She leaned against the door and angrily wiped the tears off of her cheeks. She hated him for chipping away the ice that had so effectively coated her heart and protected her from FEELING, she hated feeling FOR him, and she hated herself for hating it. Her fist pounded against the solid oak door behind her before she stormed across the kitchen.
She fought miserably against the lump in her throat and the hot tears that poured from her eyes. He wasn't supposed to CARE! None of them ever had, so why did he? Why did he want to see who she was so badly? Not a single other man had....
The others weren't men. The voice in her mind was soft as it tried to make her hear its point, but she shook it away angrily.
They WERE men, and every single one of them was the same. This one just had a new tactic, that's all. He WANTED to get inside of her mind to break her apart from the inside out instead of from the outside in. At least the others hadn't succeeded in the latter, but he was finding a new way...
She slammed the bathroom door and screamed against the pain that throbbed inside of her chest, sinking to the floor with her face buried in her hands. What IS this?!
Every other emotion she had felt in the past she had learned to bury, to keep it locked away so she could stay far away from human interaction. She had taught herself to shut down and feel nothing at a man's touch and not to show anything to anyone. But then this stranger had come into her life and shattered everything she had worked for.
She didn't want to feel this, to feel this warmth toward this one. As soon as she did something would go wrong. It had to. It always did. She pushed herself up and walked to the mirror.
The broken, bruised, and tear-stained face that looked back at her made the rage grow and she punched it. Hard. Glass rained down onto the counter and into the sink. It tinked as it fell to the floor around her feet and burned inside of the wounds in her skin. He wouldn't want her after this...
The knock on the door startled her out of her hypnotized state. "What!" She screamed and pounded her other hand on the counter, snarling at the glass that newly embedded itself in her skin.
He opened the door and stepped across the distance wordlessly, his shoes crunching the pieces of mirror that lay on the floor. He reached out and took her hands in his own and turned them over to see the extent of the damage before he turned the water on and moved her hands under the cool water to wash the blood away. "Keep them there," he said as he turned to find a pair of tweezers that were in the top drawer of the counter and pulled a towel from the cabinet.
She stared at him while he patted her hands dry and began picking the tiny pieces of glass out of the open wounds. "I broke your mirror." Her voice was cold and cruel.
"You did." He kept his eyes on his work.
"Aren't you going to make me pay for what I've done?" She tried to see the expression on his face, but he continued to pull the shards out.
His green eyes flicked up to her blue ones briefly. "You've already done that."
Her mouth opened and then closed as she let his words sink in. She looked at his hands holding hers in the towel. They were rough and hard to the eye, but gentle and tender as he used them for this delicate task. "Why are you doing this?" She asked again.
"I've already answered that for you. All you need to do is accept it." His tone was sad and soft.
It broke her heart. "I didn't ask for this, mister."
"I offered."
She gasped as he pulled a large piece from between her knuckles and he pressed the towel against the wound to stop the bleeding. "I'll clean this up."
He shook his head. "You'll lie down and rest. You've been through enough, now. I can get this."
"It's my mess," she protested.
He looked into her eyes and smiled weakly. "And I've chosen to clean it."
Hayley Jane Ferocious
- 12 years, 2 months, 21 days ago
