Free Driven by Love by Marian Tee

too afraid that one day he would tire of pretending.”
    “They really loved you,” she told him softly. “Aunt Sam told me about your life…I knew from her words alone, they loved you.”
    “It was hard for me to believe it.” He looked at her evenly. “You of all people should know that there are things you care too much about to easily believe in.”
    Touché, Bobby thought, looking away because she couldn’t bear seeing the intense emotion in Leandro’s own eyes. There was a promise in those bright blue eyes, something she did care too much about to easily believe in herself.
    “I knew it was a risk not to call you, not to write to you, but I had to do it. It was my punishment, not just because of what I had done to my father but because…” He inhaled sharply. “Because of what I had done to you . If not for that year of mourning, for surviving each day even though I ached – I literally ached to be by your side, I don’t think I’d ever feel I have the right to enter your life again.” An empty laugh escaped him. “But then, maybe I still don’t have the right.”
    “Don’t talk like that.” She couldn’t help saying it, didn’t want to hear the pain and defeat in his tone. The Leandro Christopoulos she knew was not the kind who took such losses easily. He was strong and powerful, the kind who battled dragons without fear. It hurt to know, to really know that she was the reason he was hurting.
    “Talk like what, Bobby? Talk like I’m afraid I’m about to lose the greatest thing in my life?” He dropped the knife he was holding, and Bobby flinched at the clanging sound it created as it hit the counter. The next thing she knew, he had gone around the counter and spun the stool around so she faced him.
    “Have I lost you for good, Bobby?” he whispered harshly. “Tell me before I go out of my mind. Tell me I have a fucking chance.”
    “Stop it,” she said, covering her ears as his words lashed at her. “I don’t want to hear—”
    Leandro pulled her hands away, continuing in the same hard tone that spoke of agony and love. “Tell me I have a reason to look forward to tomorrow. Tell me, mégaira—”
    “I said STOP IT—”
    “If I stop, then I might as well have admitted I’m going to stop living,” he shouted. “Is that what you want? Is that what you really want, Bobby? Do you want me gone from your life? Do you want me dead—”
    “No!” She sobbed the word out. Just the thought of losing him permanently was enough to rip her world apart and expose the truth about her feelings. She loved him. She still loved him. She would always love him and she would die if he died—
    “Then take me back!”
    “I can’t,” she cried out. “If I do, then I am the one who’d die. Because that’s what you did when you didn’t tell me the truth and I h-had to learn about your deception from another person. I d-died when you told me you d-didn’t love me—”
    He said urgently, “I was lying—”
    “How can you expect me to believe you? You can’t believe your parents can see something in you to love and when y-you told me that you n-never loved me, you made me think there was nothing in me to love either.”
    He started to speak, but she shook her head at him. “You told me that every day when we were apart, you died. Well, I died, too. But the difference was I couldn’t let anyone see it. I was so sick with depression and I couldn’t let anyone know about it. I had to hide it from my parents when I started getting treatments in a clinic. I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I was too ashamed.” Tears choked her voice as she made the agonizing admission. “I was so ashamed about being the smug idiot who thought I could make someone like you love me—”
    “But I do,” he grated out, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest at the fears Bobby exposed about herself. He closed his eyes for a moment, his mind crowded with images of Bobby being literally sick with the