There's a warmth that spreads all over my body in his presence. It's in the way his big body engulfs mine, his velvety voice caressing my senses and lulling me into a sweet sense of comfort and security.
It's completely antithetic to the nature of our relationship. And for someone with my history, it's completely illogical that I should feel that way in the presence of someone, who by all intents and purposes, wishes me harm. Someone who did harm me. What he threatened to do in that dark room…he probably has no idea that it's still messing with my head.
And so I feel guilty.
I feel guilty for still feeling this way about him, my insides tingling at his nearness, my heart bursting in my chest of happiness. It's not conscious, though. If anything, it's instinctual—primal.
I've tried to stop myself. Talk myself out of this fanciful notion I have about him. Because the truth is that at night, in the confines of my room, I let myself dream. I let my mind draw up scenarios of what ifs.
What if he didn't hate me? What if he could feel more for me…? What if he could love me?
Dipping myself under the water, I open my eyes, staring at the distorted gilded ceiling.