Chapter 35 The first time I thought I was loved
Damian’s POV.
I have never felt loved or wanted in my life.
Recalling back to when I thought someone had wanted me.
Her name was Tomika.
I was just sixteen, desperate for love and attention.
My brother had always been the one who got all the attention and care, I was just his shadow.
She smiled at me in ways that made my heart flutter. And for the first time, I believed someone saw me, outside the shadow I always thought I was.
Everyone always noticed Dante, followed him, and listened to him. I was just there, always there, beside him, always doing what I was told.
I was always the fixer, always cleaning up the mess he left behind, and yet, I still moved behind him like I was invisible, like my existence was meant to serve him.
Tomika didn’t treat me that way.
She always listened to me when I spoke and laughed at jokes I never thought were funny.
She always held my hand whenever we walked, sometimes just for a few steps, and I was satisfied.
I always thought her attention meant she cared, I had always thought she wanted me, that I was finally chosen by someone.
But it was my wishful thinking. I was too naive.
I believed that love was meant to somehow exist for someone like me. I was taught to be useful and humbled, so I was thinking it would make people love and need me.
Tomika was beautiful, clever, and charming. She studied me the someone studied a rare painting in a gallery.
She liked my attentiveness and my willingness to help. She liked that I was obedient. She always told me I was different from Dante.
She always said I had that softness that Dante didn’t have. And that she felt safe around me.
I gave everything to her. My attention, my time, my thoughts, and my little victories.
I built myself into someone she wanted, someone who could keep her close.
I was always there to provide for her needs, but u didn’t notice that she changed because I was blinded by her attention and pretentious care.
She stopped looking at me the way I never expected her to. She started wanting something else, something I couldn’t give.
I remembered the day she left.
We had a disagreement like any other couple would.
It was as serious as it seemed and I thought we could talk it out.
I thought she’d stay, that it wouldn’t change anything we had shared between each other.
But she left without hesitation. Just like that. Without a word, she just walked away.
When I ran after her, I yelled, I begged, I told her she mattered. But she didn’t even glance at me for a second.
“You’re just useful, Damian,” she said. “But you’re not mine.”
And she was gone.
I just stood there numb, like a fool. I didn’t get out of bed for days. Everything I thought was fake. She toyed with me.
That was the first lesson I learned. Love doesn’t come without a price, and I wasn’t enough on my own.
I never forgot her.
Years passed, and I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I built walls around that part of me.
I learned that power was easier to trust than people and control was safer than affection.
People could leave, people could betray, but authority never did.
I became ruthless and merciless when needed. I never let anyone come closer than they should.
I still held that pain like a weapon in my heart. I told myself that love didn’t matter to me and that I would never be used again.
Then Isla came. And she made me understand something frightening.
She didn’t chase me or beg for my attention. She didn’t manipulate or flatter.
She just existed in silence and in that way she looked at me without any expectation, and that made me feel the same ache I felt when Tomika left.
She reminded me that I could be wanted and that maybe love wasn’t a trick or a weapon.
She makes me feel like someone could see me more than my usefulness.
But that scared me, because I didn’t know how to handle that.
Every time she smiled, every time she came too close, every time she offered a hand or a glance, I felt my old fear clawing back.
The fear of being abandoned. The fear of being used, and the fear of being wanted so badly that I could break me.
Sometimes I caught myself watching her more than I should. Not as a man in love, but as a man who had learned his lesson once and refused to trust anyone.
The memories of Tomika replayed in my head.
Her words, her laugh, her gaze, and how she left without a word, leaving me to believe that I was never enough.
I couldn’t get that memory, and pain. I just carried it into every choice I’ve made since then. I carried it into every decision I’ve ever trusted someone with.
And now, with Isla.
She was just quiet, and calm. She didn’t need or beg me, and yet, her presence demanded something of me.
I just wanted to protect her… I just wanted to keep her safe, but my heart demanded for something else.
And I hated that I felt that way because it scared me.
And it reminded me of everything that happened in the past.
I started noticing small things. How her eyes looked warmly at mine. The way she adjusted her hair when she thought no one was watching.
How her voice softened when she spoke about schedules or errands. How she was unaware of the quiet pull she had on me.
It was unfair. I didn’t deserve her attention, I didn’t deserve the way my heart ached whenever she laughed.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
I thought about the old Tomika often now. About the lesson I had learned. About the humiliation disguised as affection.
About the way I believed love existed for me and only found emptiness. And now I understood how I had been trying to replicate control over people instead of trusting the connection.
Isla forced me to confront the fact that I learned the wrong lessons.
I saw it in her calm. The way she refused to bend or plead, the way she left without asking me to fix her life.
In the way she left spaces in the room for herself instead of filling them with noise to appease me.
I realized I just wanted her to stay.
And didn’t know how to ask her without sounding weak.
I wanted her to choose me. I wanted her to want me, to stay because she wanted to, not forced to.
But everything I did looked like I was pushing too hard, and if I did, I would repeat the same mistake I had with Tomika and scare her away.
And maybe this time, I wouldn’t be able to survive it.
Staying silent was the only option I had.
I just watched and calculated from a distance. Trying to protect without controlling and tried to be present without overwhelming.
Tried to show care without making her feel trapped.
But I failed in every step I made. Because every time I saw her, every time she looked at me, I felt that old ache. That same ache of being used and abandoned.
And I feared that this time, I couldn’t hide behind those pretense or power.
Because she might see me, she might see the real me.
And what if she chose to walk away, there would be nothing left to shield me from the truth.
Sometimes I caught myself imagining her leaving. Even in moments of quietness and in moments she felt safe… I always imagined her absence.
That thought clawed at me. And that made me realize something terrifying.
I always believed that power was love, control was care, and fear was devotion.
I trained myself to survive a world no one stayed, where no one chose me, and where affection came with conditions.
And now Isla was teaching me that someone could care for me without any condition.
But I didn’t know how to accept that, because acceptance to me meant vulnerability.
And that meant risk and risk, meant pain.
I just wanted to see her safe, I wanted to see her happy and that she existed in my world because she chose to.
And I didn’t know how to do that.
I had no clue of how I could make it happen. I was drowned in my fears and longing.
Just realizing that silence could kill me the same way he did before.
And for the first time in a long time, I understood something personal. The only person who could hurt me like Tomika did, who could abandon and leave me hollow, was standing in my life.
And she was unaware of the storm she had awakened in me.
I clenched my fish and let the memories of Tomika fade, replaced with the raw ache I felt watching Isla exist beside me.
Her silence, her independence… They were everything I wanted.
They were terrifying and dangerous and I feared that more than anything.
Because now if I fail her, I would be alone worse than I had been for years.
Or maybe worse than that.
Because I saw what I had missed in years.
Love wasn’t being used, love wasn’t control, and love isn’t being chosen only when convenient.
Love was about risk. Trust, the waiting and the choice.
And I had never learned that before.
I only learned fear and how to survive. And now, I have to learn love.
And I had no idea how to.