Written sa pamamagitan ng Sienna27 on fanfiction.net
This is Part 3 of 4.



HOTCH POV

My New Resolve

It’s been three days since our halik on the side of the road.

For those first twenty-four hours I was going insane with worry. I didn’t know what to do. If I should call her, if I should make sure that she was okay.

But then I decided to give her some time. To let her figure out her feelings before I bombarded her with mine.

After all she was the one who was married.

But . . . she was also the one who had sobbed that she missed me. And she was also the one who initiated our kiss.

That wonderful kiss.

When she first grabbed me I was almost too stunned to react. What I wanted . . . what I needed, was finally right in front of me.

It was like a tourniquet on my bleeding heart.

And then I was clutching her, desperate to keep her with me. To make that moment last forever.

But suddenly she pulled away and I saw the shame on her face . . . and I remembered.

She was married. She had a family. We couldn’t do what we were doing.

It was wrong.

But I couldn’t madala to see her cry either. So I reached for her . . . and she stepped back.

Just out of reach.

My puso clenched when she did that, and I started to scream in my head.

No! Please don’t do this! Please don’t go away again!

Six months nakaraan I had begun to believe that it would be easier to not see her anymore. That maybe my puso would begin to heal.

Then like a miracle . . . all of a sudden . . . she was gone. For months I didn’t see her.

As the segundo buwan passed into the third . . . seven weeks was previously the longest I’d gone without running into Emily . . . it was almost a relief.

Almost.

I hoped maybe I’d begin to ilipat on. But instead, that shimmer of relief in the distance, it morphed into a terrible fear. I became obsessed wondering why she’d disappeared completely from my life.

Was she was okay? Had something happened? How could she have just disappeared?

I looked for her face everywhere. Hoping maybe I’d see her in the hall, or in the parking garage, or in the coffee shop. Even though I had no business at all with her unit, I almost sought her out in her office.

But I just wanted to see her for a second, just to make sure she was all right.

I may have been miserable with her in my life, but my misery was tenfold without her.

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone was a clichéd life lesson that had been slammed into me over and over these past three and a half years.

And as we stood on the side of that road and I saw her slipping away into the darkness, I knew I couldn’t go back to that misery again.

So I called out her name . . . but she ran from me. So I sinabi it again and she moved further back. And then she got into her car and I began screaming . . . Emily . . . Emily, please come back.

But as I saw her marks of rubber on the road . . . I knew she had left me once more.

I picked up Jack yesterday. My son has been a comfort to me, a distraction. I’m immersing myself in his little boy problems.

Should he play Army men or dinosaurs? What book should we read before bed? Which submarine should we take into the bathtub?

Important things like that.

That’s where we are now, in the bathroom. He’s in the tub playing with his submarine . . . he chose the grey one . . . and I’m scrubbing his hair and behind his ears.

Today we went to the park and played catch. He kept missing the ball and he’d run and dive into the dirt. I told him it was okay. He didn’t have to try so hard. But he looked at me like I was crazy. And then he said, “but daddy, how am I going to catch it if I don’t chase it?”

My son is not yet six, but already he is wiser than me.

On the heels of everything that had happened this week, I resolved then and there to go after what I wanted. It’s wrong to break up a family, to break up a happy life. But a happy woman doesn’t hurl herself at you like she’s drowning in quicksand and you’re the only thing that can save her.

And as much as I hate even the thought of her being unhappy . . . I see hope in that. And I allow myself to belief that maybe . . . just maybe . . . she could be mine.

So I’ll give her a few madami days to think. But susunod week I’m going to go to her office and ask her to take a walk with me. And then I’ll tell her how I feel . . . tell her what I want . . . and ask her to decide.

Me or him.

One way or another, I’ll finally know where I stand. But the bottom line is . . . someone has to put us out of our misery.

Just as I begin to pour the cup of water over Jack’s head, I hear the bell.

My son’s too young to stay in the bathtub sa pamamagitan ng himself. Or perhaps he is old enough and I’m just overprotective.

Either way though, he’s coming with me.

I quickly finish rinsing his hair before I pull him out of the bath. He’s still dripping, blinking droplets of water from his lashes as I put him onto the bathmat. I smile as I see he still has his submarine. I gently take it from his hand as I balutin him up in a large fluffy green towel. Then I hoist him into my arms and turn towards the hall.

“Come on buddy, let’s go see who’s at the door.”