It was starting to look like that all of my hard work to tone my body over the years had the added side effect of making him yearn. There was an aching desire inside to have him at my mercy willing to do practically anything to please me.
“I try my best to keep those feelings in check. You don’t know what living in hell is like until you see a few of your friends die right in front of you. It’s not something for anybody with a heart condition. You have to remain stoic even when you’re breaking apart inside," he sniffed with his eyes welling up.
He was making me feel sorry for him despite what he had done to me in the past. My plan to use my body against him hadn’t gone the way that I had wanted it to. To make him fall in love wasn’t the issue.
That was the simple part.
“I can’t even imagine what you have been through. You have my undying gratitude and respect. We sometimes forget the sacrifices others have made for our freedoms. I’m guilty of the same thing. You remind me how I sometimes have to come out of my bubble to see what is right in front of me,” I declared with my hand on his shoulder touching those muscles with admiration and a hunger to be manhandled into submission.
“I’ve done my best not to burden others with my problems. It’s a defense mechanism. Remembering it and talking about it are two different things. Don’t take my word for it. It’s what my therapist tells me every time I call her in the middle of the night looking for that lifeline," he confessed..
It wasn’t very surprising considering what he had been through. Some people would never see him as the hero, but I was not one of them.. He had gone through something that I wouldn’t want to wish on my worst enemy.
“I commend you for getting the help you need. The war is never over inside your head. We can’t see the horrors that you have witnessed firsthand. The fire was my first taste of having my life flash before my eyes. I know it sounds foolish but I never thought something like this would happen to me. I suppose everybody says that at one time in their lives,” I lamented with a light squeeze of his shoulder.
I was feeling the effects of the herbal tea running through my veins. It did relax me, and I felt less jittery than I did before. Every time I looked at the kitchen, my mind would replay the event of the explosion that sent me flying over the counter. It was all happening in slow motion.
I could see that reliving the trauma could hold me hostage.
There was suddenly a strong pair of hands wrapped around me. He was enveloping me in his masculine physique. It would’ve been easy to push him away, but I didn’t even try. This wasn’t sexual from his point of view, but to me, it was an extension of what we had already done.
I could’ve easily broken down but I was determined to show strength against adversity. The one thing I was never going to be was a fragile doll. That was for somebody else without the strength to fight through the terrifying ordeal I had just gone through.
School wasn’t my proudest moment. His betrayal had thickened my skin to give me the courage to fight when others would cower. I could easily see myself in a corner rocking back and forth in the fetal position mumbling something incoherent under my breath.
I let him comfort me until that awkward moment presented itself. He had breached my personal space. The moment when it turned intimate was when I pushed him away with one hand on his chest.
I cringed when one of the bandages pulled free exposing the raw wound to the elements. It didn’t bother him, and I could feel him following me into the bathroom down the hall.