I swear I didn't mean for it to happen. It wasn't supposed to happen. I had acted in a way to completely prevent this precise thing from happening. Yes I understood that she was gorgeous, and sweet, and so so smart that I could hardly believe it. But she was so young, and so good. Too good for a guy like me with my gambling, and drinking, and screw ups happening at every other corner. Then there was her perfect, only cares about her education and her family. A dream come true, with morals and on her way to a college degree. I had acted in a way to be sure that this would never occur. If we got out if the cave of course we would still be best friends for life, and I would make sure that she could get that degree without skipping meals and working until she couldn't see straight. Anything more than very good friends was dangerous. Its why Parker wore his mask, so that the ones he truly loved would never get hurt. She would be a target to everyone and no matter how hard she might try I really couldn't see her fighting. It had taken us at least two weeks to be able to get the clumsiness out of her so that she would stop getting cuts on the stone that made up all the room. She wouldn't stand a chance against any one of my enemies. I felt like a dirty old man. I was thirty eight, she was twenty one I should be better than this. I didn't want to end up like that one senator a few years back. But the way she had made me feel on thanksgiving was pretty beautiful.
Loki had left last Monday, but not without a curious glance at me after dinner when I had my epiphany. We had gone back to our normal schedules, ignoring my feelings like someone with a biblical plague. Now though it was harder to ignore her perfect doll like features, long black naturally curly eyelashes, her straight dark brown hair that just kept growing, the pale porcelain skin with little blushes of scarlet above her cheekbones, those big forestry brown eyes looking for the secrets of the universe. Not to mention the curves though small, were there. With her little hands, toes, and adorable lips and ears, not to mention her 4'9 height she was the epitome of both beauty and cuteness. I didn't have any right to love her, nothing to put me near her level of perfection.
But somehow I was anyway.
"Tony, get me a towel. I kinda spilled some water on the floor." she called.
I reached over and brought her one of the gross scratchy towels we had, as she smiled sweetly as she plopped it on the floor. Wiping up the spill her eyebrows furrowed at me and her teeny tiny hands made their way to my cheeks. I had kept shaving kind of, but a simple kitchen knife wasn't a razor so I had stubble. Her hands though small were always warm and I could feel the heat on my skin. I concentrated to keep breathing normally, as I was getting her sweet scent of cherry blossoms from her shampoo. All the beauty I was talking about was lifting up my chin to get a better look at my face. keep normal, keep normal, don't be weird, don't let them know, don't let them see.
"Anthony?" oh gosh she was using the full name, what'd I do.
"Are you alright, you look a little flushed." I gulped, nodding
"Oh yeah princess I'm fine. I think I might've just been working too long."
I saw her bite her lip, she did that a lot, and got up on her tippy toes so she was closer to my face. My heart that was protected by the reactor was pumping really hard. I could hear the beat blasting in my head as she put her palm on my forehead. It had that electric, firework feeling that they always talk about in books and movies. We weren't even kissing, or holding hands, hell only one of us actually knew why I was freaking out and it was me. Isabella had no idea of how great this in her eyes unromantic gesture of checking my temperature was making me fall even deeper in love with her by the millisecond.
Her lips that I wanted to kiss so pad pursed and she bit them again.
"You don't have a temperature. It might be the cold getting to you, how about you actually take a nap for a bit. You need the energy."
Of course she wouldn't worry about herself but only me. I lightly ran my thumb under her eyes where the deep dark bags were.
"Hon, you don't look the finest either."
It was true to, despite the fact that she could be Miss Universe with her looks, being in a cave with as limited resources as the ones we had changed things. She was even skinnier than when we first met, and sleeping was getting rougher as it was getting colder and longer in the cave. Her mind wasn't made for these stone walls, and I knew for a fact that when this was all over she'd have an extreme case of claustrophobia. She was worn, but still breathtakingly beautiful regardless. I was still making her eat a buffet table whenever we got out though.
She dismissed what I said
"Tony, I'm fine I swear. I'll come join you once I've cleaned everything up. You rest and I'll be there soon."
I looked at her just as deeply
"Dinner can wait, you look exhausted. I sleep next to you and I know that you're not sleeping."
"And you know why I'm not."
See, seems like this boyfriend really did do a number on her. In ways I hadn't had my heart broken hard enough to understand. He haunted her, way down in this cave. Isabella had told me that it hadn't happened that much during college because she was always busy doing something, and when she was went to sleep she was always too totally exhausted to dream. Now though in the cold mostly empty cave, she had a lot of time to think. Her thoughts tended to waiver to the one person that she has given the ability to break her heart, and he did tremendously. Taking away every comfort from under her when she wasn't looking and leaving her in the dust of his apparent love. I wish I could get her over him, but it was a task I couldn't figure out how to accomplish. So now her dreams were flooded with him and his cruelty in leaving her. I swear when we got out of here I was going to tear that boy apart limb by limb for what he had done.
"Get me." I told her though, looking at those beautiful chocolate brown eyes.
"If you start having troubles, because of whatever, just get me. That way we can both sleep. I'm right next to you in that cot so it shouldn't be that hard."
Right, boys and girls. Remember how cold the cave was back in September, it's December now so it's freezing. In order to stay alive me and Isabella share a bed, the one blanket we have, and we sleep together. It was doing wonders with my infatuation to her. Not to mention something was up with her circulation and how small she was because the cold hit her a ton harder than it hit me. So never when she was awake, but I had trained myself to read her whole body language chart so that I could tell the exact moment that it was okay for me to touch her without her waking up.
Also calm down all you pervs out there I didn't touch her in that kind of way to hear her up, I'm not a monster. I simply would gather her in my arms to make sure that she wouldn't freeze, holding her warm tiny cold body in mine. It was honestly the most intimate things I had done, just holding her as eventually I would fall asleep, waking up in a similar position. A symbiotic way of keeping each other alive and taking care of. It made loving her both harder and easier late at nights thinking as I made sure as much as I could that at the very least I could make her sleeping as comfortable as I could. She didn't know and I'm guessing didn't feel the same way about me. It was alright, you didn't love someone because you knew they would love you back. I would live with the endless fantasies of what could be. I laid down next to her knowing that she was worth being in this cave for. She was worth healing. And even if neither of us knew it, she was healing me.