Haven's Knight

by Regan Ure

  “Are you okay?” he asked softly. He still looked half asleep as he rubbed his eyes. His bed hair looked made him look devastatingly handsome. How was it possible for someone to look that good first thing in the morning?

  “Yeah, as okay as I’ll ever be,” I muttered, still feeling like a freak because of my mini breakdown the night before.

  “Haven,” he said in a slight tone of warning.

  I turned to face him.

  “I freaked out like a little kid who is scared of the dark,” I said, feeling like a complete idiot.

  “Haven, you’re the bravest person I know,” he said to me. “What you’ve been through, most people wouldn’t have stuck it out.”

  Did I tell him there were times when I’d contemplated doing something drastic to get away from the abuse? Did that make me a little less brave?

  “Maybe it might help if I take you,” he suggested, and I looked at him a little surprised. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to try going to the cinema ever again.

  “I’m going to take you out to movies tonight,” he told me. He couldn’t be serious. I looked at him like he was the crazy one instead of me.

  “But, why? What if I freak out again?” I asked as my heart began to speed up at the thought of having another freak-out in public.

  He stepped forward and took my face gently in his hands, tilting my head up so that my eyes looked directly into his.

  “It will be okay, I promise,” he assured me with a surety I didn’t feel. My hands covered his.

  He had a way of keeping me calm but I wasn’t convinced that would be enough to keep me from freaking out in the cinema, where the dark could hide memories of Grant.

  “I’m scared,” I whispered, my eyes pleading silently with his.

  “I know, but it will be okay. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think you could do it,” he explained as he brushed my cheek gently with his finger.

  His belief in me made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I felt myself give him a gentle nod.

  Later that day, Chris phoned to find out how my date with Mark went.

  “Come on, I want all the juicy details. Did he kiss you?” he began, starting the inquisition. It was so like Chris to get straight to the point.

  “No. The date ended before the movie even started,” I explained, not wanting to relive the embarrassing memories of rushing out of the cinema.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I freaked out and left just as the movie started,” I revealed softly, hating the fact that I felt so weak.

  “What freaked you out?” Chris asked with concern.

  “The dark,“ I whispered. “I couldn’t help feeling that Grant was hiding in the dark, waiting to hurt me.”

  I didn’t mention to Chris that Damien was going to take me back to the cinema tonight to try and conquer my fear. He might get the wrong idea.

  He soothed my fears and told me I just needed some time to work through it.

  After my call with Chris, I held my phone in my hand, trying to build up the courage to call Mark and apologize. It took me a good half an hour before I dialed his number and held my breath as it began to ring.

  “Hi.” His voice was cheerful, not at all what I was expecting.

  “Hi,” I managed to get out.

  An awkward silence descended for a few moments before I spoke again.

  “I’m so sorry. I never expected to freak out like I did… I had no idea,” I began to babble.

  “It’s okay, Haven,” he said, his soft words putting a stop to the rest of my apology. “I know there is stuff that has happened to you and I know it’s not something you want to talk about. I get it.”

  I held my breath as my hand, holding the phone to my ear, trembled slightly.

  “I just hope you’re okay,” he said.

  “I am,” I reassured him.

  “There is something going on between you and Damien.” It wasn’t a question, it was statement.

  I kept silent for a few moments.

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  I couldn’t explain to him why Damien and I were close like we were. The only way he would understand was if I told him everything, and I couldn’t.

  “I hope everything works out for you,” he said softly. “But if he hurts you, I’ll gladly beat the crap out of him.”

  I let out a laugh.

  “So, we’re good?” I asked, worried he wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

  “We’re good,” he assured me. “See you at school.”

  “See you at school,” I said before I ended the call.

  This time when I got ready to go out I had a feeling of dread growing in the pit of my stomach. Even the encouraging smile Damien gave me when he knocked on my door to see if I was ready didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Are you ready?” he asked while he stood there, watching me put some lip gloss on.

  “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t stall any longer.

  No matter how hard I tried not to think of what had set me off the previous evening, I couldn’t get rid of the building fear as we got closer to our destination. As we arrived in front of the cinema I could feel the fear flood through me. I let myself glance at Damien as he parked his car.

  “It will be fine,” he assured me when he saw the fear in my eyes.

  Before I knew it we had tickets and food and were entering the cinema. I followed Damien to our seats and slumped down in the seat, holding onto my soda and popcorn tightly.

  “Here,” Damien said as he took my soda and put it into the cup holder.

  With one hand I held the popcorn and with the other I held desperately onto the armrest between us. I glanced at Damien as I felt his fingers pry my hand from the armrest and intertwine our hands.

  He gave me a reassuring smile.

  “Trust me.”

  I closed my eyes for a second and released the breath that had been stuck in my lungs, and then I looked back to Damien and said, “Okay.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Haven

  I held Damien’s hand in a death grip as I rested my eyes on the screen in front of us, waiting for the lights to go out and for the movie to start. The moment the lights went out and the screen lit up, I tightened my grip on Damien’s hand, but I didn’t freak out like I’d expected I would. I turned to see him watching me with a proud smile.

  “You did it,” he whispered and I eased my grip on his hand and gave him a weak smile.

  “I did it,” I said.

  Having got over my initial fear of the dark I began to relax and let myself enjoy the movie. After it finished we walked out of the cinema.

  “You wanna go for a milkshake?” he asked with a glint of playfulness in his eyes. It was nice to see him acting carefree for a change—most of the time he was serious and intense. I suppose the same could be said about me.

  “Yes,” I answered. I wasn’t ready to call it a night. I wanted to spend more time with him, even though this wasn’t a proper date.

  He took my hand in his and led me back to his car. He drove us down the road to an old-fashioned type diner where you expected the waitress to be roller-skating around, but there were no roller skates in sight. A waitress showed us to a table. We slid into a pink candy-colored booth, sitting opposite each other. The waitress came over and handed us each a menu.

  I glanced through the flavors of the milkshakes. It took me a while to decide on a chocolate one and Damien ordered a strawberry one.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he said softly.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you enjoy the movie?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it was nice.”

  After I’d managed to get over the initial fear, I’d enjoyed the movie, although I’d held onto Damien’s hand for the entire time.

  “The more time I spend around you the more you surprise me,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and I waited for him to elaborate. “You’ve been through horrors no one s
hould ever have to endure, and it left a vulnerability in you. I saw it the first time I saw you, but I tried to push you away. I was scared when I felt a need to protect you and I didn’t even know you.”

  His words swept over me. His hand reached for mine. I remembered him being a little mean to me, when I had bumped into him my first day at school. The soft touch of his fingers against mine made my skin tingle. I’d never understood why he’d acted the way he had and now everything was starting to fall into place.

  “There are moments in life that are so profound there is no way you can walk away unscathed. Sometimes those moments are good and sometimes they’re… bad, really bad. I had one of those bad moments a few years ago, it was so devastating that it had changed me,” he revealed with an emotional hoarseness in his voice. “I went from an easygoing person who lived every day without fear to a shell of my former self that could barely function because of the fear that gripped me.”

  His eyes flickered to our hands and then back to look at me.

  “I lost my brother.”

  The sadness in his eyes pierced right through me and I felt the loss reflected in his eyes. There was no way I was going to reveal I’d already stumbled across his dead brother’s room. I didn’t want to lie to him or reveal that I already knew about his brother, so instead I held his gaze and gave his hand a supportive squeeze while I waited for him to continue.

  “Losing someone so close was almost impossible to comprehend. And he wasn’t just my brother—he was my twin, my other half,” he said softly.

  “I’m sorry,” I managed to mumble through the emotion beginning to thicken in my throat. I never knew his brother, and I’d never get a chance to get to know him, either, but while Damien talked about him, I mourned him.

  “We were so close, practically inseparable. I was the easygoing one and Dylan was the more reserved one. One afternoon a couple of blocks from our house we were playing soccer in the park. Both of us had joined the soccer team that year and we were practicing…”

  A small smile was on his face as he reminisced about his brother, and then it disappeared and he took a deep breath before he continued.

  “I kicked the ball toward him but he missed it and it rolled into the street. Dylan didn’t look before he ran out into the street to get it, and a car hit him.”

  I could tell that telling me this story was taking an emotional toll on him, I hadn’t even been there and I could feel the sting of tears at his words.

  “I was the eldest by four minutes, so I was there when he took his first breath and I held him in my arms when he took his last.”

  The emotion in me bubbled over into the surface as I felt a tear slide down my face. I watched the anguish on his face. I’d lost family before, but there was no way I could understand or comprehend the level of despair he’d felt. The emotions that flooded through me urged me to hold him and comfort him but I resisted it.

  “One moment everything was fine, we were laughing and joking, and in one split second everything changed. I suffered the worst kind of pain I thought possible and it broke something in me, something I will never be able to fix. For a while, I blamed myself. There were days I didn’t want to get up and carry on, but I forced myself to take life day by day. Slowly but surely I got back on my feet, but I was never the same.” I squeezed his hand in support. “His death scared me. Afterward, it was hard getting close to people because I held onto that fear of losing them. If you don’t open yourself up to feel, you can’t get hurt, and I lived by that.”

  It all made so much more sense now, his reluctance to date or get too attached to anyone. I understood him. I could sympathize; I would have felt the same if I’d been in his shoes. He paused for a moment to allow his words to soak in. His eyes held mine. Even if I had wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to look away from him. I felt like he was baring his soul to me.

  “The moment when I looked into your eyes, I saw that your soul was broken like mine.” I remembered that moment. “I don’t think that it happened with just one moment like with me; I believe it was a whole lot of bad moments that chipped away at you until you finally broke.”

  I felt the sting of tears again, and another tear slid down my face. Maybe there would come a time I would be ready to talk about what I’d lived through, but I wasn’t ready to do that now.

  “A collection of good and bad moments define us. The moment I met you was a defining moment.” He gave me a weak smile while I wiped my tears away. He really had a way with words. “I knew I would never be the same again the moment I looked into your eyes. I’d been able to hold people at arm’s length, I was good at not getting attached to people. Girls came and went but I never kept any of them around. I was too scared that I’d feel something for them and I’d have to live with the fear of losing them.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “You had me at the first moment I looked into your eyes. I didn’t stand a chance.”

  For a moment I just stared at him in shock as he held my gaze. My thoughts were going crazy inside my head. What was he trying to tell me? I remember him telling me once before about the moment he had first met me, and that he’d felt an urge to protect me.

  The waitress arrived with our milkshakes. It broke the intense moment, and I wrapped my hand around my milkshake and took a sip, grateful for the distraction. As soon as the waitress left, my eyes lifted to meet his. The intensity of his stare made me shiver.

  “There are times I wish I knew what was happening to you at home,” he revealed softly with an anguished guilt in his eyes.

  I shook my head at him.

  “But what’s done is done. There is no point in going back and wishing things had been different,” I told him. “Who knows if I’d even still be here if you’d found out earlier. Things could have been much worse.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “You’re right,” he said, reaching for my hand. I glanced down to see his hand cover mine. It was like he needed to touch me to chase away the memories of me nearly dying.

  We finished our milkshakes, and then Damien dropped a couple of bills on the table.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested as he stood up and pulled me to my feet. I saw the appreciative look he got from our waitress as he pulled me by the hand out the door.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” he said as we walked to his car.

  I had a feeling that he wasn’t done talking but didn’t want to continue the conversation in a diner with an audience.

  “Sure.”

  The truth was I’d follow him to the ends of the earth and back.

  The drive was quiet. I think both of us were lost in our own thoughts. It wasn’t long before he parked the car at the side of the road. There wasn’t anything around, and only when I got out of the car and peered down did I realize why he’d brought me here.

  It was beautiful. It overlooked the whole town and the stars shone brightly in the night sky.

  “I come here when I need to think,” he explained as he got a blanket out of the trunk and spread it on the grass in front of the car. He sat down and pulled his knees to his chest.

  “It’s beautiful,” I murmured as I turned to face him.

  I sat down beside with my legs crossed. I let my eyes drift over the scene in front of us as I took a deep breath. It was so peaceful that it was calming.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered and I turned to find him watching me. I was mesmerized. There were times I didn’t feel beautiful but I couldn’t help but feel beautiful when he looked at me the way he was now.

  “And amazing,” he whispered hoarsely. I kept silent. I wanted to tell him he was, too, but emotion clogged my throat. The things he’d done for me had been unexpected and I appreciated it.

  If it wasn’t for meeting him I wouldn’t have gotten out and there was the chance that things could have escalated, and who knows what would have happened. Grant might have succeeded in killing me, or it all might have gotten too much for
me to handle and I might have just given up.

  A few seconds passed before he started to talk.

  “From the moment Dylan died I stopped myself from getting attached. Sex is a way of physically connecting with another person, but feeling something for that person is something else entirely. The moment I met you, I began to feel something for you.”

  He seemed to wrestle for the right words.

  “I care about you.”

  I knew he cared about me. He didn’t have to tell me, because I felt it every day. He was the one that chased the nightmares away, he was the one that made me feel safe and protected.

  “I won’t lie to you… caring for you and feeling something for you scared me,” he tried to explain. He ran an agitated hand through his hair before he turned to face me, taking both my hands in his. “I don’t just care about you… it’s much, much more than that.”

  He took a deep breath and released it. He looked unsure and vulnerable, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him, but instead I remained still so that he could finish what he wanted to say.

  “At first I tried to keep away from you, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about you. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, I couldn’t keep away from you,” he said. His hands tightened around mine. “Falling for you didn’t happen in just one moment.”

  I was speechless. My heart began to speed up as my eyes widened.

  “I fell a little the day I met you. You were so fragile and scared. I fell a little more every time I was with you. The moment I realized I’d fallen in love with you was the afternoon your stepfather tried to kill you,” he whispered hoarsely, and I tightened my hold on his hands. “The last time I’d felt that type of fear was when I held my dying brother in my arms. It was then that I knew I loved you. To see you like that nearly killed me.”