I have opened a couple of doors, peeked inside the darkened rooms, only to be disappointed not to find Mitch inside them. But when I see the door opposite to the one I have only just opened, I stand in the upstairs hallway just knowing that Mitch is on the other side of that door. Call it a sixth sense, but I just know that he is. Mitch is my moon, and I am his tide, so I am being pulled towards him. Silently, we are bound by the gravity and the power of our love.

Opening the door slowly, I'm not prepared for what I see. Sat in a poorly lit bedroom, Mitch is sat at the end of a stripped bare bed, looking so unbelievably sad. "Mitch?" I call out to him from where I stand in the doorway, sounding deceptively calm.

He doesn't turn to the sound of my voice, he remains exactly where he is, sat so sadly on the end of that mattress. "I'm surprised you even noticed I had gone, you and my brother seem to have so much in common." Still, he won't look at me. His head just hangs low and his voice is cold and exact.

Stepping into more of the bedroom, I quietly close the door behind me. "I have been looking everywhere for you?" I'm still trying to sound calm.

Inhaling hard, Mitch sits taller before anxiously clasping his hands together. "Really? That kind of surprises me, Rebecca, because you were certainly having a lot of fun with Marcus." His tone is contemptuous, with a possessive sarcasm woven within his dull and troubled voice.

I know he's upset.

I know he's angry.

But I'll not let him keep talking to me like that.

Now standing just in front of him, I stare down at Mitch with grains of regret deep within my heart. "I don't deserve that. You know I don't." Inside, I feel like I am crumbling, but my words to him now, sound strong and unfaltering.

Only then, does Mitch look up at me. In his eyes, I see such potent misery. In their dull blue depths, I see unsaid anguish. A stab of guilt now buries itself inside the cavity of my chest, burying itself deeper and deeper. Something is tormenting the man that I love, and here I am, scolding him for the way that he is talking to me. Before I even know what to say, or even know what to do, Mitch has grabbed me by my waist and is just clinging onto me with his head hard against my stomach. "I'm sorry. You're right. You don't deserve none of this...none of it."

He's crying.

God, he really is crying.

His sobs are being smothered by my stomach, as he holds me so desperately tighter. So I let Mitch squeeze me. I let him squeeze me as tight as he wants, for as long as he wants. His hurt is now mine, because I love every single thing about this man.

Every ache.

Every flaw.

I want to love him regardless.

I will do that for Mitch. No, I want to do that for Mitch, because he gives meaning to all of the boundless love that I now have inside of me.

Him...he's my emotional earthquake.

To fall for this incredible man is like being buried beneath a landslide of love—natural but frightening.

Lowering myself to my knees, I nestle my body comfortably between Mitch's parted legs. "Whatever ghosts are haunting you now, I am here to help you scare them away." Taking his hands into mine, my own eyes are becoming filled with tears that are there because any pain of his, is equally now mine.

Staring into my tear-stained eyes, Mitch's head then heavily drops with shame. "I'm so sorry. I was jealous about Marcus. It was all my jealousy talking." His fingers curl themselves around mine as his head slowly lifts. "I really am sorry, Rebecca."

Cuddling him while my face rests on his shoulder, I have already forgiven him. "It's okay." Is all that I want to assure him with. Now that he has admitted he was jealous about his brother, I know that he is simply blowing away the first layer of dust to all that he wants to tell me. Behind those sad blue eyes of his, I know there's a very sad tale yet to be told.

Pulling me up, so I can sit deep within his lap, Mitch is sniffing in all of his emotions, the ones that bring tears to his eyes and sobs to his throat. "I need you close while I talk to you, Rebecca, because I'm sharing with you something that I'll never share again." He briefly cuddles me, before beginning that very sad tale of his. "My whole life, my father and my brother have always tried to belittle the choices that I've made in my life. To them, I am somehow less of a person. To them, I'm not intelligent enough. It has always been this way, and it always will be. Our family is a family, but only by name...because our family died on the same day that my mother died." Mitch stops, swallowing down some of the hurt that I know is rising up from some horrible place inside of him. "You see, my father has never said it, but I know that he blames me for her death. With my brother, that unsaid blame, along with his desire to please our father, was something that Marcus would also eventually use against me. My mother's parents, until they both died, did try to shield me from dad and Marcus, but that blame and that resentment just ran far too deep for me to be forever protected from it."

It's here that I feel like I have to say something. "But why? How could it be your fault when you were just a little boy when you lost your mother?" To me, none of it makes sense. Just how fractured the Heston family are, makes no sense whatsoever.

Mitch attempts to smile. With a faraway sadness, only one side of his mouth chooses to cooperate. "Have you never Googled about my mother?" He surprisingly asks me.

"You're my boyfriend, Mitch. Anything that I need to know about you, I'll ask you, not bloody Google." A little miffed that he even needed to ask me that, I'm now sat in his lap with a deep frown unattractively pulling in both of my eyebrows.

Stroking my cheek with the back of his placating hand, Mitch brings that sad smile back to his lips, and in an instant, I feel that stab of regret back in my heart again. Here is Mitch, about to tell me something really private and really important, and here I am, getting all uppity and sour-faced with him. To express how sorry I am, I cuddle him ever so tightly and softly kiss his neck, wanting him to continue with what I know he wants to share with me. "The whole time I have been in the public eye," Mitch quietly begins. "I have kept the death of my mother very private. All that the world knows is that she had severe postpartum depression and that she took her own life." All of a sudden, I need to hold Mitch much, much tighter. All of a sudden, I have so much more understanding of why that sadness clouds up his desolate blue spheres of his. "That is all that they'll ever know, Rebecca. Because them knowing anything more, is just too much for me to carry." His thoughts of his mother are beginning to take him, taking him to a place that he's not liking to be. "I was two when my mum killed herself and Marcus was eight. That day, she had told my father to have a nice day at work, then she dropped off Marcus at school before taking me to her parents so that she could go and get her hair done. They were happy to do that for her, because mum hadn't been herself for a really long time. Actually, she hadn't been herself from the moment that I was born. So when she said that she was going to have her hair done, my father and her parents all thought that maybe she was beginning to get better." Bowing his head, Mitch despairingly then exhales. "She was found hanging from a tree the following morning by a woman walking her dog in the woods close to our house." His shoulders are now heaving with his breathing, while he struggles to overcome the maelstrom of misery everywhere inside of him. "That was the day that my whole family died, Rebecca." His voice cracks, cracks under the strain of remembering the way in which his mother had so tragically died.

Closing my eyes, I just hold him. I hold him, while my own heart painfully now aches for him. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry for what has happened." I want to cry. I want to fall apart, but I can't. Mitch can be the only one crying and falling apart, it's not right that I should be doing it too.

Through his soul-shaking sobs, Mitch quietly goes on. "I spent so many years blaming myself for her death, then I spent many more years thinking that I was never a good enough reason for her to stay. Thinking that way, never did much for my self-esteem. I was just a boy, carrying that around with him every single day, and no one ever seemed to notice. It was then, that I realised I was good at acting. To the world, I seemed like a kid who totally had his shit together, but I didn't, I really didn't. You see, I couldn't ever weaken in front of my father and my brother. If I showed them any weakness, they would have won, and I couldn't ever let them win. So as a teenager, I threw myself into drama, threw myself into being popular. Academically speaking, I was unremarkable, but socially and in Drama, I thrived. What I lacked in brains, I made up for with popularity and being great in all of the school productions. To everyone around me, they probably thought I was happy, but I wasn't...that was just me being really good at acting." Mitch is now sorrowfully looking me right in the eye, and seeing his tears slowly roll from off his lower lashes hurts me in more ways than I can ever say. "That's why I used to be horrible to you and the other girls at school. You all were so clever, with a happy home to go back to. You had things that I never would. Both my father and my brother were clever, and I used to think that if I could have been more like them, maybe they wouldn't have hated me so much. Maybe if I hadn't been who I so disappointingly was, maybe they wouldn't have blamed me for my mum killing herself." And it is then, that Mitch completely breaks down. For years, he has had this inside of him. For years, it has eaten away at him. So many 'maybes' have weighted him down for most of his life. 'Maybes' that no person should ever have to carry.

Gently taking Mitch's face into the warmth of my loving palms, I begin kissing it everywhere. From his forehead to his temples, I'm emotionally kissing the afraid and confused two year old that he once was. Down to his eyelids, cheeks and his nose, I'm also kissing the misunderstood teenager that he used to be as well. Every painful memory, I'm trying to kiss them all away. Every hurt he now has, my lips just want to lessen those hurts that he has so long been burdened with. "Listen to me, Mitch? You have been holding in so much, for so very long, I need you to breathe again." My voice soothingly dies away.

His breaths are erratic.

His tears are excruciating for me to witness.

"My mum didn't love me enough to want to live, Rebecca." Mitch harshly and rawly sobs out.

Over and over, my loving lips continue trying to kiss away his pain. But I'm up against a mountain of pain, I fear that my many kisses and my boundless love might not be enough to help Mitch...but that won't stop me from giving those kisses and that love. "Please look at me, my darling?" Holding both of his tear-lined cheeks, I'm desperate for Mitch to look at me. I just want him to look into my eyes and to listen to my voice. We all need love. The pure and honest kind of love. Until me, I don't think Mitch has ever had that. Until me, he's only ever had the adoration and fame-blinded kind of love from his fans and previous relationships. But now, he has me. Now, he has us.

Slowly, Mitch focuses on me. Slowly, his sore and sorrowful eyes fix themselves onto mine. Now that I have hold of his glum gaze, I intend to keep loving hold of it. While my fingers affectionately trail themselves over his cheekbones and his jawline, I lean lightly more into him. "What I'm about to say, Mitch, I want that hurting heart of yours to really listen, okay?" My head tilts, awaiting his answer.

With a depressed little nod, Mitch then murmurs. "Okay."

Weakly smiling, becomes my small gesture of thanks to him. "What has happened to you and your family is something so unimaginable, that I'll not even try to imagine what it must have been like, but what I can tell you, Mitch, is that none of it was ever your fault." I smile again at him, this time as a gesture of my pride and my love for him. "Your mum never wanted to leave you, my darling. She was very ill. It wasn't that your mother wanted to die, her illness sadly left her not knowing how to live. That's the painful truth. Her postnatal depression made it impossible for her to think clearly. Her choices were marred by her illness." His sad and dull eyes are still looking into mine, for which I feel so grateful for. "It's tragic, but you were never to blame, Mitch. For both your father and Marcus to keep blaming you for this tragedy, is so terribly wrong and unjust. You need to believe that. I want you to start believing that, Mitch?" My forehead rests itself against his. "They're wrong, my darling...so so wrong."

Mitch's clamped lips imprison a sob, then his arms desperately encircle themselves more around my body. "I only wish I could remember her. I only have the memories of her photographs in my head, not any actual memories of her. Marcus and my father both have those memories of her, but I'll never have them, Rebecca...never." His face drops onto my shoulder, like he just needs somewhere for it to hide while he fights the emotions that are once again storming through him.

With my own silence, I cuddle him tight.

With my own silence, I love him.

When he was nothing more than a toddler, Mitch lost his mother in the most saddest of ways. He was too young to understand, too young to ever ask questions. He grew into a boy, obviously unable to still understand and to still ask questions. While he was growing, so too was the resentment from his own father and brother. For reasons only known to Lance Heston himself, why he ever thought it was okay to lay the blame of his wife's suicide onto the shoulders of his confused and lonely little boy, is something that I'll never be able to willingly understand. He was wrong and he was cruel to have done that to Mitch. And he was more wrong and more cruel to have Marcus also turn against his one and only brother. My heavy and suffocating sadness is quickly turning to flaring fury.

Mitch needs to get away from here.

Away from his father and his brother.

Puncturing my thoughts with his soft yet broken voice, Mitch begins lifting up his melancholic head. "You know that I really do love you, Rebecca?"

I did, I so wonderfully did. "I know you do, Mitch." I proudly tell him with a softly curled smile. "Just like you should know that I really love you too?" My smile reaches my cheekbones before reaching my love-filled eyes.

Exhaling a long sigh of obvious contentment, Mitch's slumped shoulders are now proudly lifting high. "I do know, I really do." Then he presses his lips so tenderly against mine. I can taste all of the tears that he has just shed, I can also taste the invisible hope within his gentle and loving kisses. "Shall we get out of here?" He hoarsely whispers against my mouth.

"Absolutely." Happy to know that we're about to get out of here, I remove myself from Mitch's lap with a buoyant bounce to my body.

Linking our hands together, we leave his poorly lit bedroom. We leave behind all of the pain and the sorrow that over the years has seeped its way into the dull wallpaper and through to its old stonework. While I snuggle into Mitch's arm, we hurry through the hallway and on towards the stairs. Both of us are keen to get out of here, keen to put this evening behind us. While I watch Mitch find our coats, I am hugging myself with a newly known contentment warming every vein in my body. I thought I knew the teenage boy who Mitch used to be, but my god, didn't I misjudge that boy. The teenage me, had such a low opinion of him, she really did. But that teasing and annoying teenager that Mitch used to be, was someone that I never knew at all. Behind his cocky, sometimes mean demeanour, was a deeply hurt and troubled boy. He had that inside of him, and none of us ever saw it. For that, I'll always feel bad about. But you know what? I may have once misunderstood him, even disliked the teenage boy Mitch used to be, but the man that he now is, the man that I know he so wonderfully now is, I do know...and I love him with every chamber of my grown up heart.

"Ready?" Mitch asks me, looking drawn and so completely drained.

"I'm ready." I tenderly tell him, letting a short breath of relief from out of my lungs.

"Where are you going?" From behind us, we both hear Lance Heston.

Turning to face his father, Mitch does so with a tall and proud frame to his tired body, while his affectionate fingers curl themselves tightly around mine. "We're leaving, Dad." He flatly informs him.

"But you've not even finished your starters? What do I tell everyone?" His father asks with well-spoken exasperation.

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Mitch abruptly states, maintaining his curtness towards his father.

Forcing out a quick sharp breath, Lance Heston's face is awash with ruddied annoyance. "Well, I suppose this is only to be expected of you, Mitch...arrive rudely late, then leave rudely early."

Mitch remains outwardly calm, but he is squeezing my hand with how hard it is for him to maintain looking as though he is that outwardly calm. "I no longer care what you think of me, Dad. In fact, I am done with pretending that we are father and son. I have tried with you, I really have. For years, I have wanted your support and your approval. I kept coming back, because I thought that one day, you might be able to give me those things. But you can't and you won't. So, I'm done." Again, he makes himself stand taller, with confident defiance. "I intend on having a happy, love-filled life. I'm not going to keep being your emotional punchbag for mum's suicide. I deserve love. I deserve happiness...and not even you can take that away from me." As the last word leaves Mitch's lips, he then turns his back on his father. His arm comes possessively all around my shoulder before opening the front door. "Let's go, Rebecca." Mitch doesn't wait for anything that his father might want to say, and he doesn't look back. With masculine pride in every step that he takes, Mitch is definitely ready to finally leave his father behind him.

Only I, I feel like I need Lance Heston to hear a few more truths. "I just need to quickly speak with your father." I suddenly feel the need to announce to Mitch.

"Why?"

Stroking his exhausted face, I answer him with a gentle softness to my voice. "I just do...wait for me in the car, okay?"

Mitch's dark brows are knitted together with total confusion, but he eventually mumbles. "Okay." Before reluctantly letting go of my hand.

When I turn around, the front door is still open and Lance Heston is still standing just inside of it, looking rather stunned. In my heels, I hurry back to where he is, hurrying back to say all that I now need to say.