An offhand statement awakens feelings that Rose tries to keep hidden in the past.
Word count: 1,318
I'm half asleep, but she demanded I get up and write this, so please forgive any errors. ;o)
It happens to everyone, I suppose—even the happiest couples are liable to exchange a harsh word or two from time to time. It's only natural, right? It wasn't even a fight—far from it. It was really nothing more than a few insignificant words, and not even particularly mean words at that. At any other time I might have laughed off the comment, but today… for some reason, they cut a little deeper than they normally would have. Don't ask me why, because I couldn't give you a reason. All I know is they did, and… it hurt. A lot.
I mean everyone is entitled to moments when they feel moody; hell, I should know, I'm the queen of mood swings. But that doesn't make it easy to shake off when it happens, and though it's easy to forgive the things that are said in moments like that, sometimes it's not quite as easy to forget them. I learned that the day Adrian confronted me; the angry statements he hurled at me taught me that sometimes words linger and fester inside you, like a wound that just won't heal, and though you know eventually they'll fade away, there will always be a mark that remains to remind you of the injury.
I'm proud that I didn't storm out in a huff, slamming the door behind me. For once, I managed to keep control of myself instead of instantly lashing out and saying hurtful things that I didn't mean. Instead of countering his slightly snarky comment with one of my own, I retreated here, to the quiet solitude of the bedroom, curling up on our bed, determined not to let an offhanded statement he made because of a bad mood get me down. I told myself that it was stupid to be so offended—if Christian or Lissa had said the same thing he did, it wouldn't have phased me in the slightest. But somehow hearing Dimitri say it… well, it just made it almost impossible to overlook.
I attempted to erase what happened from my mind, replaying all the happy moments we'd shared—the ones I hold close to my heart. Like the way he looks when he first wakes up, tousle haired and bleary eyed as he leans over to kiss me good morning, or the way his strong, calloused hands feel as they slide across my skin, the slightest touch sending chills up and down my spine. I thought about the husky, breathless sound of his voice when he calls me his Roza between frantic, hungry kisses and the way he sometimes wakes up early and sneaks out when I'm sleeping, walking all the way across court just so he can surprise me with warm donuts in the morning. Those moments and a thousand others like them more than make up for the pain that accompanies a few thoughtless, snappish words.
That's what I keep telling myself as I bury my face in his pillow—inhaling the wonderful scent that is his and his alone—in an attempt to combat the fear that wells up inside me, and to erase the echoing chorus of 'Love Fades' that's resonating through my head. It's not his fault that at times like this, all my old issues rear up inside me—that's 100% my problem and has nothing to do with anything that has happened between us, and I'll readily admit it. If anyone's to blame it would probably be my mother—after all she is the one who abandoned me when I was a kid. And I'll let you in on a secret—that single event is my Achilles heel, coming back to haunt me over and over again. It's the chink in my armor that can bring me to my knees, although I try my best not to show it. Yeah, I'm strong and capable and independent, but deep inside me, locked away in a box is that little four year old girl, crying and reaching out for her mother and begging her not to go.
That little girl part of me remembers the painful feelings of inadequacy; of being so unlovable that her own mother couldn't wait to get rid of her and her father couldn't be bothered to acknowledge her at all. She remembers not being good enough to deserve a real family that loved her for who she was, and she clings to the memory of each and every time someone has left her, grasping onto them the way she once clutched a beat up, one eyed teddy bear to her tiny chest as she drifted off to sleep. She refuses to let them go because they're all she ever really knew. She clings to the deep ache I felt when I watched Dimitri and Tasha, imagining him fathering her children, and through my eyes she watches him fall in the cave, knowing he's leaving us—and she knows it's not a choice he made, but it doesn't matter, because she knows it's all our fault. She whispers the words he spoke that day in the church, repeating them like a liturgy until she's even more bruised and battered and broken, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Why? Because she doesn't deserve to be loved—that was the first lesson she learned at the Academy. Her mother taught it to her as she walked out of her life. That little girl is just waiting, biding her time, because deep down she knows that eventually, he'll walk away and leave her too—and she knows that she'll deserve it.
Those are the things that echo through my head as I lay on our bed, clutching his pillow to my chest, with tears streaming down my cheeks. A mountain of hurt, not because of the thoughtless thing he said in a moment of moodiness, but instead because they awakened my own feeling of not being good enough to deserve his love and the fear of abandonment that always lingers inside of me. I hide it away from the world, pretending that nothing can faze me, but deep down, it's always there, just waiting for a chance to show its ugly face.
When his bad mood goes away he'll come in to join me, gathering me in his strong arms as he kisses my tears away, and I'll forget how I feel right now, lying here alone, filled with self-loathing for not being good enough. Yes, it will come back to haunt me soon enough; it always does when I'm feeling low—that's the thing about issues that happen to you when you're just a little kid. They never really go away, they just hide, waiting for the opportunity to remind you of what happened. But when I'm with Dimitri… he chases all the demons away, and he makes that little girl part of me feel safe and cherished for the first time in her life. I know that in time, she'll be able to let go of all the pain and misery she clings to. It's a long, hard process, but Dimitri is slowly erasing the lesson she learned that day at the gates of Saint Vlad's, replacing it with a much more important one. He's making her realize that she is worthy of love, because he shows her that in a million sweet, thoughtful ways, with words and gestures that are healing her one step at a time. It's just one of the many reasons I love him so, so much, and proof that he completes me in a way no one else can—and it makes it easy to forgive and forget the sarcastic comment that set this whole thing off. And honestly, what he said wasn't that bad… in fact, it was pretty much true…. I do have a big mouth at times.
But don't you dare tell him I said that.
