Chapter 26: 25- I'm Not Scared. I'm Terrified

25

The ride home was silent. I was tired and I knew so was he but he tried covering it up. We were thirty minutes in our journey back home and only had fifteen minutes left before we would pull over to my house. I was dying to remove my dress and hop in my cotton pajamas and worn out shirt. Not to mention to sleep.

But I had only one thing in my mind right now.

Blake’s hand covered mine, instantly drawing my attention to him. He kept his on the road. He was tapping his fingers on the palm of my hand.

“You’ve been awfully quiet Bethany.” He said keeping his eyes on the road. We were now in the town proper so the roads were not as dark as they were earlier. “Something’s wrong. What is it? Maybe I can help?”

“I don’t know.” I lied, looking out the window. I was well aware of the reason why I was so quiet. A few people were out walking. Most of the building lights were still on and most likely the entire city was out partying. “Maybe I’m just tired.”

“And you wanted to drive, again.” he said in an ‘I told you so’ way with a matching smirk.

“I more alert when I drive.” I rolled my eyes.

He shrugged. “I know. I’m the guy here; I don’t want my girl driving.”

My heart sped up when he said ‘my girl’. What were we now? Still whatever I wanted for us to be? I don’t know anymore and I’m getting more confused.

I didn’t say anything else as my mind wandered off. Blake said nothing too as we drove in silence, but it wasn’t an awkward silence which I was very thankful for.

I played with my thumbs as I thought of what my mom and April said, most likely for the fifth time around. Were they right? Have I become so dependent on him? Have I placed him in the center of my universe? Do I look at Blake like he’s my everything?

No, I didn’t…right? No, I repeated to myself over again. They’re lying. April probably said something to my mom to convince her that being with Blake was bad for me. That’s it! Then it hit me, hard, like a hammer driving a nail in.

Have I let my walls break down? Have my defenses given up and let Blake through without a fight? The numerous years I have spent years making sure it wasn’t going to topple down with a single blow, but right now I was positive that it did. And I was doing nothing to build it back up.

We stopped in front of my house and the sound of Blake cutting the engine off broke me away from my thoughts that had wandered all the way to India.

“Bethany?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something.” He said. “And right now, I’m sure no one could interrupt us. No one to get your attention, no more stopping. I just need to tell you something.”

“I have something to tell you too.” I said. “But you go first. This has been put off for way too long, even for me.”

He nodded and sighed, running his hand through his hair. I could see his fingers shaking as he gripped the wheel, turning his knuckles white. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it anyway in hesitation.

“Bethany…” he started. “I like you.”

I furrowed my brows in confusion. “I like you too.”

“No, not like that.” He shook his head. “I mean I literally like you….more than as friends.”

The pace of my heartbeat picked up and now it was beating so fast I was sure my chest was going to explode any time soon. Did he just confess? What was I supposed to say? My hands are shaking, my knees are trembling so bad. I was panicking.

“I like me too.” The words fell out before I could even think. My cheeks turned to pink in a blink of an eye. Why have I been cursed with this? “I like you too.”

His face lit up like a kid on the candy aisle of the store. I knew that look all too well. He was about to say something when I beat him to it.

“But,” I said, interrupting him before he could get the words out of his mouth. The wide grin he was sporting and the happy gleam in his eyes vanished almost immediately. And I feel horrible, like someone just dropped five tons on my gut. Guilt pooled in my stomach, consuming me. I looked away, not bearing to look at him. “Christ, I should’ve went first. This is terrible.”

“Bethany?” his voice cracked wasn’t as joyful as it was before. It was rough, as if someone just sucked out all the happiness from soul.

Someone did.

Now I feel like one of the Dementors from Harry Potter.

And I feel like crying. I swallowed the lump on my throat and took a deep breath to keep the tears at bay. He knows I was going to say something he won’t like. Oh god, here it goes.

“We should stop this, before one of us gets hurt.”

“Stop what?”

“This.” I said almost exclaiming, gesturing my hands to the space between both of us. Then I repeated, with a much smaller voice. “This.”

He didn’t say anything for a second or two, trying to soak in what I had just said. And when he did, he said, “No. No. Why?”

I faced front, seeing nothing but the empty road of my street. Most of my neighbors were asleep already. And in some houses, I could still see rooms that were still lit, telling me they were awake or just forgot to turn the lights off.

“When I was small, we were what you would picture a perfect family as. My mom, my father, my sister, and myself. We were so happy together. When I was nine, my mother left for a work for a week and that was when it started going downhill.”  I said, looking away. “He brought a girl home. I was clueless on what was going on. I grew up without the knowledge of spouses cheating on each other because we were happy and my parents loved each other. Reese was having a sleepover at her friend’s house so she had no idea what was going on.

I was watching TV at around eleven at night, eating a bag of cookies when they came stumbling in eating each other’s faces. I was hungry at that time. No one was home. My father left me alone and did not bother getting babysitter or preparing me dinner so I was just stuck with the junk food I found on the cupboard. And it continued for years. When I told him I was going to tell mom, he told me to not to or he will leave forever. I loved my father, so I didn’t utter a single word about his unfaithfulness to my mother. I was an idiot to listen to him. I regret trusting him.

At times when mom called to tell us she had to work overtime, he would not waste time to call this woman over. Reese had no clue about it for years. Every time he invited her over, she was usually out with her friends, or on a sleepover. I was the only one in our family who knew about his affair.

I was a witness on how my father fooled my mom, and to make things worse, I was the only witness.

At fourteen, mom finally caught him red handed. She went home earlier than her usual time and wanted to surprise him. She went in the bedroom and saw him on top of the girl. It turns out he had gotten the girl pregnant, twice, and now they have two sons which he had been secretly supporting.

It broke my mom’s heart. It broke my family. It broke my trust.”

“Bethany…”

“I swore to myself that I would never fall in love. After seeing what happened to my parents, I stuck with that decision. When I was sixteen, two years later, I met someone. I liked him and he liked me so I broke my promise. He became my first boyfriend. We did everything together, even our teachers knew what was going on. I was always present in all of his games. I was there, cheering him on. We would go out on dates, and have sleepovers. Everything was perfect. Until exactly a year after we became official, I walked in on him having sex with another girl on his bed. He cheated on me because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. He didn’t know that on that day, I was going to. It broke my heart, shattering it into a million tiny pieces.

So I told myself again that I won’t ever fall in love. I had decided that guys were douchebags. My father was one and so was my first boyfriend. And I started rebuilding my walls and terminating the bridges that connected to it. I had perfected ignoring my feelings and acting dense. I did it for years.”

I stopped. The tears were already falling down as I told my story. Trying to regain my breathing back to normal, I closed my eyes to calm myself down.

“Bethany,” Blake said again but I ignored him. He removed his seatbelt so he could move to sit facing me and I could hear the strap recoiling fast.

“But then I met you.” I said in a whisper. “On one Saturday night, I met you. I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t know that I would end up seeing you so often that I actually started to like you. I had spent years of trying to avoid men, trying to block out my feelings as I hid in my shell, but it took you less than a day to bring it all down. You broke it all down without even knowing, without even lifting a single finger.”

We didn’t say anything for a while. I kept my gaze in front of the empty road. A warm hand covered my cold one and it brought be back to reality, remembering Blake was still beside me.

“You’re scared” he whispered.

“I’m not scared. I’m terrified.” I shook my head at him. “When you’ve spent almost half of your life making sure you won’t fall in love, building up walls and just to have someone break it down in a matter of hours, scared does not even come close to describing the feeling. I’m vulnerable when it comes to you. I don’t know why, or how you do it but you just do. I’m scared to death.”

“I won’t hurt you Bethany.” He said, his voice pleading and it broke my heart hearing his voice like this. “I’m not like your father or your ex-boyfriend. I won’t hurt you Bethany. I won’t break our heart, no matter how many times you turn the world upside down. I will never hurt you.”

“That’s what everyone says!” I cried, wiping away the tears. “That’s what he said too. Please, just don’t make this any harder for me.”

I shook my head and opened the car door, ready to sprint to my front door. I did sprint but my shaking hands didn’t let me get my keys through the slot fast enough to run away from Blake.

This is a coward’s move and right now, I was being one, not an ounce of bravery was in me as of the moment.

“Then don’t do this Bethany.” Blake was able to catch up on me and he grabbed my elbows, pulling me to face his gorgeous face. His eyes lost the happy gleam I fell in love in love with, replaced my fear, anxiety, and grief. “Don’t do this to me, please.”

“Blake,” I wiped my nose with my free hand. Great, now I will not only end up looking like an inflated balloon in front of him with my swollen eyes and red face, but now I’ll also look like someone who used crayons for my make up with my smudged ones. “Please, just go.”

“No, I won’t.” he said, closing his eyes shut. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me. I get that you’re scared but you should know better that I will never hurt you. Bethany, I’ll never hurt you. Don’t do this to me.”

“Blake.” I said quietly, the rhythm of my breathing matching with his. “Look at us now. We’re not even together and look, look at us. I can’t be dependent on you, and you can’t on me. What would happen if we get in to a fight being boyfriend girlfriend?”

“Don’t do this to me.” Blake whispered, his voice shaking and cracking, like he was preventing himself from crying, and I think he was. “Please.”

“I’m sorry. Just go, don’t make this any harder for me.”

A few seconds later, his grip on my elbow loosened and I immediately took the opportunity to yank my arm away and open the door. Just as I had the key inserted in the knob, he spoke up.

“Have you ever stopped to think that I’m scared too?” his voice was so small and so low that a person who stood six inches away from me wouldn’t be able to hear it anymore. “Have you?”

“What?”

“Bethany, I lost my wife, my daughter’s mother, my lover, my world when Stephanie died. It felt like I had to give her up for Allie. Do you know what it felt like? How the day when you’re supposed to be happy with your wife because your child was going to be born turned horrible because the next thing you know, the love of your life is lying in front of you, dead.

I love Allie so much, and even if I was given the chance to turn back time to have Stephanie instead of Allie, I wouldn’t take it. And just like you, I hid in my shell, and closed the curtains. I tried dating a year after she passed but with every date I had went, all I saw was Stephanie. I wore my wedding band everyday for years, even during the dates. I couldn’t remove it, it felt like I was being unfaithful to Stephanie. So I stopped dating because I knew I was hopeless. I knew that I wasn’t going to love another woman because all I saw was Stephanie.

Until…until I met you. That day when we first met and first talk, for the first time I didn’t hear Stephanie talking to me. I didn’t see her. All I saw was you. All I heard was your beautiful voice. And I knew I couldn’t let you go. When I saw you walk through the doors, it was easy for me to remove my ring, as if I was ready to let it all go. You made me breathe again. You were the only who let me finally move one after Stephanie.

This scares me too Bethany. It’s scary that out of the millions of people, you were the only one who had that effect on me. It’s scary how strong I am attracted to you. But you know what? I don’t care because I know you’re worth it.”

I couldn’t say anything after that. I didn’t know what to say. I wished what he said would’ve made me change my mind, and that I decided to just man up and kiss him right there. But no, the fear that I had carefully wrapped and boxed up in my head just kept on finding ways to claw itself back, telling me that no matter what, I’ll end up getting hurt, that with the power Blake had over my defenses was astounding and he could easily tear me apart and break my heart.

“I’m sorry.” Was all I managed to choke out after a while. “I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t do this. I like you so much.” He said. “I love you Bethany.”

What he said made my heart skip a beat or two and I looked at him. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I love you Bethany Hamilton.”

“You’re just saying that because of this.” I gestured my hands around us, at our situation, at the fight (is it even the right word to use?) we were having. “You don’t mean it. So please stop saying that, and stop lying to yourself.”

Blake gave out a groan of frustration and ran his fingers through his hair. “Bethany, I knew I liked you the second I laid eyes on you. It just took me a long time to say it. I realized I love you when I first heard you laugh. I have been in love with you from the very start. I love you.”

I forgot what I said after (probably ‘I’m sorry’) but I remember shaking my head at him, and going inside my house when I had finally opened the door. I remember him on his knees, his face buried on the palm of his hands when I closed the door.

I should’ve felt relief pass me when I succeeded. But I didn’t. Instead, I feel even more terrible now, worse than ever before. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I should’ve just ignored my mother and April. Maybe I should stop listening to others and start listening to myself for once.

But that wasn’t the case.

That night I cried myself to sleep. I had wanted to call Blake over ten times but when I remembered the reason why I had put the distance between us, I immediately toss my phone aside. I knew I was going to regret it sooner or later but right now, I didn’t care.

The only thing that mattered was that I needed to get unwanted feeling in my stomach, the feeling of fear, and the solution to that was to put some space between us.

I did this to save myself from getting hurt, to save my heart that has already been shattered, but right now, it feels like I should’ve said nothing to save myself. I was hurting. I just broke up with Blake- we’re not even together but it feels like a break up. My heart was breaking.

I kept repeating to myself over and over again that this was all for the better, this was to make sure I wouldn’t get too attached with Blake, that I would still be able to stand on my own two feet without needing his help.

But I knew this was a lie. I did tis because I was afraid and I did not want to face my fear. I’m a wimp and I know it. A coward’s road is always easier to take.

It looks like it’s going to take more than ice cream, movies, and sweaters to patch this broken heart.

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