Athena's POV

"Athena are you okay," Max asked me as he pushed a strand of hair off of my face. "Yea, I'm fine. Don't worry," I said as I felt really sweaty and sticky from the tears on my face. "What happened," he asked me as he softly stroked my head.

I sighed as I saw that he was really worried. "It's nothing," I said as I gave him a weak smile. "You were hysterically crying Athena. You scared me," he said. I started feeling guilty as I scared him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," I said but he just shook his head. "You are really something else Athena. Will tell me what happened now? You know you can tell me anything right," he said. It's like he just used my words from earlier.

"You aren't going to stop until you get what you want, aren't you," I said and he nodded. I chuckled at him. I've been bottling this up for far too long and I guess I should let go now. "Let me just wash my face and I'll be back," I said as I made my way to the bathroom.

As I came back, Max was sitting there with the blanket wrapped around him. "So where do I start," I said lowly. "From the beginning," he said, making me roll my eyes. "So, several years ago, I met this guy, Shawn. He was a nice guy when I first met him. We met at the park near my house. He was all charming and stuff. We would run into each other a lot and then we started going out and I became his girlfriend. Then it all started when it had been a month of us being together and I was talking to him on the phone when he asked me for my social media accounts password. We started arguing because I didn't want to give it to him. But in the end, he started accusing me of hiding things from him so I ended up giving up. Slowly, he started blocking guys from my account. Gradually, he started keeping track of wherever I go. He would get furious when I would go out and not tell him. At this point, I felt suffocated and I just wanted my freedom back," I said as I paused because I felt the tears accumulating at the rim of my eyes.

"I decided to end things with him. Well that definitely didn't go as planned. He got beyond angry. He started threatening to kill himself. Me being the 15 year old, I didn't know what to do. I was scared and was stupid enough to apologize to him for thinking about breaking up with him. Oh yeah there was the time when we met while we just started dating, he forcefully kiss me. Stealing my first kiss. I felt truly disgusted but I didn't say anything because I thought that was okay. I just remembered that," I said as I squeezed my eyes at this bitter memory which is permanently stuck in my head.

"Continuing, a year went by and he kept controlling my life more and more and more. He would come to pick me up from school and walk me home. I had to convince Dereck and Jason to stop talking to me because Shawn would get angry whenever I would talk to a guy. He would threaten me that he would beat them up. I never knew that he was being excessive. I just brushed it off because I had already put it in my mind that I will be stuck with Shawn for the rest of my life," I said as my voice trembled. A tear slid down my cheek as I closed my eyes.

"It's okay if you don't want to finish," Max said as he rubbed my back. I shook my head and looked at him. "At this point, I started falling into depression and Shawn kept on worsening things. When he would get angry for me not answering his calls, he would slap me when we would meet up and apologize and say that he didn't mean to do that. One time, I wasn't agreeing to say 'I love you' to him and he started threatening me that he would hurt Eros. That was my breaking point. Despite not feeling anything other than vehemence for that man, I had to those words to him. I always felt sick and disgusted saying those words to him," I said with now a waterfall running down my face. Max cupped my face in his hands while wiping away my tears.

"Mom started noticing that I would seclude myself a lot and I would often scream because I would get nightmares. She would comfort me but one day, I tried killing myself. I felt like a burden to mom as I would find her crying because I was scaring her. Mom was able to stop me from hanging myself when she saw me hanging a rope in the bathroom. She was broken to see me like that and I realised how much pain I was causing my mom by even thinking about killing myself. That day, I ended up telling my mom everything about Shawn and what a controlling and manipulative bastard he was. We lodged a complaint against him to the police and gave them all the details. Shawn got restraining orders and never seen since then. Nevertheless, I was still traumatized and would have suicidal thoughts frequently. I managed to suppress it all inside. Since then, I would always be getting nightmares of Shawn hurting my family. I would be there but not able to do anything. It would get scarier and scarier everytime. Finally mom got me Pegasus' books for my birthday. I would spend my entire time reading it and it basically saved me from the darkness that was shadowing me. His words meant a lot to me and it helped me opening up to Dereck and Jason more. It took me a few years before finally getting over my depression. Dereck and Jason would send me to a therapist and I recovered. So finally it has actually been over like five years since I had a nightmare. This nightmare that I just had was just a memory when he was threatening to beat me up because I wouldn't come meet him," I said as I finally let out a deep breath.

"Athena," he said as he pulled my face up to make me look at him. "You are the strongest woman I have ever met," he said as he looked into my eyes. I couldn't help the tears falling. "For the little amount of time that I have known you, you never seize to leave me in awe. I am proud to call you my fiancee," he said. With his thumbs, he stroked my cheeks as he wiped my tears away. Oh God, I am so in love with this man.

Max started to lean towards me. I sat there frozen, from both uncertainty and excitement. His hand drifted to my hip and settled there as he pulled me closer. He angled his head slightly to the side and leaned closer and closer. Finally closing the gap between us, I felt his lips on mine. He pressed his tongue to the seam of my lips asking for entrance which I granted without hesitation.

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I truly want to know your opinion on this chapter. So please make sure to comment your thoughts.

This chapter is touchy for me and I hope you guys like it.

-Love Mokshda