Guarded Heart

Chapter 11

They drive in silence just listening to the radio. A song comes on that stings Ethan's heart, "What hurts the most" and as it plays Ethan sings, tears running down his face that he needs pull over.

Ryan reaches for his hand but he just pulls it back. Ryan doesn't know what to say or do so he just waits.

After a little bit Ethan starts driving again and he doesn't head home, he heads to the water front and gets out of the truck and goes to sit on a swing. Ryan follows him.

"Hey talk to me, what's wrong?" Ryan asked worried about Ethan. He sighs and turns to look Ryan in the eyes.

"That song, I used to play it all the time, day and night for a very long time."

"When Marcus was...?"

"Yes. He was the love of my life, I don't mean just your normal love I mean that head over hills after so many years can't get enough of each other love. I have known him most of my life and I have loved him longer than we were together, but he didn't know that at the time. When he told me that he signed up for the Marines I felt my heart break into a million pieces because I knew it was just a matter of time before he got deployed.

It was hard, but we got through it and he came home we were fine, and he went on a few more, the last one is when he didn't come home. I knew he wasn't even before we were informed that something has happened to him, I felt it in my heart, in my soul that he was hurt. I felt my breath go out of my lungs and that I was going to die. He was my whole world and when I lost him, it broke me bad.

I tried to kill myself by drinking and doing drugs, I even drove drunk many times hoping to drive myself off a cliff or into a tree and just blow up. I didn't care about my life anymore, not when he was gone.

It was a very dark time in my life, then I met my ex, the one I told you about. After him I swore off love, didn't want to even bother with getting attached to someone else because what if something happened to him or me, again? I'm so scared that something is going to happen to you when you leave Ryan, I don't want to get attached to you and you leave, and you don't come home. I won't make it if that happens. I am so broken, you have no idea how broken I am inside. I feel myself slowly getting attached to you and I'm scared that if I let myself, I'll just get hurt."

Ryan has tears in his eyes and they fall on his cheeks and he just looks into Ethan's eyes, seeing the pain in his eyes breaks his heart. Ryan not wanting to blink or break the contact because if he does, he'll cry.

"I can't promise that nothing will happen to me, but I can promise that I will do anything I need to do to get back home. I don't want to break your heart by something happening to me. I'm scared as hell myself, scared of what is happening with us and scared of hurting you if I don't come home. I can't be the reason you lose yourself even more."

Ethan sniffles. "So, what do we do?"

"I don't know Ethan, I really don't. All I do know is I want to spend as much time with you as I can before I leave and if there is something between us, I want to be with you and if you don't feel the same, we can just call this, dating. I can't imagine all you have been through, yea I had my heart broke but nothing compared to what you have been through and I want to know everything, every dark secret that you can't even tell yourself, I want to know what is in your heart, I want to know your soul so I am willing like I said to make this work, if you decide before I leave that you just want to wait till I get back to date some more, that's fine with me, as long as it makes you happy, that's all I care about."

Ethan grabs Ryan and kisses him sweetly and soft. Ryan puts his hands through Ethan's hair and moans lightly, enjoying the tender kiss between them.

Ethan hear "Far Away" playing at the local bar and just stops kissing Ryan and looks into his eyes and sings to him, Ryan's tears finally fall onto his cheeks and Ethan wipes them away as he sings to him. It must be a Nickelback night at the bar because "After The Rain" comes on next.