I think I love him.  I'm not exactly sure when that happened.  It's frightening, in a way.  I'd always told myself that when I fell in love I wouldn't hide from it.  I wouldn't tell myself that it was impossible for that love to be returned.  My mother did that and it haunted her, even after she married my father.  I don't want to be afraid the way that my mother was.  I don't want to live in the past, in regret.

            By the same token, I don't really think that I can tell him how I feel.  It's not for the reason I always feared it would be.  I'm not afraid that he won't love me back.  I think he already does, but as friends.  Telling him would change very little for me but it would change everything for him.  He's comfortable with our relationship as it is and I guess that most of the time so am I.  Such is the nature of my love for him.  I want him happy more than anything.

            He isn't happy now.  I think he wants someone to love him but I don't think that I can be that person.  I'm his friend, his doctor, his Keeper.  That last part in particular would be a huge stumbling block.  Darien trusts me in just about every way a person can.  Love is just the one last piece of trust I can't bring myself to ask for.  I feel like I've already taken so much from him, caused him so much pain.  What if I'm not enough to make him happy?  What if some piece of my past comes to light and he can't handle it?  I'm not proud of some of the things that I've done.  Even though he was a criminal, a thief, Darien has always been an innocent.  Would my love take that from him too?

            It could, and that would be too high a price.  I won't inflict more pain on him unnecessarily.   I have no right to put him at any more risk than I already have.  Perhaps, it is a different kind of risk, emotional instead of physical, but often emotional risk is even more devastating then physical risk.  I can love him from afar.  He'll be safer that way, from himself, from me.  He's my best friend and that will be enough.  We'll never be anything more than that and it will work for us.  It will work. 

Maybe if I say that enough times, I'll believe it.  Probably not.

I love him.  Like something out of a fairy tale or a sappy romance novel or maybe more appropriately, something out of a Greek tragedy or Shakespeare.  I always liked Shakespeare.  Even as a little girl, I loved the way all of the heroes in his stories were handsome and good and all of the women were beautiful and kind.  The hero always gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after.  Why can't real life be like that?  Happily ever after?

"Penny for your thoughts."

Where did he come from?  Always a startling turn of events when the subject of heated debate walks unannounced and treading silently into the room.

"I think I deserve something more like a dollar."  Hopefully, he won't ask for elaboration on that comment.

"American dollars or English pounds?"  Sarcasm makes a sudden entrance into my gloomy thoughts.  Not my own doing.  Perhaps, a little of my own will change the subject, buy me some time.  I need to think some more.

"I don't know.  I can't seem to recall the exchange rate."