The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

I deserve it, I know I do, probably worse, it’s not even that painful but as I stare at her again, I can’t hide how much it actually wounded my heart. Sophie has lashed out at me before, sure, in crazy ways, frenzy fueled attacks when lost in her pain or triggered with her PTSD, but she’s never slapped me in the face for anything. This was a direct ‘how fucking dare you’ kind of assault that speaks volumes to the depths of the carnage I’ve caused on her soul.

“You lost me. You don’t get to do that anymore.” She wails at me, pulling my hands and arms from her body and shoves me back with as much force as she can muster. Prickly, seething, hating me with utter crushing heartbreak. She’s breathing as heavily as I am although her pain and hysteria seem to be calming mine and I know I need to stay patient and cool if I’m going to bring her down from fierce.

I know how to deal with her at her worst, I can handle it. I spent long enough finding the ways and I would expect nothing less from her now. This is Sophs in defensive mode. She’s terrified of me hurting her further and I need to keep that in the forefront of my brain and act accordingly. I owe her. I have so much to undo.

“I deserve that and more, Sophie. My life is nothing without you. You have no idea how many times a day I think about you, how much it eats me up every second that I made you leave me. How much I just want you back in my life, even if I only get to be friends.” My face smarts but it’s nothing compared to the pain of watching her break. Her tears cut me to the core, and I sniff back my own, aware she’s ground me down to public crying, because I truly need a way back into her heart. My life is empty. I’m in despair. Hanging by a thread and holding on by the skin of my teeth in this.

“You didn’t make me leave you. You chose someone else and then told me to go. There is an enormous difference. You can’t undo that.” She throws it my way, snarling, her voice rasping with the effort. Nothing she says is wrong and I inwardly shudder that the truths can cause me harrowing pain. I can’t believe I was ever that stupid, especially looking at her now, seeing everything in front of me that I pushed away and all that comes with her. This girl holds the key to my undoing or my sanity.

I try to step to her, but she moves back, glaring fiercely, all claws on show as feral kitty cat and all that ‘phwaaar’ comes out to play. I have no doubt that Sophie will attempt to fuck me up if I get too close again. She’s teetering on her own cliffs and violence is close enough she can’t keep it at bay if I make her snap. The slap was a warning.

My hands are itching to get hold of her, to calm that wild beast she can be and help her breathe through her pain but I also value keeping my family jewels. I know when to stay back.

“I didn’t choose her … I chose to do the right thing and trying to fix all of it, my heart was always with you. It still is. I just didn’t know it until you were gone that I would never be able to fix anything. I never thought about what would happen if you never let me near again, Sophie. It’s killing me. I can’t function anymore, and I can’t keep living every day hoping that I find a way to see you again.” I scrub my fingers through my hair, wiping my face to pull myself together and be the rock I know she needs, even if I’m the source of her pain. Its not that easy when your heart is in distress and every fiber of your being is in panic mode that you only get one shot at this or she walks off and devastates your life all over again. She has to believe my words, that Natasha is nothing to me, that it was never about loving her more than Sophs. I’m practically vibrating with the sheer need to wrap myself around her and kiss it all away.

“What did you think would happen? That I would stick around, and go back to how it was? That I would play happy families with you and her?” She laughs, a little crazily, kinda scary for her, the kind of laugh that hints someone is at their emotional breaking point and this is not doing what you want it to. She’s too fragile, maybe even drunk too and I’m only pushing her inwards into her own head and making her emotionally unstable and irrational. Panic rises in my stomach and the bile comes up with it, making me instantly nauseous at the thought I’m fucking this up and still losing her. How can I ever make her understand that I made the wrong choice because I never picked with my heart at all, because she always had it. That was never a choice to be made… it was always her.

She startles me by storming past me back to where we were in my garden before, as though she maybe decided we do need to talk, yell, fight this out after all and a flicker of hope rises in me as I gawp after her and scramble around. I follow her like an obedient puppy so not about to lose this opportunity and willing to crawl behind her if that’s what she commanded of me.

“I don’t know … I figured I would fix it, have both of you and no one would get hurt. That I wouldn’t be the bad guy like my dad was when he hurt my mom with an affair. I didn’t think it through Sophie, I thought you would still need me and would still be in my life. I thought our bond would save us. I reacted to what happened and then I thought you needed cooling off time. I never thought you would just cut all ties with me and that we would just be over; that I would actually lose you.” The words are falling out of my head as manic panic hits me with verbal diarrhea, but it’s all true. I even balk at my own idiotness as I listen to myself and the lameness of the decisions and reasons I had back then. Such a total jackass. I flinch when she spins at me, aggression and snooty bitch expression in full functioning order and throws venom at me.

“I did still need you, but what was there for me in that? Why would I stay? I told you I loved you and I wasn’t going to sit and watch you love someone else!” She shakes her head at me, like I’m dense, which I clearly was when she puts it like that. She’s right, I would have expected her to endure me with someone else for the sake of being the good guy, when the thought of her with another has completely fucked me up for months. Complete hypocrite who was blinded to the actual reality of this situation.

I impulsively move towards her, so desperate to touch her when she’s in pain but she raises her hands away from me to tell me to back off and I swallow it back and clench my fists to pull back. We’re back in the sheltered dimness of my side garden and concealed once more, at least here I can block her in and stop her from running so easily this time.

“I know … I know that now. It’s all I have thought about for weeks. You are all I think about, constantly, Sophs. I was stupid, and crazy to ever let you go, the biggest jackass in the world. I miss you, so much I’m going out of my mind. You have to believe that! When Jake told me you didn’t want me to contact you anymore, it almost ended me. He told me there was maybe a guy and I didn’t know what else to do, so I stayed away as best I could. I know I fucked up, that I no longer had a right to be anything to you; I have lived with it every second, of every day for months and hated myself for being so fucking dumb.” I ramble it out in a woosh of desperation, brain messy with the chaos of flying thoughts and feelings and memories, all truth, all exactly what I’ve needed to say to her since that night. Broken inside and desperate to have her believe me even if I have to repeat it all a thousand times and get back on my knees.

“Missed me so much that you just let me go, right?” she accuses painfully and turns away, seething, trembling with the effort, so sure all these months I just forgot about her. It crushes my soul to hear that new flicker of hurt at my hands.

in a million

being ripped out of my chest and I left. I couldn’t bear to see you happy with someone else, knowing that I literally let the best thing in my life go when you offered me everything. You have no idea how much I regret it. I have never stopped wanting you; you’re ingrained in my soul, you’re a part of me. I made a mistake, one that has been ruining my life ever since and if there’s even a glimmer of a chance then I’m going to jump on it, because there’s no alternative for me. I fucked up everything that mattered to me when I let

and instinctively slide my hands

shrugs me off with less fire and fight, seemingly exhausted by this and steps

love her so

anymore. I won’t let you go again without a fight. I know you, I know when you’re hurt you push people away, and that’s what you’re doing now, so I won’t let you do it. I know it’s what I deserve but knowing there’s no one else. You’re meant for me, you were always meant for me, Sophie. I see that now.” I plead, knowing it’s the only tool I have. Honesty, begging, and sorrys… a shit load of fucking sorry.

I don’t need this.” She sobs again and each time she does it breaks me. Trembling with emotion

to change. I’m not confused about this anymore. My heart left when you did, and I don’t want it back if it doesn’t come with you attached.”

her shoulder at me accusingly before spinning furiously, a new fire in her

now? Why would I let you have the power to cut me open again? To hurt me like you did, over and over. Just go away. You don’t deserve me.” She turns away again, and I’m starting to see the pattern. Anytime she loses resolve starts to break, she hides it from me and tries to get her control back. Because maybe I have the same power over her that she holds over me. And this is most definitely a two-way thing, I see that now. She still loves me even while telling me to leave. Isn’t that what Sophs does. When she’s mad at me, desperate for me to reach out and fix things, she tells me to go away. Only in the past I’ve been too mad

it. And I do Sophie, I am… I’m so fucking sorry.” I catch her by the upper arms and turn her, vowing to cut through her act and save her, save us both. Ignoring the slaps on my hands which are pitiful compared to the previous and I can tell for sure her words are empty, and her needs are to have me stay with her. I’ve been here with her before, long ago when she snarled, glared, and

me. Softly, guiding her to me and persistently bringing her close while ignoring her lash outs, she avoids my eye completely, but she doesn’t all out resist me like before. The thudding of my chest is so extreme I swear I might have a heart attack and

fight in her and I sigh with relief that my stamina is outliving hers. She’s dwindling down, all her fight fizzling out. I exhale slowly and try like mad to be that calm force she has always

me you don’t love me anymore and I will.” I breathe her way, my face crumbling with the very real possibility she may tell me she no longer cares and actually mean it, even though my gut is saying that’s not what this is. I catch her quick glance and hold my breath, longing for the answer I need and not the one that might actually kill me. Always so much calmer when allowed to be near to her, to touch her and so much more

hold onto her with

knowing that you no longer see me that way. That I really did lose you.” She isn’t the callous or cruel type who would outright lie to me, even to wound me in this way. If she says honestly, she

her head at me, and I hold

I pull her slowly closer, needing to ground myself with

know, I need to hear you say you don’t love me anymore, in any way. I can’t risk missing even the tiniest hint of hope that I

out and covers her face with her hands again, breaking and turning into my vulnerable little angel, the one I swore to always shelter and protect. A hint of her softness, her genuine vulnerability is a hint that she still on some level feels she can break in front of me. The tough girl

up in my embrace again, needing her here, needing to console her. I wrap her tight, arms sliding about her frame and burying my face against her neck. Inhaling that sweet tropical candy smell that’s all her and almost sagging into the familiarity. Squeezing her with need

this. I love you, that’s all I have, and I mean it. One hundred percent, hand on my heart, I will swear on the lives of everyone I care about, that I love you, Sophie Huntsberger, in the way you once told me you loved me.” I hold

down, more intent on sobbing than fighting me now, her energy is fizzling away, and her body is sagging and weakening in my embrace. Her tears dampening every part of my neck as her cheek leans in against me intimately. It’s all I can do to keep breathing normally. Overwhelmed with this huge weighty gut-wrenching ache because I’m getting to hold her in ways I

me.” She weeps softly, broken and crumbling fully. Sensing the change in her fight, I lift her face, angling in so I can get my forehead against hers and it forces her to look up at me. Tear stained, sobbing and so beautiful it almost ends

heart again. I won’t stop trying to put the