Is this destiny?

After a long crying session, Sarah and Aiden are on the bed.

They are lying in silence, facing each other, but both of them lowered their gazes in order to avoid their eyes to meet.

She can\'t make herself look at him. Everything is so fresh, and her emotions are unstable. But this works. Knowing that he is here, next to her, makes her feel better. Sarah hopes that in time these emotional scars heal, and they go back to how they used to be… crazy in love. Right now that feels so far away, almost unreachable.

Sarah told herself not to show her discomfort. She needs to bottle it up, because Aiden is… miserable.

Sarah knows that she is strong and that she loves him… after all, she can\'t imagine her life without him. And that means that she will get over it, there will be a day when she will not remember the events from previous night… Until then, she needs to show him that she is OK. Because only by showing that she is OK he will get out of his wretched state.

Aiden adjusted his position which caused mattress to dip, and Sarah groaned.

She cursed silently because that groan escaped her.

"I\'m sorry." That is the first thing that came out of him, like several times before. It seems that those are the only words left in his vocabulary.

"Shhh… don\'t." Sarah is in pain, and yes, he hurt her… but she does not want to hear any more apologies. They don\'t help and she knows that he is sorry.

Aiden is miserable. He wants to hold Sarah tightly and to soothe all her pain, but whenever she moves even a bit he can see that she is hurting. Most of the time she does not make any sound, but he can see it by the way her fingers and toes twitch involuntarily. How can he hold her? "I don\'t know what to do. Is there a way to fix this? Out of all the people, I ended up causing you pain. And you are the last person in the world I would want to hurt."

"I know. You don\'t need to explain. There is no way to fix this... We can talk about it. That might help, at least emotionally… and the physical damage will heal in time."

"How does that work?" Aiden is not used to talking about his feelings. Especially if it\'s something uncomfortable. He is used to resolving his own issues to the best of his abilities while keeping it to himself.

Sarah understands Aiden. He does not talk about his emotions often, that is one of the reasons why when he expresses his love for her with words she feels so overwhelmed. She is not much of an emotional talker either, but she will try.

"I\'m not sure how it works… but let me try saying what is on my mind. Out of everything that happened, the thing that hurt the most was the possibility that I\'m going to lose you. Eve told me that you are drugged, and she analyzed most of it before I reached Madison\'s suite. So I knew that you will be hallucinating and… everything else. I was standing in front of that door with the knowledge that you are inside for almost ten minutes, alone with her, and I was petrified. When I got inside, as much as I was upset to see you in a bad state under that shower, I was relieved that you didn\'t sleep with her… because if you didn\'t resist, and I saw you with her…" Sarah was unable to finish. The words refused to come out.

After a short break, Sarah continued: "I know that I\'m selfish when I say that it made me happy that you resisted. You went to the lengths of cutting yourself and freezing under a shower in order to stay faithful to me. That means a lot. And later, every time your mind cleared up, you apologized and told me that you love me… so I knew that no matter what is happening, you… the real you is putting me first."

Aiden exhaled. "I am amazed that you are able to find something positive."

"I don\'t want to lie. Overall, the night was terrible. But there are pieces which showed me that you truly love me. And that is positive."

"I feel horrible.", Aiden admitted. He was unable to find words which describe how low he feels.

Sarah does not want to sugar-coat things. That will not lead them anywhere. Also, she does not like this Aiden who is feeling sorry for himself. "Horrible is a mild word for how I feel. It will take time to heal, and we will probably not forget this for a long time. But I want you to know that I love you. And I want us to heal together because no matter what… I can\'t face this world without you. So please, do your best to stop feeling sorry for me and for yourself. This is me being selfish, because regardless of how you feel, I need you back. I need my confident, irresistible, cocky fiancé back."

Aiden smiled bitterly. She called him her fiancé. It used to be a word which made his heart jump from joy, but now he feels… unworthy. He is supposed to take care of her, to protect her from anyone who wants to cause her any harm, and not to be the one causing it. "Stop feeling sorry… that is easier said than done. I wish that I can rewind last 24 hours and do them again."

Sarah sighed. "That would be perfect. Maybe we can ask Felix to invent a time machine, or some way to wipe off parts of memory. But we can\'t change what happened. No one can… the only thing we can do is to make sure that this does not happen again. No more games and underestimating people, regardless of how stupid they are. Even a person like Madison managed to cause all this mess. Imagine if it was someone smarter."

"She didn\'t work alone.", Aiden reminded her.

Sarah agreed with Aiden. "Based on the videos… Liam was behind this. We will take care of them, but I need few days to heal. We can stay here at least until some of these fade before going home." Sarah was talking about her bruises. "I don\'t want Sophia or someone else to see me like this. They will ask questions, and I don\'t want to talk about it."

Aiden\'s guilt increased a notch. He caused those bruises, and now Sarah needs to hide in order for people not to find out what kind of an animal he is. But he has to agree with her, because he can\'t imagine what Sophia will do if she finds out. He still remembers how everyone treated him like he is a super-villain when he told Sarah that they should stay apart. If anyone else finds out about this… he does not want to think about it. He can only be grateful to Sarah because she wants to keep this concealed from others.

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