An: First of all I would like to thank you for all your kind words and support to the difficult time I'm going through in RL. They really mean a lot!
I've noticed it helps to escape into the Shandy world whenever the anxiety sets in. It helps to read and write. Which means hopefully good news for you.
Also a lot of thanks to all of you who are following this story or me as a writer and been so kind to leave me such wonderful reviews!
A big thank you to glisteningsun for all the hard work as a beta all mistakes left are mine.
Chapter seventeen
Sharon was holding onto the back of her couch, looking at Andy. He was standing in front of the window staring out into the dark sky. Every muscle in his body was tense. His eyes had looked so dark, when he told her he didn't want to hurt her. The words kept filling her brain. How could he hurt her by loving her? Because that was what he meant, that she would get hurt if he allowed himself to love her. She wanted to tell him how ridiculous it sounded. She wanted to tell him not to worry, because he was making himself crazy. There was no use for him to do so.
But Andy had made her promise that she would hear him out, so she waited for him to talk. Surprisingly he started with a question. "When?"
"When?" Her voice sounded confused.
"When were you starting to feel more than friendship?"
Sharon frowned trying to recall the moment. She remembered that moment when her heart had made a small jump and she had felt as if she was looking into his eyes for the very first time. It was then that she realized her love for him had crept up on her.
"The evening we arrested Mario, when we were still here I guess. I realized it crept up on me. Everything between us had been so easy, so natural. I felt at home with you. It has been that way for quite some time now, but the evening prior to our assignment everything changed. I can't describe it. The feelings were confusing."
"Are they still confusing?"
Did he believe she wasn't sure? Was he afraid to give her his heart, because she might change her mind? Gosh, she would think her kiss must have been convincing enough. "No. I know I love you. I love you more than I'd love just another friend."
Andy nodded without turning around to face her. He didn't seem relieved at all.
"I'm sure, Andy."
He sighed audibly.
"Are you unsure Andy, is that what's troubling you?"
Unsure? If anything, he was sure. No, the time of confusion had long passed. Unlike her he hadn't been experiencing these feelings for a few days only.
"I'm sure about how much I love you, Sharon. God knows I had more than enough time to think about it."
A small smirk escaped onto his lips, because she had no idea just how long he'd been already in love with her. He dreaded to tell her. How would she react? His love for her had been the reason for his divorce. While he had listened to her telling him about her problems with Raydor, he had already been in love with her.
Sharon's eyebrows wrinkled. How long had these feelings lingered inside of him? "So how long have you had feelings for me?"
Her voice was higher pitched than usual. She was only now realizing that he might have fallen in love before she had. He could tell by the tone of her voice that she would be shocked if she knew.
"It wasn't like I simply knew at one point. It slowly dawned on me. I tried to resist it for so long."
"Why?"
"You were still engaged to Raydor."
Sharon's grip on the couch tightened. Slowly she walked around, so she could sink down into the soft comfortable cushions. She would never have thought that he had already loved her for so long.
She knew he cared about her, they were friends, partners, but she had never thought that he loved her like that. He surely hadn't let her notice anything.
She thought about how many times he must have struggled with this. And what about those last weeks? They had lived together for over a month. Had she been that blind? She wondered what it must have been like for him to have her sleeping in his bed, walking around his apartment in only his shirt. How scared he must have been for her.
The air was practically forced out of her lungs, when she realized he'd already been in love with her at the time Landry had tried to make her disappear. She paled at the memory of him finding her. He must have been so scared. No wonder he hadn't stopped looking for her. And when she was shot? Had he already been in love with her then? He hadn't left her side. Jack had. In retrospect the feelings she had seen in his eyes back then, now made a lot more sense.
"I knew I couldn't act upon my feelings. It was too complicated. It wasn't fair to you."
Sharon sighed, rubbing the space between her eyes. It was complicated alright. How hard it must have been to see her with Jack. To worry about her all the time. To not be able to hold her, when he had wanted, to kiss her. For her sake he had denied his own feelings.
"The last thing I wanted was to hurt you. Telling you earlier would have hurt you. I'm not even sure if telling you now won't, but keeping the truth from you surely would."
"Why would it hurt me? Because I was with Jack?"
"You would have felt awkward. You were still in love with him. That's why I tried my best to stay neutral whenever Raydor came up. I really did. You have to believe me when I say, that everything I said to you was without any alterior motives."
Andy was right. She recalled the many times she had spoken with him about Jack, their arguments, her frustrations. He had always been her friend. It would have been so easy to make Jack look bad and influence her already confused feelings. But he hadn't. He had been so selfless. Andy was everything Jack had never been able to be. How could he believe he would hurt her? Everything he did was out of love for her.
"You have to believe that. Raydor didn't deserve you, but you were in love with him. I didn't want to see you hurt."
Now he was turned towards her, the look in his eyes desperate, frantic to make her believe him. In a way he looked so vulnerable, his emotions playing out in his eyes opened the gates to the depth of his soul. It hurt her to see him like this, as his emotions fell over her like crashing waves on rocks. He didn't want to see her hurt.
It seemed like this was the recurring theme. How could she not believe him?One look in his eyes, would chase away any inkling of doubt, if it would have been nagging on her mind.
"Andy, I do know that. I do."
A burden seemed to be lifted off his shoulders. Was that the thing what had been worrying him so much? Had he been afraid she would believe he had deliberately forced a wedge between Jack and her? That was ridiculous.
This normally so level headed man seemed to have his brain patterns all scrambled up whenever she was concerned. The relieve on his face was once again being chased away by whatever it was he was making himself crazy with. The soft smile disappeared. The open look in his eyes was replaced by seriousness.
For a moment he had been relieved. She had been so quick to answer. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that he was telling her the truth. She seemed almost appalled that he would believe she'd think that of him. In retrospect he had never thought she wouldn't believe him, because he knew she could tell whether he was telling her the truth or not. And he was. He had been very careful. He had wanted it to be her decision and hers alone. This was just one of the fears that had added up over time. The main issue he had was bigger, weighing so much more.
What was with the gloom and doom look on him? What could be so devastating, so bad for her to learn? What could make her stop loving him? Certainly not something like this. Even if he had made her see that Jack wasn't worthy of her love, she couldn't blame him, because she had been unhappy in her relationship with Jack for a long time. She had just been unwilling to admit that to herself. Andy would have wanted what was best for her out of love for her and not out of selfish reasons, or he would have made advances on her a lot sooner. And even if he had, she couldn't have been angry with him for something like that. It simply made no sense. Andy made her almost burst with this caution of his, his fear to hurt her. She was no porcelain doll, she would not break.
"This was it? Was this what's been bothering you? You were afraid I wouldn't believe you? Andy you had nothing to do with Jack and me breaking up. You've been nothing but a good friend during that time. It's in the past. I've closed that chapter of my life. I'm ready to move on."
Sharon rose from the couch, walking towards him, her eyes never leaving his. Her hand touched his cheek while a soft and loving smile curled on her lips. "I'm ready to move on, with you. I love you, not Jack."
The warmth of her hand burned his skin, the burning sensation of desire. He had never doubted that her relationship with Raydor was over. If he was sure of one thing, it was that. Raydor would never again be a part of her life. Even if he hadn't been sure about that, her kissing him with so much love and depth, should have been able to tell him the truth.
"Yeah, you made that clear enough. If I hadn't known yet, your kiss surely would have been able to convince me."
Her cheeks blushed, her eyes darting away from his cheeky smile. His fingers lightly tipped her chin up. Andy needed her to look at him.
"You love me and I love you. That's not the problem here."
"Then what is?."
"I don't want you getting hurt."
"You can't protect me from all the dangers of this big bad world, honey."
Her smile was so endearing. This was the first time she had called him 'honey'. Her voice even more agonizing than normally, like one of those melodic hums lay underneath. It threatened to hypnotize him, put him under her spell so he would forget about his reservations, his fears.
"No, maybe not, but I can protect you from me."
"From you?" Sharon didn't understand.
"From what I can do to you. What your love for me could do to you."
"Andy."
"No, you promised to hear me out." Andy gave her a stern look. No matter how ridiculous it sounded, she would have to indulge him in this. "You promised."
His gaze was burning a hole in her soul, his eyes so willing. For some reason he believed he would hurt her or their love for each other would. The only way to talk him out of those ridiculous thoughts were to hear him out.
"Alright."
Andy nodded a few times, as if he was calming himself down, soothing himself with the knowledge that she had agreed to hear him out.
He turned away from her again. He definitely did not want to see the look in her eyes, when he told her about the real reason for his divorce. He swallowed, not knowing exactly how to start.
"I already had fallen in love with you, without even realizing it. I liked being with you. I believed it was because we worked so well together. We were partners. You're supposed to be close. Fact was though I felt attracted the moment I looked at you. So damn gorgeous."
Sharon's eyebrows wrinkled in surprise. The first time she had met him he couldn't have been more annoying. He had been irritated using each opportunity to rub her the wrong way. He had sure managed to fool her!
"There was something in your eyes. You definitely wouldn't let me scare you off. You wouldn't let me bully you. Played hard ball. Man, you were one tough gal. You were self confident enough to talk back to me. You weren't just a pretty face. You were smart, you had wit, you were definitely more competent than most of the guys I'd ever worked with. I liked that. I liked that a lot."
He had been hard on her for a reason. He had wanted to test her, see whether she could take the pressure. His respect for her had grown every day. Thinking back, after a while he hadn't been quite so annoying anymore.
"That it was more than just simple appreciation, or us being partners took me a while to figure out. After our first case together, after the danger you had been in…the thought that you could possibly transfer… I didn't want to lose you. Believe me I almost drove myself crazy overthinking these feelings I had for you. Telling myself that it was just because we were close, because you managed to read me like an open book. Telling myself that I shouldn't have these feelings for you. You never gave me any reason to. You were engaged to Raydor. You were going to marry him. I would only complicate things."
Sharon bit her lip. That had been so long ago. Two years? Their first case seemed ages ago now. She surely felt like it was a lifetime away. She had been so young then with her naïve look on the world, on men. She wasn't anything like that girl anymore.
"So you kept quiet."
"It wasn't fair to you."
Sharon took the few steps backwards it took for her to sit back on the couch, closing her eyes. She needed the support underneath her. He had been burdened with these feelings for so long, forced to keep them all to himself, because he hadn't wanted to make a mess out of her life.
"You didn't share my feelings. It was my problem and my problem alone. I never meant to burden anyone else with them - or destroy lives."
There was so much agony in his voice that it cut right through her heart. How could she have missed this pain inside of him?
"That's what I do Sharon, I destroy lives. I don't want to destroy yours."
She was choking up. What was he talking about? How could he say something like that?
"You don't… You don't…"
He closed his eyes when he heard the tears in her voice. She was in pain for him. She cared so much about him. Back when he was still drinking he had seen that pain in her eyes, whenever he told her about how much he missed the children. Just caring for him was already causing her so much pain.
"I do, Sharon. I love you too much for that to happen to you. I love you enough to let you go. It might cause you pain now, but in the long run it will be better for you."
"Better?" Her voice now high pitched, aghast, shaky with emotion.
"How is that better?"
Andy who was now back at the window tightened his hands around the windowsill, like he could crush the cold hard stone with his fingers. A deep frown appeared between his eyes, when he clenched them shut wishing he could shut out her emotions, her anger that was seeping through now. He could have known. Sharon wouldn't just simply accept whatever he said. She wouldn't just walk away, stay quiet, ignore him for as long as it took to make this problem go away, like Sandra always had. She would force him to talk for as long as it took for her to understand.
Her heart was beating in her throat, loud and frantic. Whatever it was that was haunting him, she wouldn't just let him decide that all by himself. She didn't care what he might believe he'd do to her. It was ridiculous. She wasn't blind - by now she knew Andy Flynn with all his good sides and all his faults.
This was not happening. She wouldn't let him shut her out just like that. She would yell at him if she had to, argue all the way, until she understood. They would communicate and they would work out whatever it was he had developed in that brain of his, whatever was haunting him. Whether he wanted to or not. This love they felt for one another was too intense to ignore, to be set aside just like this. Not for anything in the world. Whatever it was, they would work it out. This love was worth fighting for.
"How's that better?"
Her voice was steadier. In the reflection of the window, Andy saw her walking towards him. He could not look in her eyes.
"Andy, look at me. How's that better?"
He stood frozen, unable to move. He was registering her anger and her pain, but was unable to do anything about it because he simply couldn't face her. He couldn't look in her eyes, or he would give in. He would kiss her, do everything to make the pain go away. That wasn't what was best for her though. She had to hear what he had to say. She had to learn how poisonous he could be for her. She had to get to know the ugly sides of him, so she would know what she got herself into. She had to know before she would lose herself in him and there would be no way back without getting any deep scars on her soul. He owed her that much.
Sorry for that ending but I couldn't resist it ending here. I promise you won't be disappointed in the final chapter.