were inseparable, most would call it. The semester was going by fast. Before we knew it, it was time for spring break.

"Most people went south to the beaches or other warm places. Others went home to be with there families the entire break. Not us, we always had to be different. We hatched the crazy idea to travel to a few places like monuments and parks in the states. We went to D.C. first, of course. It is the best place to tour. We saw some of the monuments and memorials. Let me be honest here, it was pretty boring. Seeing tall towers of stone isn't as good as it sounded. Your brother Evan kept cracking jokes the whole time which was the best part of it.

"By the time we left D.C., we considered the trip a bust. We decided to pay our families a surprise visit instead of continuing on with the original plan. Our other friends' families were first. Most of them just stayed with their families for the rest of break. We had no problem with that. It made things easier for us.