Everlastingly Loving You - Chapter 101

It was selfish, he knew.

Wanting her back without expecting huge repercussions was selfish of him.

He watched as she cried, as his world crumbled apart.

He watched as Clarisse fall apart right in front of him. She was his world. She still was.

Three years with unchanged feelings that had to be buried deep.

Three years he spent working on building an empire to finally be deserving of her love and affection, and to finally be powerful enough to be with her without his family getting in the way.

But if Clarisse refused to give him another chance, he’d understand it, but he’d be devastated.

“Why,” she repeated.

She didn’t say anything else.

She sniffled and sobbed to herself.

“My family,” Blaine spat.

Clarisse moved her head up, her eyes shining with tears.

It reminded him of the moment he’d broken up with her.

He felt a gut-wrenching pain in his heart.

“You were the only reason I didn’t follow in my family’s footsteps.”

“I didn’t want to follow their path, and I chose to be with you.”

“So naturally, they found you as a thorn and an obstacle.”

“And undoubtedly, they wanted to get rid of you by any means necessary, they’d find a way to get rid of you, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

“They’d given me time to do it.”

“Time to push you away before they executed their plan and done something about our relationship that interfered with their plans for me.”

“And coincidentally…”

He hesitated.

“It was before finals.”

“I tried to get them to extend their deadline, but they refused so I had no other choice,” Blaine admitted.

“I promise you, I never meant to hurt you, but if you knew why I broke up with you, you’d try to talk me out of breaking up with you saying we could find a way to fight this. That we could still be together without their knowledge. But that would only hurt you.”

“I’m sorry, Clarisse.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine began getting teary.

“I’m really really sorry,” his voice cracked.

He cupped her cheeks.

She didn’t move away, all she did was stare into his eyes.

“You’re telling the truth?” She asked.

Blaine promised, “I’d never lie to you about this.”

“I’m telling the truth,” he answered then.

Clarisse rethought everything.

“So you didn’t break up with me because you lost interest in me or… or because you found someone else?” Clarisse asked.

“Of course I didn’t,” Blaine answered truthfully.

“I never lost interest in you, I never loved anyone else after we broke up, and…”

“Clarisse.”

Clarisse kept quiet, she’d said enough for now, so all she could do was listen to what he had to say.

He opened his mouth.

“I-I…”

“I love you,” he confessed.

“Clarisse Sarah Adeline Beaumont, I love you.”

“I know you blame me for many things, for hurting you in ways unimaginable, for causing you all this pain and for ruining what love meant to you.”

“I’m sorry that… if I had the chance to redo things, I’d break up with you all over again if it meant it’d protect you from my family.”

Clarisse blinked.

“So what’s different now?” She asked.

On one hand, she was still upset. On the other, she was over the moon. Hearing him telling her he loved her was something she wouldn’t get bored of listening over and over again.

“I can protect you now,” Blaine answered.

“I have the power to protect you now,” he answered.

Clarisse sputtered, “I can’t.”

“I can’t deal with this again, the pain of this all, and…”

She sniffled.

“I can’t try this again,” she said shakily.

“Not with you.”

She nodded, wiping her tears, “I don’t hate you like I did before.”

“I didn’t hate you and love you like I did before.”

She inhaled. Why was she lying to herself like this?

“I’m uncertain,” Clarisse admitted.

Her reasoning for telling him she still loved him was… if she loved someone, she should tell him. And in this case, she knew it was the wrong thing to do, to tell him the truth, that she still loved him over all this time. She knew Blaine hadn’t meant anything, he was never the type of person to do it.

She pleaded her case, “We haven’t talked in years.”

‘Then we have a lot to catch up on,’ Blaine thought to himself.

“And the last time I saw you was when you were breaking up with me,” Clarisse reminded herself.

“Now you’re practically saying you want me back, and I’m not ready.”

“You already hurt me once, what’s to say you won’t hurt me again, even if you had pure intentions the first round?”

She remembered how Sophia had shown up to her final examinations with dark eye bags.

People automatically assumed she’d stayed up all night studying, but that wasn’t the case. It was her who kept Sophia up.

She remembered the mess she was after examinations were over, how she refused to eat anything but hot chocolate and desserts.

“How can I trust you?” She asked him.

“How can I trust you again?”

He stepped closer to her.

“Over time,” he replied.

“You can learn to trust me again over time, as much time as you need,” he assured.

“Really?” Clarisse asked, seeking validation. Had she heard him right? Was she worth it?

He nodded, as though he was reading her mind.

“Yes, you’re worth the wait.”

“I’m in no rush. No rush at all,” Blaine said with a small smile on his face.

He bopped her nose, “Besides, we have all the time in the world.”

(Author’s Note: So this is probably irrelevant and boring, but we surpassed 100 chapters, and as a celebration, I decided to post a couple of extra chapters as a show of appreciation and a thank you for all of your support. I’d like to thank you all so, so much for everything, dearest readers. I hope you continue reading my work! <3)