The Beast

The Beast (25)

I used to think that love was a petty thing.

What use was love to me when everyone I love ends up leaving me?

But, somehow, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into my emotions. I allowed myself to be swept away by the hurricane and to be drowned by the waves of my desires.

I fell in love with a very dangerous man.

Now I won't deny it. I wanted him to return my feelings, understand my heart. I wanted him to be a part of my life, a part that would never be ripped away. I wanted him to be with me...forever.

I used to scoff at the thought. I didn't deserve him. He was beautiful, perfect, surreal while I... I was disgusting, scarred, broken. How could I ever become his lover?

I was a wilted rose whose thorns were slowly twisting their way deep into the petals, the once lively red color turning into a horrid rotten hue.

Who was I to be embraced in his love?

But...

"I love you." He whispered, so painfully close yet so damn far.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't form my feelings into words that he could have heard. I couldn't tell my body to just fling myself at him and bury myself in his warm, homey scent. The walls of resistance that I've oh so desperately built up all this time just suddenly went crashing down, the rubble and debris cutting deep into the walls of my heart like a million knives.

It was painful....

But how beautiful it was.

My loud sobs filled the forests and I curled into myself, burying my face in my knees, not realizing the other things I could have done, the other things I could have said.

I love you....

Oh God. How long have I waited for those words to be directed at me? And now that it's been done, it felt so... amazing, so surreal.

Was I happy? Elated? Scared? I couldn't understand.

It was as if all my emotions were pouring down on me like a rainstorm and I basked in the feel of it. I embraced it as they soaked me deep into my bones.

Before long, I had found myself in a familiar tight embrace as his worried whispers flitted into my ears. But I couldn't understand as I kept crying and crying, burying my face into his chest almost instinctively.

He didn't just like me...

He loved me.

I rubbed my nose gently with the back of my hand in an effort to clear away the fact that my whole face was turning beet red, and I looked up at him, his form blurry from behind the tears that gathered in my eyes. But it was undeniable... Those blue eyes were definitely his.

"You're not lying...right?" I found myself mumbling before I could catch myself, and I watched as his blue eyes darkened considerably in what I understood as anger.

"Do you think I would lie to you about this?" He hissed, clearly letting me know how angry he was, yet, as he went to gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear, his touch was undeniably soft. And I couldn't help but lean in despite the inner turmoil that was raging like a beast within me.

It's always been like this. Always. He's always held me as if I meant the whole world to him... and would it be so wrong for me to hope for it to be true?

He sighed, positioning his warm hands to cradle my face in an effort to keep my wandering gaze on his. The serious look etched onto his face as he stared intently at me made me want to look away but, as I tried to jerk my head from his grasp, his hold only grew stronger. "I've told you before... on the day that we first met that I didn't like it when people fear me... I was lying."