He gripped her arm firmly and harshly whispered in her ear, "What does he have that I don't?"
She couldn't look in his eyes. Those bright amber orbs gazing at her, piercing her body and soul, threatening to tear her apart from the inside out.
And to save herself, she whispered back, "Nothing."
His hold on her was growing painful. She did all she could to choke back a sob.
He gritted his teeth and leaned his forehead against hers. "Look at me," he commanded.
She shut her eyes tightly, mumbling, "I can't."
"Why not?" he demanded, growing impatient.
"I—I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Afraid of falling in love with you again."
-
In a flurry of passion, she kissed him over and over, bruising her lips, numbing her tongue, dying on the inside. Her hands raked across his back, and then came to rest in his messy hair. His arms clutched her tightly, and he pressed himself against her, squeezing her between the wall and himself. He broke away from her, panting slightly, looking her dead in the eye.
"What was that for?"
"Just because. Because I love you, William."
Jealous amber eyes passed over the two bodies hidden in the darkest part of the room. The light would flash over them, green, red, blue, pink, and then the cycle would repeat all over again. He saw them whispering one thing and another.
He couldn't watch.
-
"Marry me Yumi. Marry me, and we can be happy. We can run away from everything. I'll be yours, and you'll be mine. Be my wife."
He slipped a gorgeous diamond ring onto her ring finger, and she gasped, holding her hand to her mouth, staring at the band.
Her eyes flicked back to him, and for a moment, she longed to say yes, to fulfill all her unsaid wishes and dreams.
But she was still afraid.
"No."
She took the ring and pushed it into his hands. "No," she repeated, firmly this time.
"Yumi?"
Another voice. The voice of her lover. Her head whipped around, and she smiled. "William."
William looked at her, and he looked at the man behind her, who stood in the shadows, looking so fiercefully at the back of Yumi's head. He wanted nothing more than this, this moment where she chose him over the other man.
But he couldn't do it. He loved her. That's why.
He wasn't afraid of love.
He managed a small smile. "What you want… What you want is me. But what you need." He looked down for a moment, and never set his eyes on her ever again. "What you need is him."
-
They were both so broken on the inside. So torn, so destroyed, so incomplete.
But he needed her.
And she was so afraid.
So afraid, because she needed him just as much.
-
It's an oxymoron because she was afraid of love.
