Captured My Heart

Chapter 2

    The words that came from his mouth would have made me swoon in a different situation, but right there, right then, what he said gave me goosebumps. He didn't have to be weird and creepy; He could have asked me on a date. He didn't have to pick me either there are prettier girls. I wasn't anything special; I was average. How long had he been lurking in the shadows, and why didn't I notice? The fact that I couldn't even adequately observe my surroundings made me uneasy. I was so stupid; My parents made sure I knew to be aware of everything around me. I failed them miserably. I was stalked for weeks and kidnapped from my bedroom when I was drunk off my ass.

    Lost in thought, I nearly jumped out of my skin when he gingerly brushed my hair out of my eyes. I pushed his hand away from my face. His touch made my skin crawl. I felt nauseous, and I just wanted to go home: be in my bed, watch movies, and avoid this situation entirely. It was unlikely that I would ever return to my old life. The thought caused the tears that had been welling up to fall down my cheeks. When he tried to take me in his arms, I jerked away from him.

    "Don't f*****g touch me, creep!" I screamed at him. The high pitched frequency of my voice made him recoil. He picked me up, carried me to a room across from the one I woke up in, and locked the door. I threw myself onto the surprisingly soft bed and cried myself to sleep.

    As I slept, my mind drifted to the day my parents and I first went to our favorite ice cream parlor. We spent our day at the beach out in the sun, and as we were walking back to the car across the hot pavement, I fell and scraped my knee. My lip began to quiver, and tears started welling up in my eyes when my dad saved the day.

    "Do you want to get ice cream after we patch that up?" He asked, and of course, I couldn't refuse.

We walked into Mary's Creamery, and I ordered two scoops of strawberry cheesecake ice cream in a cone. Times were simpler then. Strawberry cheesecake ice cream could fix everything.

    When I woke up, I took a moment to absorb everything. The queen-sized bed sat against the back wall of the room; there was a dresser on the right side of the bed. On the dresser, there was a plate of food that was room temperature. I was famished, but before I could grab the food, Axel entered the room; he snatched it off the dresser, holding it away from me.

    "Before I allow you to eat, we're going to have a conversation," he told me in a tone that was so firm I knew refusing him was not an option.

    "About what?" I raised my eyebrows.

    "Everything."

   "Everything about what?" I inquired.

    "Each other." He replied with a tone I couldn't quite decipher.

    He started by asking the basics: age, 21; birthday, March 28th; middle name, Danielle. Then, he asked me something that shook me to my core: "Have you ever been in love?" 

    The question sent me back to my sophomore year of high school when I first met Joshua Laughton. I had bumped into him in the hallway and fallen flat on my face; when I looked up into his eyes, I fell deeply and intensely. We did everything together after that. He was my first everything, and I longed for him to be my last; that would never happen. After senior year, he went to law school; I stayed in Quin Cove. I started classes at the community college to be a CNA; we knew we were going down different paths. His father was a hot-shot lawyer: Mine worked in construction. As I was thinking about Joshua, I relayed it to Axel. It makes no sense, but it felt refreshing to talk about my first love. When I finished talking about my only attempt at love, I asked him the same question he did.

    "Her name was Pauline," he began. "She was gorgeous in every way, and everyone loved her. We met at a party in college. She had been dancing like no one was watching, but the fact of the matter was every single person had their eyes on her. She radiated positivity and light; I couldn't pass up the chance to know her.

    When she was in the kitchen, grabbing a drink, I practically begged her to go on a date with me; she giggled and said yes. From then on, we were inseparable. She was the light of my life.

One night, when she was on her way home from the library, a drunk semi driver swerved and hit her head-on. I've never been the same, and nobody came close to giving me the feelings she did until I saw you. That's why I had to have you."

    When he finished, I was in tears; nobody deserved to have someone taken from their life like that, not even a monster like Axel. I almost understood him: almost.

    "I'm sorry," I finally spoke up. I looked into Axel's eyes and saw that they had become wet with tears. I instinctively threw my arms around him, disregarding his disgusting behavior. Maybe he was like this because he felt unloved. What if he felt like I was his last hope at returning to normal? We stayed in each other's embrace, completely forgetting our differences. I drifted off while thinking about fixing the broken, mentally-ill man that was Axel.