He held my face between his bare hands and looked down at me. "It's my fault, isn't it Betty? I did this to you?"

I was sited on that familiar chair outlooking the sunset over the wide window of our lodge room with my body covered by a duvet. Enos stood infront of me, worry conveyed in his diamond blue eyes as he touched me.

"Your silence drives me insane." He exhaled, caressing my cheeks graciously but I wasn't being soothed. I found it tiresome responding to him. I just wanted to be left alone. I preferred the silence that he loathed. I was void of the energy needed for that type of conversation.

The man sighed, kneeling before me to level with my eyes. "It wasn't my intention to cause you pain, Betty, you know that. I lost my senses for a moment, and driven by my anger I took it all out on you, I shouldn't have. Please talk to me. I can't bare to see you this way any longer."

May be I heard his words, but they left my ears seconds after. I wasn't looking at his eyes, rather past the crystal orbs. It's like Enos wants even there. Somehow my mind managed to trap me inside my own little world.

It was quiet.

A mental forcefield.

I felt his lips on mine and that woke me up.

I looked straight at him.

"I'm sorry." He said to me. "I'm sorry I hurt you."

"Why?" I asked blankly, "Why did you?"

We took each other in while I struggled to reply without stammering. I gathered my strength but my voice sounded weaker than it ever did. "Were you punishing me? Did you feel any less angry to see me helpless against you?Was it so necessary to keep score in the expense of my virtue?"

His beautiful eyes festered, jaw tensing as I let my sentences reach his ears. Enos looked away from me. A shadow of regret and guilt clouding his handsome face before he looked at me again. "Since the blessed day I met you, I have done everything I could to protect you. When you started weeping in that bathroom, your cries were the toughest pill I ever had to swallow. To be the source of your tears is the last thing I wanted to turn into."

I began to see young Elisabeth running in the school hallways in fear. When nobody else was there to shield her from the wrong people, Enos would show up and defend her without asking for anything in return.

When all is said and done, Enos has always been my saving grace.

"It's not your fault I'm like this." If it brought any relief to his conscious. "I have myself to blame."

I could hear the exhaustion in my voice. If there's anyone to accuse, it's my own inability to fight my battles.

"How do I make this right?" Enos placed his head on my thighs, his voice sublimely languid and clogged with defeat. My words made him stiffer instead of relieved. "Tell me there's a way to fix us."

"I let James touch me and you saw the evidence of it. If anything, I should be the one trying to fix us. May be then you wouldn't have done what you did."

His features tensed even more as he buried his face against my thigh, "Why are you justifying my actions and blaming everything on yourself? I shouldn't have taken you against that wall the way I did Elisabeth. You didn't deserve that."

"What else can I do? I led us here Enos. Somehow I always find a way to destroy everything and now I can't look at you without feeling ashamed and you can't stop feeling guilty for what I pushed you to do?" I was tired of crushing out, but I felt my chest vibrate with very word I spoke. "What more can I say?"

"Tell me you are angry at me. Elisabeth, I'd much rather you curse my name than for you to carry the weight of both our mistakes. I love you too much to bare seeing you suffer like this. You haven't eaten anything in two damn days, you won't sleep, you won't even look at me unless you really have to, you can barely talk. I can't stop myself from feeling like I broke you." I felt his tears on my lap and my breath caught as he grew dense and rigid against my knees. Infirmity and enfeeblement displayed in his frame. Few times I have witnessed Enos breakdown. Mostly in anger accompanied by pain. But now it was just weakness and lassitude.

I run my fingers gently on his smooth black locks with humility as I ignored my own regrets, "You didn't break me Enos. I was already broken before you came along. To be honest, you are my only person left. The only person that has kept me happy after it all went down the drain. You hurt me once, and I can forgive that. Rest assured, you are not the reason I'm turning into this."

"Then tell me what I need to do. Make me understand what is truly happening to you. What can I do to revive you? Betty, You can't go on like this." He looked up at me again and I used my fingers to wipe his eyes.

"All my life it has been me against everything that takes away my happiness. But each time I believe I've won, that I have finally found what I'm searching for, it all disappears. And I get trampled, again and again and again. I'm left behind, mistreated, taken for granted, forgotten. I'm always making the same mistakes and I'm sick of myself. And right now, I can't help but feel as though I have ruined us and that we won't ever be the same."

Enos held my hands between his own, "You haven't ruined us. There is nothing that can take me away from you because I love you so fucking much. And I fucked up, I made a huge mistake but I'm ready to fight for us. Let me do the fighting, let me carry your burdens now that you are too exhausted. Let me bring your hopes back but please........please don't give up on us. I wouldn't be able to survive losing you once again. You made a mistake, and I can forgive that too a million time over so I won't ever have to see you in this condition again."

His honesty and sincerely pierced into my beating heart. The gentleness and compassion of his touch as he drew me into his arms assured me that I wasn't fighting alone. And the tenderness of his kisses coaxed me into peace again. The voices disappeared into an abyss as he laid my body tamelessly on our bed, covering me within his embrace and once again drawing stars all over my 'what ifs'.

We both knew this wouldn't be easy, but the knowledge of facing these battles together gave us courage to fight for what we had. It wasn't perfect, but it was everything we've ever wanted, and that was more than enough. If we could rise above this, then there's hope for us after all.

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