All for one. One for all.

Why are you being so kind to me, after...?

She sobbed, and opened her eyes, as he continued kissing her. It took her a few seconds, then she raised her own arms to his face, and unexpectedly returned his kiss. He could not stand much more of this, but the feeling of relief that swept over him made him want to cry out.

He did not deserve this. He was now totally confused as she still was, but also relieved.

She should not be doing this to him, not after what he’d done to her, but maybe she didn’t know what it was that he’d done in the midst of her other discomforts.

His heart was no longer within his body but had been transferred to hers through that kiss and that look, if not earlier by that other intimate linkage between them. There had been an unmistakable exchange of feelings as well as other things. His arms went around her, and he hugged her to him in an effort to comfort her to make up for the way he was feeling and what he had done to hurt her.

Where had his life been before this moment? This, was living. He had been in a zombie-like state before now, going through the motions of growing up and living in a world he no longer wanted to know.

He desperately needed to explain what had happened, and how deeply he regretted it, but now was not the right time.

He repeated himself. “I am sorry for hurting you as I did when I….” He was not sure he could explain it to her or even wanted to. “I did not mean to hurt you, but when we fell together…. I could not help it.”

And I think I am in love with you. But he could not tell her that so soon after damaging her.

He felt devastated, regretting it deeply, tearing himself apart, emotionally for having harmed her. But so must she feel the same way, her body hurting too, having been on the receiving end of it.

She was still disoriented, touching her head where it hurt and then touching his. She may not understand what he was saying, thinking that he referred to them hitting heads, rather than to that other intimate thing.

He explained again. “We fell. You were knocked out for a few minutes.” He was ashamed to admit to anything else. He could not just blurt out that, yes he’d violated her body, and that it had felt wonderful, but that it had been an unfortunate accident.

You were unconscious for a few minutes. Long enough for me to… to do that to you, twice. Not making love. f*****g her. She hadn’t co-operated or given her permission.

She touched her forehead where it pained. “Oh!”

He wanted to kiss her again, letting his hands come down to rest upon her side by her breasts with the warm cloth lying across one of them.

“What are you doing here? Where are your clothes?” He should suggest if he dare, that they climb into the shower together so that they could wash each other and learn much more about each other’s bodies as they talked, but she was not ready to learn so much more about him so soon, or how he felt for her. He didn’t understand it himself.

She puzzled over that question and repeated it as he remembered what he had been doing, and wiped the warm cloth across her abdomen once more to distract her from her other aches and sensations of what he’d just done, and then he moved down onto the top of her legs, wiping at them, kneeling between them, stopping her bringing them together, able to see exactly where he had been in her body, needing to see, now that she’d displaced the towel. He was still leaking from her, and it was still tinged with blood, but she couldn’t see that; could only feel it. If she could feel it.

“What am I doing here? I’m not sure. And I hurt.”

Of course she did. His heart went out to her.

“Where do you hurt?”

He cringed. Moron! He shouldn’t ask that question, but it had slipped out.

“My head. My front. My arms, my legs. She paused, blushing.

“And…?” He prompted.

He waited for her to tell him the worst, to accuse him, castigate him in the most excoriating way for violating her.

In her eyes he could see hurt, possibly having some subconscious recollection, but not having enough of a sense of her body in the midst of those other pains to be able to say what she recalled.

He adjusted his sweatshirt until she intercepted his hands and that warm cloth and placed them under it and directly upon her breasts. Holy mother…!

Her breasts were cool, and his hands were warm upon them. She needed his warmth? He felt her pushing back against them as she closed her eyes.

There was no mistaking that response, or the statement it made of her strange feelings for him.

At least she was neither shy, nor scared, and was not fighting him off.

She drew him closer down to her to kiss her again.

Who was he to resist? Her mind was on some other plane.

He could not believe this.

She must know what had happened to her; would be able to feel it from the discomfort and the damage even if only to her fragile hymen which he must have demolished entirely.

Such a trivial thing, not worth worrying about.

Only a man would say or think that.

Hopefully he had done no more damage to her than that; no other tearing when he had driven into her.

There had been no visible trauma to her there when he’d come out of her other than a little blood, but that would be expected the first time with her hymen getting torn away, and it had been her first time. He knew what to look for, having examined enough s****l assaults and victims of r**e in the hospital emergency room.

Something had happened to him too. It hit him as suddenly as though someone had picked up a rock and hit him between the eyes with it. He’d fallen in love with her already, even as he’d f****d her by accident, and they’d exchanged barely half a dozen words. She’d seen it in his eyes and he’d seen the same thing in hers.

They had fallen in love, and that was what had directed her to bring his hands onto her breasts—not just for the warmth—and to kiss him in return. She needed to share her own feelings with him.

Already? He could not believe it.

But what a dilemma! When she learned the truth about what he’d done to her—accident or not—she would never forgive him, except it seemed that she already had.

She remembered something her aunt had said. ’You do not choose who you fall in love with. It just hits you’. As it had for her. She recollected what he’d asked and what she needed to say to add to her list of woes.

“My feet hurt. I hurt everywhere.”

He let out a sigh of relief about what she did not say.

A world of feeling passed between them. Two lives were changed in just a few minutes.

He prompted her, as he still caressed her and kissed her, then kissed her breasts as she held his head close into her there. “You were on those ladders over at the school, weren’t you?”

She frowned, trying to remember, as he sat up from her to look into her eyes again. That bump on her head and what he had certainly done to her may have wiped her recent memory clean.

Even a frown upon her face did not look like a frown.

She also tried to sit up, putting his sweatshirt aside and knocking the towel to the floor. By sitting up, she forced more of his sperm out of her to run down her, to drip onto the edge of the settee and then to the floor. He hoped she would not notice.

He dropped the first cloth over it on the floor, and then helped her sit up straighter as he moved between her legs again, pushing her back onto the settee to sit more comfortably, holding her high on her leg, inside it, while unobtrusively bringing the other, still warm cloth between her legs with the edge of his hand, to catch him running from her, hoping she would not question why, feeling hair touching his hand at the same time.

She did not fight him away, but he could do nothing other than slowly remove his hand, though he did not want to, leaving the cloth there for a few moments before he retrieved it.

He bathed her face with it, after folding it upon what had leaked from her. She would not be able to smell that characteristic smell. At least he hoped not, and trusted that if she did, she would not recognize it for what it was; the characteristic, faintly antiseptic smell of sperm.

That mark on her forehead would be many colors by morning. She flinched at the pain of it as he gently dabbed at it.

He did not know her name to use it, as he apologized for everything he’d done wrong, so he got her attention by leaning in and gently kissing her again. She did not object to that.

Something had changed again between them, as though she were bouncing from one semi-conscious state to another, and with her mind in another place. She had a scared look about her.

Had his continuing and less commendable thoughts been so obvious in his eyes, or had she suddenly been taken back a few minutes, sensing what he had done to her?

She must have responded to what she’d seen in his expression, brought on by her helplessness, and the possessive way he was holding her as though laying claim to all he could see and touch. Which he was.

“Please help me.” She was asking him for help after what he had done to her? Her hand rose to her head again, and then fell to touch gently between her legs, discovering what, about herself?

She could see how that strange plea shook him.

“Why can I not remember? Why am I hurting? Did you hurt me?”

He stroked her face as he looked into her eyes. “I did hurt you, when I fell onto you, but by accident only. I will never deliberately hurt you, whoever you are, no matter from which heaven you came into my life or let anyone else hurt you either.” She seemed vaguely reassured by his words. No. She belonged to him now, and he was the one who had hurt her in a way he could not just blurt out to explain to her.

She sobbed. She already knew what he had done. She’d felt him in her body, moving, breathing hard, and what he’d done to her both times. She’d been ready to explode at him after that, then she’d opened her eyes and looked into his, seeing the hurt in them, the concern for her, and much more.

Within seconds of being conscious of him that way, she felt she already knew about him; had forgiven him, knowing that he would not hurt her in any way she would object to, even though he already had, but that must have been an accident when they had fallen, so would have to be forgiven.

She would need to think about it later.

He stroked the side of her face as her hand rose to hold his there, against her.

“Please tell me how I can I help you.”

He waited for her answer as she fought to bring her mind back to where she wanted it to be. Ten seconds, but a long ten seconds of looking at her, as his eyes and mind drank in everything about her that he could see. Ten seconds, ten minutes, ten days. Time had no meaning.

He asked her again. She’d not responded the first time. “Who are you? Why are you here like this? What do you need from me?”

She had to ask herself the same questions. Yes, why was she here? And what was it that she needed? As if he couldn’t see her greatest need, but how could he? It was not for clothing, but for something else that was important, but she could not immediately recall what that was.

“What were you doing on the roof of the school?”

Then it came to her, hearing that word, roof.

She needed to get him to help Sarah.