His arms wrapped around me and dragged me out of the way before the wood crushed me. He pulled me to the wall of the tower and pressed me up against it, his body sheltering mine from any other pieces of debris that might come loose and fall.
Fear filled me as I stared up into his angry eyes.
"Who let you in here?" David's voice was hoarse with emotion.
"David, I'm sorry... I..."
"Who let you in here?" He barked the words at me and I cringed away from him. I tried to duck out from beneath his grip that held me in place but he moved closer to my body, pinning me to the cold stone wall. Slowly it began to suck the heat from my body and I shivered.
"I let myself in here... The door, it just sort of opened... The wood was rotting and I was so curious... I think it's so beautiful..."
"So you thought you'd just go snooping around? Sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong and get yourself killed in the process? Is that what you wanted?"
"David I..." I shut my mouth. He was angry and there was nothing I could say to change that.
He let out a sigh and his shoulders sagged. All of the anger seemed to leave him at once and when he returned his gaze to mine his eyes were filled with sadness.
"You could have been hurt, or even killed. I know how dangerous this place is. There is a reason the door was locked..."
I cupped his face with my hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you a fright or make you worry..."
"It's not your fault. It's this place. Mom has had it locked up ever since the accident. It was never in a good state to begin with but they had plans for it. They were having it renovated and it was going to be the jewel in the crown, so to speak..."
He gazed off into the distance as though witnessing a time and a place only he could see. When he shook his head I could see that his eyes had filled with unshed tears. And it left me feeling even more wretched than before. I hadn't asked him about the tower because I didn't want to hurt him. Why did I think breaking in here, almost getting killed, and causing him to remember something from his past would be a better idea?
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to... I'll understand..."
The words hung in the air between us for a few seconds, suspended in time.
"I want to."
Three simple words and yet they made my heart soar to hear them. He wanted to share with me. It made me feel privileged to know that he trusted me enough to tell me about his past.
"I had a sister. Melissa. She was younger than Aaron and me... Far more stubborn and—as far as she was concerned—anything we could do, well, Mel did it better..."
He paused and closed his eyes as he sucked in a deep breath. When he opened them again he seemed stronger.
"They were renovating this place, had all the usual types of scaffolding up and Aaron and I were daring each other to climb it. We were young, I was ten and Aaron was twelve. Mel saw what we were doing and decided she could do it so much better."
He glanced up at the top of the tower before continuing. "She climbed the bars on the outside all the way to the top but lost her grip. She fell in through the window up there." He pointed upwards to a broken window on the top floor.
"At first Aaron and me, we laughed and made our way in here, you know, to rib her about what she had done. We heard her crying on the top level so we got worried and ran up to her but it was too late. As we reached the top the entire floor gave way and she fell through. Turns out the builders hadn't realised that all the floors were completely rotted through. Each time she hit another floor we thought that was it but she just kept falling... She screamed until she hit the last floor..."
I wrapped my arms around his waist. The pain I could hear in his voice, in the way he spoke and the memory he was remembering, was all too vivid. He spoke of it as though it had happened just yesterday.
"It's the silence that really bothers me... The silence after she fell... It was like the world moved in slow motion and that everything lost all of its sound... That haunts me the worst... That and seeing her. She looked like she was sleeping except there was so much blood all around her..."
He cut off then, his voice completely choked by emotion. I hugged him close, burying my face against his chest. Trying to comfort him. But how did you comfort someone who had bottled something up for so long? Who had never truly let go...
"It was my fault... I was the one who dared Aaron. If we had just stayed away..."
"David, it wasn't your fault. You need to realise that. Your sister sounds a lot like you. She would have done it anyway probably just to prove to you all that she could..."
David sucked in another shaky breath and pushed me slowly back so he could look into my face. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him because he dipped his face to mine and kissed me softly.
"I'm taking you back to the city with me today. I have something special planned for you, something I want to ask you. But first I need to go into the office for a little while. One or two things I need to tie up there."
My mind raced at his words. What could he possibly have meant? What did 'something special' mean? I longed to beg him to tell me but I bit my tongue. I knew if I begged he would enjoy holding it over me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and laughed softly.
"Carrie, your face is a picture. It's one of the things I love about you..."
I froze. It was the first time he had uttered the word love to me. I placed my hand on his chest and gazed up at him. His eyes were filled with wary apprehension. As though he was afraid of what I might say.
"I love you too..." I whispered the words. David's face instantly relaxed. His eyes lit up and a smile broke across his face that caused me to smile with him.
"I had it all planned out, you know... The way I was going to tell you that I loved you and then it just slipped out. I was afraid you would think it was too soon for that type of talk."
I smiled and shook my head. "Not too soon and the way you said it was just right. I've been trying to hold it inside... I had the same fear as you. I was sure you'd think I was some type of crazy chick who fell in love with anyone who showed an interest in her..."
David laughed and walked me out of the cold tower and into the warm sunshine. "That is not something I could ever accuse you of. Every day I spend with you and the more I get to know you the more I realise that you don't believe a word I tell you. When I say you're beautiful I can see the doubt in your eyes... I would hope that one day I could banish that from you. Teach you to see yourself the way I see you..."