Focused Dreams

Chapter 15

The silence that followed that question was immeasurable.

My mind went black, not knowing how to answer his questions. Every fiber of my being was alert, I knew that he would ask, and I knew this was going to be something he would wonder about.

I mean who wouldn't? The boy I was irrevocably in love with, and was also betrothed to, wasn't here, next to me. And even though I like it that way, I want Teodore as far away from me as possible. How do I even start explaining that to him?

To the person who was spying on him, who knew what he was from the beginning, the kind of person I was in love him, but didn't tell me? I knew that he didn't tell me because he was protecting me, I was so foolishly in love with Teodore back then not even Catie could convince me that he wasn't the person I thought he was, let alone Damien. Both of them were protecting me, but I've had enough of people and their protection.

Yet, I still didn't know how to tell him what happened, how do I tell him that a few days after he left without saying a word Teodore came back? That he wasn't the same, that because of him even I wasn't the same. My feelings for Teodore had slowly dwindled throughout the summer, but not enough for me to give up on him. So Teodore called and I came. 

He was waiting for me, and he was definitely drunk, but that wasn't an excuse, not enough. I felt so guilty that my heart wasn't with his anymore that I didn't even stop him, in the beginning. But then I changed my mind, but he didn't stop, and I wasn't strong enough to stop him. Back then I wasn't what I am today.

There is no way I could tell Damien that.

'Lucy, you're being quiet. What happened with Teodore?' Damien is standing in front of me, looking at me with so much concern in his eyes that it shatters my heart.

It didn't take long to get used to having him around again. Damien has always been a part of something I loved. That was the reason I didn't contact him when I could've. Because this life does not allow love in it, no matter how big or small.

'Nothing happened. He just never came back.'

And even though I know Damien would never hurt me, I can't tell him this part of my past. This part that I'm so ashamed of. Because Teodore might have been my boyfriend at the time, but my heart was never truly his, and I'm so ashamed at how long it took me to realize that.

'You're lying to me. Why are you lying to me?'

Anger? Hurt? Concern or pity? I don't know what laced Damien's words when he said that. I do know that he won't let me go if I don't give him something if I don't tell him something. So I gather the courage, put on the face I've trained into perfection for the last six years, and turn towards him, looking at him straight in the eyes, hoping to anchor myself in the present and not go so far back in the past.

'After you left, Teodore came back,' his face now was serious, calm. He's listening is what it's telling me, he's listening and he's here. 'But he wasn't the same. Well, at least he wasn't the same to me. Catie says he's always been like that, but I swear he never was, never so cruel, so vicious.'

Involuntarily my eyes stray away from his, I can't talk about this and look at him, not without breaking every rule my father has engraved in me. But I don't miss the hand he puts on my knee, and I don't miss how I cling to it, to that comfort of here, now, with him.

'I was blind to this obviously. I was so hurt by my mother's death, your leaving, and my father's brutal training that I just clung to him, to that one familiarity. So much so that when he asked me to marry him I said, yes. So much so that when we found out that I was pregnant,' I hear him suck in a breath. 'I couldn't be happier. But as I said, he wasn't the same. I didn't notice his late nights out or his drunken breath. I didn't notice until it was too late.'