Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
Chapter Six – Those Few Small Words
You turned up at my door at eight like we'd agreed, your hair clinging to you from the rain. I couldn't help but stare at you - you always looked your most beautiful when you didn't realise it.
After I'd let you in, you took up what had become your usual spot on my sofa with a confident look, just as you had done so long ago with my heart, and smiled at me as if our conversation earlier hadn't happened, as if none of the past twenty-four hours had happened.
That made me angry.
Though I wanted to scream at you, to make you see everything you'd done, everything you were still doing to me; I had this almost painful need in my stomach to curl up next to you and help you to warm up. But I had to be strong. "Jen, I-"
You cut me off. "I'm... gonna leave him, Em."
I couldn't actually believe what I was hearing, and had to ask you to repeat it.
"I want you... I can't keep pretending just to suit other people and it's gone too far and.. I.. I'm gonna leave him.."
My entire body went numb as I listened to you say the words that I'd wanted to hear for so long. And if I'm honest, I think I genuinely believed you; stupidly, I believed you.
All my efforts to stand up to you had completely melted away at the point of hearing those few small words. I thought I was stronger than that. I could deal with seeing the most horrifying sights daily and somehow be okay, yet when it came to you, my strength was that of a mouse.
I should've realised when you didn't want to talk about it further than that, instead initiating the physical and only part of our relationship, that your words were never going to make it to fruition. Maybe I should've even realised before that, when I noticed the waver in your voice as you told me of your intentions. But I was so intoxicated by the thought of finally being able to have you to myself after so long, that I never bothered to question it. Any questioning thoughts that I did have never made it past the first hurdle.
That night will stay forever engraved on my brain. It was so different to any other time we'd spent together; there was something far more tender about it, like you'd for that short time finally let yourself feel what you'd fought so hard not to. I guess a part of me took it, or wanted desperately to, as an indication of our future; an indication that the lies, and the secrets, and the creeping around was over; an indication that we could finally be happy - together.
As I moved to sit by you on the sofa I began to let every tiny bit of love I had ever felt for you pour out into actions. My every thought, every feeling and every emotion I'd ever had about you, but kept so desperately to myself, I let out; ignoring the incredibly vulnerable position that it would ultimately leave me in.
I showed you how beautiful I thought you were as I traced gentle lines over every curve of your body. I showed you that I understood how fragile you really were with delicate kisses, yet how strong I knew you could be as I held your right hand down with one hand, and used the other to move inside you. I showed you that you were safe with me as I held you tight through your release.
I showed you how comfortable I felt with you as I let you undress me, and complied happily with your every demand. I showed you how vulnerable, yet so completely safe I felt with you as I lay trembling beneath you, not once breaking eye contact as I felt you against me.
And as I wrapped you up in my arms as you drifted off to sleep, I showed you how much I love you.
I fell more in love with you with every kiss and touch, with every movement and sound. And though surrounding events were far from ideal, that night is one memory that I never want to become tainted.
