Nick leaned over closer to where Ro-Ena was seated as he placed his forefinger over her lips, signifying her to stop talking. He didn’t want to hear anymore of her traumatic experience with Jay. He realized he wasn’t ready to know the rest. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to know, it was a matter of him not being ready to know. For him, it all felt too much too soon. He felt sympathy for her. He wanted to take her into his arms and promise her that everything was going to be all right, but how could he? He knew he wasn’t capable of taking away all the madness in her life, even if he wanted to. All he could ever really promise to her was to take her away from that madness, but there is no assurance in that, that the madness itself will not follow her.

Once Ro-Ena stopped talking, he looked at her as he slowly moved away and leaned back against the couch he was sitting on. “This all seem to weird, Ro-Ena,” he uttered while placing his arm over his eyes to block the luminosity that reflected out of the floor lamp that stood in one corner of the room.

“What seems weird?” she asked, baffled

“This,” he said while pointing at her then at his own self. “We’ve known each other for how long? 6 hours? And already we’re so…involved with each other…it’s never…I’ve never had something like this happen to me before, not in this way, not in this pace”

“The door is right there, Nick. I’m not stopping you from walking out of there,” she said calmly. She didn’t want him to leave but she also didn’t blame him for not wanting troubles and confusions in his life.

“That’s not what I meant”

“Look, I wish I could change my lifestyle too, I really do! I tried so hard to change it. You think I like having Jay hover at my shoulder every now and then? Why do you think I filed that restraining order against him? But the stupid police are so incompetent of finally catching him and throwing him inside a small dark, dingy cell away from society and away from me after breaking so much of the judge’s rulings,” she reasoned on her behalf. “I want things to go back to the way they were before! I hate living my life in fear day after day. Always wondering if death is right there around the corner of the street waiting to strike on me. Do you have any idea how it feels to walk along life in constant terror, day after day, night after night? What I would do right now to run away from all of this and start new. I’m so tired of being alone. As much as I would love to have tons of friends and go out and party, I can’t because I know whomever is around me, I’m putting their life in danger because within me lurks danger,” she reasoned as she was unable to prevent herself from starting to sob.

Nick grabbed both her hands as he pulled her close to him while wrapping his arms around him, giving her a sense of comfort, even if that comfort lasted for only a minute or two. “I won’t walk away,” he whispered in her ear. “I promise”

She pulled away upon hearing him say that. “Why not?”

“Life always presents you a choice, Ro-Ena. This is your choice right now: to live through your life being scared but at least having one person walking beside you despite it all, or live through your life both scared and alone? The choice is yours. A heed of advice though, I’d choose having someone in my life because there’s nothing worse than being alone,” Nick sympathetically explained to her while he looked deep into her eyes. He spoke not to her face but deep into her soul. “So what will it be?”

Ro-Ena returned his gaze at her, tears still flowing out of her eyes. “I choose you,” she uttered as she leaned in and fell in his arms. For once in a very long time, she felt safe. In his arms, she felt she belonged into. Deep inside she felt a sense of rejoicing. She knew she would never trade that moment for anything because it was a moment where the loneliness that was always in her subsided and hope was finally awakened.

Does the future hold a happy one for both Ro-Ena and Nick? Neither one of them knew. All they both knew was that the second their eyes met, nothing was ever going to be the same again. It was a matter that neither of them really had a choice on. It was how things were meant to be. It was destiny; their destiny, but destiny doesn’t always mean happiness.