Sorry, I Love You.

2.23

This is yet another chapter where I can't quote the song right here because the entire song is relevant and I don't feel like typing out every lyric to the song...😂

Teddy had woken up first the next morning, simply laying in bed beside Zoe and staring at her as she slept. The morning sun was pouring into his room and bouncing off of Zoe's blonde hair and the apples of her cheeks. She had regained some color in her face since last night and she wasn't freezing cold anymore. Teddy still worried, though. Because once she woke up, the toll that yesterday took on her would become obvious and he was scared to find out just how bad it was.

For now, Teddy just watched her breathe in and out in steady breaths as her eyelashes occasionally fluttered on her cheeks in her sleep. After awhile of watching her, though, he couldn't stop himself from indulging in his desire to touch her hair. Something about her voluminous, blonde locks made her look so angelic and pure. Her hair was soft too so it was hard for him to pull his hand away once he began gently stroking it and combing his fingers through it.

And then suddenly, Zoe's big, sparkling, milky brown eyes fluttered open and quickly met his. Teddy's hand jerked out of Zoe's hair and he curled his fingers into his palm as he gulped. The tension in the air as Teddy waited for a reaction from Zoe was suffocating him moment by moment. He was drowning in worry and guilt. It was making his stomach churn.

"That wasn't a dream, was it?" Zoe asked, her voice barely over a whisper but still breaking as she swallowed the growing lump in her throat.

Teddy felt his heart clench in his chest as he slowly dropped his hand to the space between them. "Would you prefer I say it was?"

Zoe weakly shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. As badly as she wanted to fall apart, she tried to hold it all in for as long as she could. Teddy didn't like that. He used to hate when she cried but it was even worse when she denied herself the right to feel. She was trapped within herself and it was hurting her and he knew it.

"You brought me home?" Zoe's voice broke and her bottom lip quivered. Still, her tears never fell.

"Yes." Teddy answered in a whisper, his eyes never straying from hers. "How do you feel? Are you in pain?"

Zoe gently shook her head as her eyes finally poured over with hot tears. She closed her eyes and curled her lips into her mouth as she fought to hold the violent sobs threatening to burst out of her, but it wasn't enough. Even with her eyes closed, tears still tickled down her cheeks and disappeared into the pillow she was laying her head on. When a sputtering sob escaped her, Zoe lifted her hands to her face and ducked her head to cry into them.

Teddy moved before his brain told him to, and suddenly, he was pulling her into his embrace. Zoe's whole body trembled and shook as broken sobs slipped between her lips, Teddy quietly shushing her and stroking her hair as he held her against his chest. He let Zoe cry for a few minutes, hugging her even tighter when something triggered her to cry even harder. It didn't take long, though, for her to caught her sobs and swallow them.

"You're safe now, Zoe. I've got you. You're home." Teddy soothed and let Zoe hiccup a few more times before his internal panicking got the best of him. "Did they hurt you, Zoe? Are you hurt?"

"I don't know..." Zoe cried into Teddy's chest. "They drugged me in the van. I don't know what happened after that."

Teddy's eyes fell shut and he gritted his teeth as he tried not to outwardly curse. He still couldn't believe Zoe's own mother would do something like that to her. Even if Zoe wasn't physically hurt, she was drugged and kidnapped. That was going to leave a lasting bruise on her soul. Psychologically, she was in pain and there was a lot of it. At this point, Teddy didn't know if this was suppose to be a test for him or a punished from some cruel god to Zoe for simply having Rin as a parent.