Page 80 of Lightning Angel
He wasinsistingthat he loved her.
Alexa looked away, shaking her head, unable to accept it. She stole a glance at him and didn’t realize she was crying until he blurred together in her vision. She immediately turned her back to him. He shouldn’t see her tears. He shouldn’t see how his repeated proclamation of love was undoing something in her that she didn’t want to be undone.
Alexa’s hands raked through her hair in frustration and she blinked rapidly to stave off the tears.
“Alexa—”
“Why?” She whirled toward him again, glaring at him through her tears. “Why do you love me, Tristan?” Her lips quivered despite her effort to stay unshaken.
A treacherous tear slipped.
“Why?” Tristan’s face turned incredulous for a moment, as though he couldn’t believe what she was asking. Then, his face softened, a sweet gentleness entering his electric-blue eyes. “I love you because you’re the girl who flared my heart to life and pulled me out of my shell. The girl who struck my heart like lightning and made me fall in love with her even though that wasnevermy intention.
“I love you, Alexa, all of you, everything you are with all your flaws and perfections. I don’t know how to say it, how to express it to make you believe me, to make you understand my love for you. Because I’mnota poet from one of your romance books. I can’t recite my love for you. I’m speechless! The love I have for you renders me speechless with this… thisgreatnessin my heart.” He paused, chest heaving, the same fire burning in his eyes.
Only this time, instead of flaring like the last time, they were shining like the stars in the night sky. And she realized, shefinallyrealized, that fire was his love for her.
He gentled his voice and continued. “All I know is that, I love you, and I will love you more and more every day till my last breath, whether or not you love me back.”
Another tear escaped her eye, followed by one more. Only if he knew, she had never read or heard anything half as poetic as what he just said.
They stared at one another for a long, intense moment. Him waiting, and her accepting.
“You do love me,” she marveled at last, breaking the charged silence between them.
Tristan’s face rested into the beginning of a smile. “Yes, I do,” he admitted slowly, almost in caution, dipping his chin slightly and studying her eyes. “I love you,” he said again, as though it wouldn’t tire him to repeat it over and over again.
Alexa hugged her arms around herself and averted her tearful glance from him. The dam of her tears broke. They trickled down her face. She sniffed to take them back and barely composed herself as she turned her gaze to the space between them, unable to meet his eyes.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she began, hugging herself tight. “I still don’t want to, but… but you’re tearing through my defenses as much as I don’t want to admit it. You are something else entirely, Tristan, you havebeensince the start, and with you I feel it’s impossible to hide. So, there you have it. I guess I’m finally realizing that you’ve been true in your confession and that I’ve been wrong to accuse you of being obsessed with me. I’m so sorry.”
Her chin wobbled and she clenched her jaw to control it.
“Oh, Alexa.” Tristan sighed softly and took a tentative step toward her.
She lifted her teary gaze to his that was filled with sweet understanding. The warmth in them reached her to the core and bathed her. Goosebumps rose all over her skin. How was it possible that she was feeling this—a feeling she had only read in books and had dreamt of—from a boy in real life?
“I want you to know,” she continued. “I never meant to hurt you with my reaction that day or by leaving you on read. I felt guilty the more I thought about how I reacted toward you and the later I was to respond to your message. But I was also scared. Scared by your confession. I might be a hopeless romantic, but I don’t—Ididn’thave hope for it in real life because of the example of my parents’ broken marriage. Moreover, after learning Brandon’s love for Cassie was fake, one I have always thought was true with how he used to dote on her, I gave up. What if the boy I love won’t love me and leave me for another girl? Or, what if we did make it through the dating period and got married and he lost his interest in me, like my mom did with my dad? What if he leaves me for another woman because I’m not enough for him? In the end, I thought it was better if I just keep living in my head with all the romance novels I read and live out my days single. But you—you…”
Overwhelmed by a whirlwind of emotions, she sank to her knees. Before she could stop it, she began sobbing. She clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound; she didn’t want Cassie to know what was going on, at least not yet.
“Alexa!” Tristan was at her side in a blink, crouched in front of her and holding her arms. “Oh, Alexa, look at me.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“Hey, don’t apologize,” he crooned, bringing up a hand to her face. “Look at me, angel.”
Alexa lifted her gaze to his, taken aback by his choice of endearment. But her thoughts lost track as she saw thepain in his eyes, with a sheen of tears in them.
“I’msorry,” he murmured, cupping her face lovingly in both hands. “I didn’t realize how it was for you, I had no idea you were inthismuch pain, this much hurt by what has happened in your life. If I did, I wouldn’t have…” He closed his eyes for a brief moment and opened them. They shone with more unshed tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I pressured you with my selfish confession. As much as it pains me to say this, I will stay away from you if you need me to. I will make sure we no longer see—”
“No!” Alexa grasped his wrists, her eyes wide with alarm. “Please don’t. I want—I want to know you.”
Tristan stared at her in astonishment, searching her eyes desperately as though looking for the confirmation of her words.
Alexa sniffed and closed her eyes to let the warmth of his presence and love wash over her. A pleasant shiver rippled through her and she opened her eyes to meet his sweet, expectant ones. “I want to know if you’re the one I was meant to wait for, the one I’m supposed tofeelandhaveeverything with, the one I lost hope of meeting. Just this once, my heart is ready to take the risk of this journey, all because of you, Tristan Knight.” She smiled a little, tearfully. “I want to know more about you.”
Tristan looked at a loss for words, but his smiling eyes said more than words could. His fingers combed her hair back, not breaking his gaze from hers, and moved the stray strands from her face. Then, he leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead in a long, tender kiss.