Once again, thank you so much to all of my wonderful reviewers! I have way too much time on my hands, so, I'm just chugging away at the story.
By the way, while I was writing this, I was listening to some classical music, so I'm sorry if this is a little depressing because of that.
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"To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed—That can make life a garden."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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"It's funny; I spent the last two or three years wondering who you were, and now that I know, I almost wish I didn't."
"I believe it—I know that this must be pretty alarming for you."
Trixie sighed and pulled her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It was so cold outside, but Rex appeared to want to stay on the porch, and she wanted to stay with him. The two had been sitting there for a fairly long time now, talking sometimes, and other times, just looking off in to the distance in silence. They had not really discussed anything of great importance; their conversation had been limited to the intensely and unseasonably cold weather that they had been experiencing recently, along with an occasional mention of the race in Montana that was to take place next week.
"We really missed you, you know." She couldn't bring herself to look at him as she said that, and Rex smiled himself as he turned away from her.
"I missed you all. I still do…" his voice drifted off.
"But at least you get to see us. We never get to see you." She replied.
He turned back to face her and grinned at her. "Well, now you do." He meant it mainly as a joke, but Trixie didn't smile back at him. She only turned her head down to the floor once more, and he could barely hear her as she only sighed in reply.
Rex finally recognized that she was shivering rather violently, and felt stupid for coming out here. In fact, he felt stupid for bringing her to his house; what had he been trying to accomplish by doing that? He wanted to believe that he did it out of concern for her, for she did have him worried when she fainted right before his eyes, but he knew that that was not the whole truth. He still felt a bit of anger, and it hadn't helped that when he tried to talk rationally to her at her house, and tried to comfort her, only to have her panic once more. Not to mention the fact that back at the factory she had given him one hell of a punch across the face, which he felt sure was going to give him quite the shiner.
He brought one of his arms up and tried to place it around her trembling shoulders, but when she saw it coming she ever so slightly jerked away from his touch. Rex stared at her, his hand in mid air, and he suddenly felt like she had struck him once more. In time, he lowered his arm back to his side and looked at his feet.
"I really frightened you, didn't I?" he whispered. He actually hadn't intended for her to hear him say that; it was more a vocalization of what was on his mind. But she looked over at him, feeling guilty for pulling away, but she did not rush to deny his question. She did not want to admit it, but she had been incredibly frightened of him, for she had never seen anyone as angry as she had seen him earlier. And Rex, even though he had never as much as roughly gripped her wrist before, could very easily have done anything he wanted to her. She could out run him, but she was powerless next to his large frame.
A few moments went by, and she heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."
Trixie looked over at him and saw a single tear running down the side of his face. He hadn't meant to hurt her, she knew that. He had just been so angered by the situation, and she now was beginning to think that, in addition to that, he had been forced to remember that Pops, Speed Racer, and Spritle Racer were not just people that he kept randomly running in to here and there or that he conversed about races with; they were his family. They were the family that he had left behind. And he had acted without thinking earlier, surrendering to the impulses controlled by his emotions as opposed to the ones controlled by his mind. It was rather reminiscent of the day when he had run away from home; his impulses drove him away from the only world he had ever known, and he realized later on that was he had done was irreversible. She could only imagine how lonely it made him feel.
"I know you are." She gently said back to him. She reached out a hand to touch his face, and pulled his chin over so that she could look him right in the eye. His face was indescribable, and yet she could only imagine what he was going through right now. It was enough to bring a lump in to her own throat.
Rex was trying very hard not to break down. He felt ridiculous, as he was nearly nine years older than she was, and yet was clearly losing the battle over controlling his emotions. He had never liked to express his feelings in front of anyone; he had placed great value on his dignity ever since he was a little boy. But an image of his mother came in to his mind as he looked down at Trixie, who kept both of her hands on his face. Rex had always felt like Pops deserved at least a small portion of the pain that Rex had delivered on to him, but he had always felt tremendous guilt at the thought of his mother. She had not had any part in the argument; she had just been standing on the sidelines, watching in silence as her family broke apart in front of her eyes.
He could never forget the last time he had seen her. It had been an extremely cold night, just like the one occurring right then and there. He had meant to pack silently and leave without giving anyone a hint as to what he might be doing. But he could not stop himself from going back and kissing both little Speed, who had only been ten years old, and his mother, on their foreheads as they slept.
Trixie brushed a piece of his dark brown hair off of his face. "God, how can anyone possibly do this to themselves?" she whispered, referring to him as if he were not there.
Rex couldn't take it anymore. If he didn't move, then he would lose his control. So now it was his turn to pull out of her embrace as he stood up. His tall frame loomed over her for a moment, and then he walked over to the opposite end of the porch. In the dim illumination provided by the indoor lights he could see snowflakes beginning to drift to the ground.
"Do what?" he asked, his voice sounding so artificially controlled that it seemed gruff. Trixie only looked at him with pity; he wasn't fooling her at all.
"You hate yourself." She said. Rex didn't say anything, nor did he move. He just continued to stare at the snowflakes falling.
He heard her stand up as well, and she slowly walked over to him. Goosebumps formed all over his body when he felt her hand come up and touch him on his broad back.
"You hate yourself." She repeated. "Look at your world, Rex. Your house is bare, you live alone, no one even knows who you are. You hide yourself, both physically and emotionally, and it makes you miserable."
Rex still couldn't say anything, but every word she said echoed in his mind.
She continued, saying, "You should ask yourself if pride is worth all of this."
Rex turned around to face her, as that remark had triggered the same defense mechanism that he used whenever the occasional person who did know his identity (and there were a few out there that he worked with) said the same thing.
"You don't understand." He practically yelled at her. Trixie remained completely calm, still looking at him with sympathy.
"Explain it to me." She said quietly.
He tried to walk past her, but she reached her arm up and blocked his way. Rex felt very uncomfortable as he looked down and saw her hand resting on his chest. She was trapping him in a situation that he detested being in.
She reiterated. "Explain it to me."
Rex turned again, and faced the night. He took a deep breath, sighing it out, and brought his hands out to rest on the rails of the edge of the porch. More than anything, he had wanted to tell someone the truth for such a long time now. But now that he had the opportunity, he faltered. He did not know where to begin, nor what words to use.
"I—I can't."
"Yes you can."
"You'll despise everything I say."
"I could never despise you," Trixie surprised herself by saying that, as she had thought for a very long time that she did despise Rex for abandoning his family. "I'm alive right now because of the things you've done for me, and you deserve to have someone listen."
It felt incredibly relieving to hear that, because for so long, Rex felt as if everything and anything he could do would never possibly make up for what he had done before.
Rex once more took a deep breath. He wasn't quite sure if he would make it through the entire story, but something about the tone in her voice and the look in her face told him that he should at least try. And so, he began.
"I left home angry. Angrier than I had ever felt before. I was angry at Pops, I was angry at myself, I was angry at everything. And I hated myself, just like you said. I felt like, like my world was just so tight, and so restricting."
He paused, then continued. "I went home that night, and pulled the suitcase out of the closet. I realized that the last time I had used it was when I went to Boy Scout camp when I was nine years old. For almost my entire life, I was at home, with Mom and Pops, being the perfect little child, doing everything in my power to please them."
"But something changed me that day. Something about the look in Pops' eyes; I looked in to them and saw nothing but shame. He was ashamed of me; ashamed of my lack of abilities, ashamed of my poor performance, just…ashamed. And that look that he had given me, I could not get it out of my head as I threw everything that I possessed in to the suitcase, crying with my own anger and my own shame. I resolved that very night to disappear, and never again to reappear until he was able to look at me with pride, as opposed to just with disappointment."
"And I tried to leave the house without letting anyone know. My plan had been to depart silently, letting them wake up the next morning after one last night of good sleep before they discovered that I was missing. I threw everything in to the trunk of one of the cars I had been working on, then stepped in and turned to gas on…only to step out two minutes later. I couldn't leave without doing one last thing."
Rex paused once more. He was not crying any more, but instead was just staring off in to the nothingness with a pained but accepting look on his face. All of this he had accepted long ago, but hearing it all out loud was making him relive it to a degree that he had never done before.
Trixie just stared at him, waiting for him to continue, but not saying anything due to her fear that she would break this trance that appeared to come over him. He was finally opening up to someone, and although he could not see it right now, she could already see the relief that he was experiencing. And this story was not even over yet.
"I went back inside," he continued, "and climbed the stairs. I remember pausing outside my parents bedroom, unsure of whether or not I should go in for fear that seeing them might whittle away at my resolve to make it on my own. But I couldn't stop myself, and I went over to their bedside, and kissed my mother on her forehead. She didn't wake up, but she smiled in her sleep, and lifted her hand up. I took it briefly, and then gently lay it back down, and then left the room. And then, I went to Speed's room."
"Speed was never a very deep sleeper, and I don't think he is now. So when I leaned over to kiss him, he woke up. I had expected him to make a racket, as he seemingly always did, but instead, he just looked at me with confusion. I had more self-doubt and more reticence to leave as I looked at him than I had when I looked at my mother. He was so little, and he really idolized me, and he and I spent so much time together."
"It was hard on him," Trixie replied quietly. "I remember what he was like the next day."
"I don't think he'll ever be the way he was before. He had been so rambunctious, and really mischievous, and oh God, how that guy loved to play practical jokes!" Rex smiled and chuckled a bit at the memory. "Your typical little kid, I guess."
Trixie didn't say anything, but she could remember how Speed had been exactly as Rex was describing him…and he definitely had not been that way since the day Rex had left. Overnight, he transformed. He was still incredibly kind, with the heart of an innocent, but his extroverted nature was destroyed, and he became much more reserved than he had been before. In fact, in elementary school, he had been very popular, but in middle school, he was ridiculed for his quiet nature. Trixie and Sparky had been his only friends. In high school, things were a little better, but Speed was still nothing like he was as a child. And he never would be.
"He never said a word. He just looked at me, with confusion in his eyes, and I looked back at him with despair in my own. I don't think I said anything either; I just looked at him. Eventually, I think he figured it out, and crawled in to my arms, hugging me as if he would never see me again. Which didn't surprise me, as even I wondered if we would ever have the chance to hold each other like that again. And we sat there, hugging, for so long, but eventually I pushed him away."
"And do you know what surprised me so much? He didn't argue with me. He didn't plead, he didn't yell, he didn't even cry. He just looked at me with his huge eyes and took in every last image that he could, knowing that he would not see me again for a very long time. He must have thought that I would never come home, and that I would leave him alone for the rest of his life. But the acceptance, the quiet resignation; I hated myself for making him appear the way that he did. And I knew that he was so much stronger at ten years old than I would ever be in my entire life."
"And so I left. Time passed, I became everything that I thought I wanted to be. A professional racer, among other things," he didn't elaborate on his position as a secret agent, "and an established man. At eighteen, I thought that someday I would go home and gloat to Pops, showing him everything that I had accomplished all on my own. I thought then that I would do everything to make him proud…but I still haven't gone back."
Rex turned back around to look at Trixie. She had not moved throughout this entire tale; she simply looked and listened to him as he finally had the opportunity to pour his heart out to someone.
"You asked me before why I do this to myself. I do it because I still don't feel like enough. I can't go back until I feel like I am enough."
"But what if you never feel like enough?" Trixie asked him quietly. "You can't live your life trying to uphold someone else's expectations of you, and you can't place such incredible expectations on yourself."
"I know that. And I am not living my life in order to please my father; I have moved on from that. But I am still not ready to go back to my family, to show them exactly what I have become."
"What will make you ready? What will that take?"
Rex thought for a moment. This was a question that he asked himself every day, for each day he asked himself, 'Will this be the day I go back?'. But it was a question that he had never answered, and he still did not feel like he could answer it then for her.
"I don't know." Was all he could say in reply.
Trixie looked down, breaking the eye contact she had established with him. She raised her hands and folded her arms across her chest, then turned slowly and walked over to the place where she had been seated before. She leaned over the railing, and now it was her turn to stare at nothing as Rex looked at her.
"Please tell me what you are thinking right now, Trixie." She didn't appear to be angry with him, but he could only imagine how loathsome he must look to her.
He did not realize it, but Trixie felt completely the opposite towards him. She loved the face that the strong, superhuman racer she had known for all those years was finally revealed to be a man, and she felt an incredible kinship with Rex. He had more heart to him that she had ever given him credit for.
"I can only imagine what you think of me right now." He whispered.
She smiled, but still didn't look over at him. "You must think I hate you for doing all of these things."
"Don't you?"
She looked over at him, seeing that he had once more turned away from her. The only thing she could think to say was what she had said earlier.
"I could never hate you."
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By the way, while I was writing this, I was listening to some classical music, so I'm sorry if this is a little depressing because of that.
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"To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed—That can make life a garden."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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"It's funny; I spent the last two or three years wondering who you were, and now that I know, I almost wish I didn't."
"I believe it—I know that this must be pretty alarming for you."
Trixie sighed and pulled her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It was so cold outside, but Rex appeared to want to stay on the porch, and she wanted to stay with him. The two had been sitting there for a fairly long time now, talking sometimes, and other times, just looking off in to the distance in silence. They had not really discussed anything of great importance; their conversation had been limited to the intensely and unseasonably cold weather that they had been experiencing recently, along with an occasional mention of the race in Montana that was to take place next week.
"We really missed you, you know." She couldn't bring herself to look at him as she said that, and Rex smiled himself as he turned away from her.
"I missed you all. I still do…" his voice drifted off.
"But at least you get to see us. We never get to see you." She replied.
He turned back to face her and grinned at her. "Well, now you do." He meant it mainly as a joke, but Trixie didn't smile back at him. She only turned her head down to the floor once more, and he could barely hear her as she only sighed in reply.
Rex finally recognized that she was shivering rather violently, and felt stupid for coming out here. In fact, he felt stupid for bringing her to his house; what had he been trying to accomplish by doing that? He wanted to believe that he did it out of concern for her, for she did have him worried when she fainted right before his eyes, but he knew that that was not the whole truth. He still felt a bit of anger, and it hadn't helped that when he tried to talk rationally to her at her house, and tried to comfort her, only to have her panic once more. Not to mention the fact that back at the factory she had given him one hell of a punch across the face, which he felt sure was going to give him quite the shiner.
He brought one of his arms up and tried to place it around her trembling shoulders, but when she saw it coming she ever so slightly jerked away from his touch. Rex stared at her, his hand in mid air, and he suddenly felt like she had struck him once more. In time, he lowered his arm back to his side and looked at his feet.
"I really frightened you, didn't I?" he whispered. He actually hadn't intended for her to hear him say that; it was more a vocalization of what was on his mind. But she looked over at him, feeling guilty for pulling away, but she did not rush to deny his question. She did not want to admit it, but she had been incredibly frightened of him, for she had never seen anyone as angry as she had seen him earlier. And Rex, even though he had never as much as roughly gripped her wrist before, could very easily have done anything he wanted to her. She could out run him, but she was powerless next to his large frame.
A few moments went by, and she heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."
Trixie looked over at him and saw a single tear running down the side of his face. He hadn't meant to hurt her, she knew that. He had just been so angered by the situation, and she now was beginning to think that, in addition to that, he had been forced to remember that Pops, Speed Racer, and Spritle Racer were not just people that he kept randomly running in to here and there or that he conversed about races with; they were his family. They were the family that he had left behind. And he had acted without thinking earlier, surrendering to the impulses controlled by his emotions as opposed to the ones controlled by his mind. It was rather reminiscent of the day when he had run away from home; his impulses drove him away from the only world he had ever known, and he realized later on that was he had done was irreversible. She could only imagine how lonely it made him feel.
"I know you are." She gently said back to him. She reached out a hand to touch his face, and pulled his chin over so that she could look him right in the eye. His face was indescribable, and yet she could only imagine what he was going through right now. It was enough to bring a lump in to her own throat.
Rex was trying very hard not to break down. He felt ridiculous, as he was nearly nine years older than she was, and yet was clearly losing the battle over controlling his emotions. He had never liked to express his feelings in front of anyone; he had placed great value on his dignity ever since he was a little boy. But an image of his mother came in to his mind as he looked down at Trixie, who kept both of her hands on his face. Rex had always felt like Pops deserved at least a small portion of the pain that Rex had delivered on to him, but he had always felt tremendous guilt at the thought of his mother. She had not had any part in the argument; she had just been standing on the sidelines, watching in silence as her family broke apart in front of her eyes.
He could never forget the last time he had seen her. It had been an extremely cold night, just like the one occurring right then and there. He had meant to pack silently and leave without giving anyone a hint as to what he might be doing. But he could not stop himself from going back and kissing both little Speed, who had only been ten years old, and his mother, on their foreheads as they slept.
Trixie brushed a piece of his dark brown hair off of his face. "God, how can anyone possibly do this to themselves?" she whispered, referring to him as if he were not there.
Rex couldn't take it anymore. If he didn't move, then he would lose his control. So now it was his turn to pull out of her embrace as he stood up. His tall frame loomed over her for a moment, and then he walked over to the opposite end of the porch. In the dim illumination provided by the indoor lights he could see snowflakes beginning to drift to the ground.
"Do what?" he asked, his voice sounding so artificially controlled that it seemed gruff. Trixie only looked at him with pity; he wasn't fooling her at all.
"You hate yourself." She said. Rex didn't say anything, nor did he move. He just continued to stare at the snowflakes falling.
He heard her stand up as well, and she slowly walked over to him. Goosebumps formed all over his body when he felt her hand come up and touch him on his broad back.
"You hate yourself." She repeated. "Look at your world, Rex. Your house is bare, you live alone, no one even knows who you are. You hide yourself, both physically and emotionally, and it makes you miserable."
Rex still couldn't say anything, but every word she said echoed in his mind.
She continued, saying, "You should ask yourself if pride is worth all of this."
Rex turned around to face her, as that remark had triggered the same defense mechanism that he used whenever the occasional person who did know his identity (and there were a few out there that he worked with) said the same thing.
"You don't understand." He practically yelled at her. Trixie remained completely calm, still looking at him with sympathy.
"Explain it to me." She said quietly.
He tried to walk past her, but she reached her arm up and blocked his way. Rex felt very uncomfortable as he looked down and saw her hand resting on his chest. She was trapping him in a situation that he detested being in.
She reiterated. "Explain it to me."
Rex turned again, and faced the night. He took a deep breath, sighing it out, and brought his hands out to rest on the rails of the edge of the porch. More than anything, he had wanted to tell someone the truth for such a long time now. But now that he had the opportunity, he faltered. He did not know where to begin, nor what words to use.
"I—I can't."
"Yes you can."
"You'll despise everything I say."
"I could never despise you," Trixie surprised herself by saying that, as she had thought for a very long time that she did despise Rex for abandoning his family. "I'm alive right now because of the things you've done for me, and you deserve to have someone listen."
It felt incredibly relieving to hear that, because for so long, Rex felt as if everything and anything he could do would never possibly make up for what he had done before.
Rex once more took a deep breath. He wasn't quite sure if he would make it through the entire story, but something about the tone in her voice and the look in her face told him that he should at least try. And so, he began.
"I left home angry. Angrier than I had ever felt before. I was angry at Pops, I was angry at myself, I was angry at everything. And I hated myself, just like you said. I felt like, like my world was just so tight, and so restricting."
He paused, then continued. "I went home that night, and pulled the suitcase out of the closet. I realized that the last time I had used it was when I went to Boy Scout camp when I was nine years old. For almost my entire life, I was at home, with Mom and Pops, being the perfect little child, doing everything in my power to please them."
"But something changed me that day. Something about the look in Pops' eyes; I looked in to them and saw nothing but shame. He was ashamed of me; ashamed of my lack of abilities, ashamed of my poor performance, just…ashamed. And that look that he had given me, I could not get it out of my head as I threw everything that I possessed in to the suitcase, crying with my own anger and my own shame. I resolved that very night to disappear, and never again to reappear until he was able to look at me with pride, as opposed to just with disappointment."
"And I tried to leave the house without letting anyone know. My plan had been to depart silently, letting them wake up the next morning after one last night of good sleep before they discovered that I was missing. I threw everything in to the trunk of one of the cars I had been working on, then stepped in and turned to gas on…only to step out two minutes later. I couldn't leave without doing one last thing."
Rex paused once more. He was not crying any more, but instead was just staring off in to the nothingness with a pained but accepting look on his face. All of this he had accepted long ago, but hearing it all out loud was making him relive it to a degree that he had never done before.
Trixie just stared at him, waiting for him to continue, but not saying anything due to her fear that she would break this trance that appeared to come over him. He was finally opening up to someone, and although he could not see it right now, she could already see the relief that he was experiencing. And this story was not even over yet.
"I went back inside," he continued, "and climbed the stairs. I remember pausing outside my parents bedroom, unsure of whether or not I should go in for fear that seeing them might whittle away at my resolve to make it on my own. But I couldn't stop myself, and I went over to their bedside, and kissed my mother on her forehead. She didn't wake up, but she smiled in her sleep, and lifted her hand up. I took it briefly, and then gently lay it back down, and then left the room. And then, I went to Speed's room."
"Speed was never a very deep sleeper, and I don't think he is now. So when I leaned over to kiss him, he woke up. I had expected him to make a racket, as he seemingly always did, but instead, he just looked at me with confusion. I had more self-doubt and more reticence to leave as I looked at him than I had when I looked at my mother. He was so little, and he really idolized me, and he and I spent so much time together."
"It was hard on him," Trixie replied quietly. "I remember what he was like the next day."
"I don't think he'll ever be the way he was before. He had been so rambunctious, and really mischievous, and oh God, how that guy loved to play practical jokes!" Rex smiled and chuckled a bit at the memory. "Your typical little kid, I guess."
Trixie didn't say anything, but she could remember how Speed had been exactly as Rex was describing him…and he definitely had not been that way since the day Rex had left. Overnight, he transformed. He was still incredibly kind, with the heart of an innocent, but his extroverted nature was destroyed, and he became much more reserved than he had been before. In fact, in elementary school, he had been very popular, but in middle school, he was ridiculed for his quiet nature. Trixie and Sparky had been his only friends. In high school, things were a little better, but Speed was still nothing like he was as a child. And he never would be.
"He never said a word. He just looked at me, with confusion in his eyes, and I looked back at him with despair in my own. I don't think I said anything either; I just looked at him. Eventually, I think he figured it out, and crawled in to my arms, hugging me as if he would never see me again. Which didn't surprise me, as even I wondered if we would ever have the chance to hold each other like that again. And we sat there, hugging, for so long, but eventually I pushed him away."
"And do you know what surprised me so much? He didn't argue with me. He didn't plead, he didn't yell, he didn't even cry. He just looked at me with his huge eyes and took in every last image that he could, knowing that he would not see me again for a very long time. He must have thought that I would never come home, and that I would leave him alone for the rest of his life. But the acceptance, the quiet resignation; I hated myself for making him appear the way that he did. And I knew that he was so much stronger at ten years old than I would ever be in my entire life."
"And so I left. Time passed, I became everything that I thought I wanted to be. A professional racer, among other things," he didn't elaborate on his position as a secret agent, "and an established man. At eighteen, I thought that someday I would go home and gloat to Pops, showing him everything that I had accomplished all on my own. I thought then that I would do everything to make him proud…but I still haven't gone back."
Rex turned back around to look at Trixie. She had not moved throughout this entire tale; she simply looked and listened to him as he finally had the opportunity to pour his heart out to someone.
"You asked me before why I do this to myself. I do it because I still don't feel like enough. I can't go back until I feel like I am enough."
"But what if you never feel like enough?" Trixie asked him quietly. "You can't live your life trying to uphold someone else's expectations of you, and you can't place such incredible expectations on yourself."
"I know that. And I am not living my life in order to please my father; I have moved on from that. But I am still not ready to go back to my family, to show them exactly what I have become."
"What will make you ready? What will that take?"
Rex thought for a moment. This was a question that he asked himself every day, for each day he asked himself, 'Will this be the day I go back?'. But it was a question that he had never answered, and he still did not feel like he could answer it then for her.
"I don't know." Was all he could say in reply.
Trixie looked down, breaking the eye contact she had established with him. She raised her hands and folded her arms across her chest, then turned slowly and walked over to the place where she had been seated before. She leaned over the railing, and now it was her turn to stare at nothing as Rex looked at her.
"Please tell me what you are thinking right now, Trixie." She didn't appear to be angry with him, but he could only imagine how loathsome he must look to her.
He did not realize it, but Trixie felt completely the opposite towards him. She loved the face that the strong, superhuman racer she had known for all those years was finally revealed to be a man, and she felt an incredible kinship with Rex. He had more heart to him that she had ever given him credit for.
"I can only imagine what you think of me right now." He whispered.
She smiled, but still didn't look over at him. "You must think I hate you for doing all of these things."
"Don't you?"
She looked over at him, seeing that he had once more turned away from her. The only thing she could think to say was what she had said earlier.
"I could never hate you."
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