Protect My Heart

Chapter 25

Suggested songs: "When We're Old" and "River Flows In You" By: Leva Zasimauskaité and Yiruma

Clover

The bedroom door shut behind me, the wooden frame creaking. Sliding against the door to the floor, I curled up in a ball.

It was time. Time to let the waterworks fall.

I gave them a free run, the breaths oozing out of me in dense pants.

'Crying is not a sign of weakness. Crying is a way of showing people how you feel if you cannot find the words. It doesn't make you weak.'

His words haunted me. I was brought back to the day he had said those words. It felt like yesterday. He had come to my house after Jackson had paid me a visit days before. He had this need to check up on me. That day, I broke apart countless times while he'd taken care of me. He didn't leave when I tried to kick him out. In fact, he'd accidentally confessed his love to me.

My first love. My first in everything, as he'd said.

The love of my life... who'd turned into someone unknown. He wasn't mine anymore. He was a replica of the man I feared.

How had we turned out this way? How had he? It was two years ago that he was promising to stay, to love and cherish, to be everything I ever dreamed of.

How does love change this rapidly? How do people lose themselves?

Unless... he was that way from the beginning, and I just refused to see the signs. Yes, he'd been possessive, obsessive, slightly controlling, and manipulative, but not physically abusive. Yes, he liked to have rough intercourse and spank me once in a while, even choke me, but not this.

He wasn't Jackson. He couldn't be.

Then why did everything he do tonight remind me of that? His words, his actions, his slow, tantalizing movements, and even his breathing and his smell.

Then that slap.

A movement against the door pulled me back to the earth. For a second, I imagined it was him; I was going crazy with the sound of his breaths. Instinctively, my hand placed itself on the wooden frame, making me feel like he was with me. No matter what, we were in this together.

But even if he was there, I couldn't give him any satisfaction of my grief over our relationship. He deserved nothing from me.

So I crawled into bed, the sobs raking through my mouth.

Time passed; hours ticked by in long minutes.

But I awoke to steady arms around me. I recognized his scent, touch, hands – him. Not someone from earlier in the night. Logan's legs tangled with mine, one arm under my head, the other circled my stomach, and his face in my hair.

"I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Clover."

His words strengthened the ache, the hole in my heart.

I found no words to speak, no tone of voice. Gladly, he didn't know I was awake.

He crashed me tighter to him, his breathing laden. "I didn't mean to, I swear, Clo. I would never hurt you intentionally. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

Streaks of wetness hit my shoulder. He was crying. Logan rarely cried; they were rare occasions. But he cried for our relationship, for what we had lost now. Two damaged souls in one bed.

He started shaking, nearly crushing the life out of me. "I'm sorry. I can never do right by you. I never planned to leave you. I wouldn't even dream of leaving you. If I had any other choice, I wouldn't have left. You're what keeps me sane.