Right in front of Brandon, I laid with my forehead carefully touching his.

The cold, dark room was silent while we laid in his bed, just looking deep into each other's addictive eyes.

Brandon let his hand slightly stroke over my cheek and the feeling of his warmth made me smile. I felt so safe.

This session was not quite like the others we had.

While I moved my eyes to inspect every part of Brandon's half-naked body in front of me, I noticed the feeble, purple marks around his neck.

It was not the first time I saw them, but I come to notice that I never asked about them before.

The marks were nearly visible, but I had spotted them with my eyes before.

It made me sad to think about what may have happened to him. Did someone try to strangle him? Did someone cut him over his throat? Did he have some kind of surgery?

I caressed my hand over his pale bare chest and let my fingers play around a bit before I let them slip upwards to touch him by the marks.

Carefully, my fingers stroke over the area of the sensitive, purple-colored skin.

"What happened?"

I knew those words would be enough for him to understand what I was referring to.

Brandon grabbed my hand and took it off his neck to hold it tightly instead.

I looked at him patiently while waiting for an answer but he kept his mouth shut. I wanted him to talk to me, I wanted him to tell me everything about himself and his traumatic past, and I figured that the scars were one part of it.

"Please, Brandon. Talk to me,"

I kept my voice calm and low to not destroy our beautiful moment. I watched Brandon's chest move up and down in intensive motions and I noticed his discomfort.

He bit his buttomlip carefully before he opened his mouth insecurely. He sighed out loud.

"It was a stupid, failed suicide attempt,"

The words that left his mouth were short and he didn't look me in the eyes anymore.

I felt my heart break into hundreds of thousands of pieces and I tried my best not the let the canals flood out the tears. If I would have been standing up at this moment, I would have fallen to my knees of weakness. That information was just too much for me to handle. But I had to remain strong for Brandon. He was the weak one, he was the one who needed help, my help. That was for a fact the only reason I was here from the very beginning.

I couldn't show him my weakness and let his problems get to me in an emotional way. That would really ruin every piece I had left of my profession with him.

"I'm sorry,"

Those were the only words I could come up with. I was too messed up inside to say anything else and I really didn't want to destroy anything between us right now.

"It's alright. Don't worry about it,"

Why did he always have to be so impassive with conversations like this? Couldn't he just let it out for once? That was indeed what I was there for in the first place. Of course it wasn't "alright", he tried to kill himself, end his life...

"Why did you do it?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I noticed I just asked something way too personal after just bringing it up.

It was not up to me to decide how much he wanted to tell me.

Even if my job was to ask questions like this, it was important to always sense the moment first, and this was not the right one for me to ask what I just had.

I felt stupid with unprofession, but it was already too late.

Brandon's eyes turned darker and I could see on his sharp Adam's apple how he swallowed hard.

"Because I wanted to kill myself?"

His words come out rude.

Even if it made me feel disappointed and frustrated, I didn't blame him for responding that way.

I was the one who crossed the line.

Once again I remained silent. Now it was really up to him to decide in which direction he wanted to go with the conversation.

I kept my eyes on his chest while I waited for him to break the torturing silence. I was too ashamed to look him in the eyes right now, and the silence between us did not make it less embarrassing for me.

It was too excruciating that every feeling of mine got twice as strong whenever I was near Brandon. If this would happen with another patient, I would probably just let it out of the world with an apology, or make it appear as a usual part of my job.

But with Brandon, it was different, as with everything else.

Suddenly, he let a loud sigh out again which made me look up at him and meet with his eyes.

"I wanted to get out, out of the world. I was too disgusted and disappointed with myself. I hated myself. The only thing I wanted was to disappear. After realizing that I couldn't even manage to find the man who murdered my family, and what that man had made me do to others, I tried to hang myself,"

A heavy lump fell into my stomach while I listened to what Brandon said. I bit my tongue and tried to keep myself from crying.

"But unfortunately, a police officer found me in time to save my life,"

If it wasn't for Brandon's easy way of telling me all of this, and the grin he made when he told me about his failure, I would have been crying my eyes out right now.

This was just another heavy stone to throw on to the pile of others. It just never seemed to end with him, there was something new to learn about him every day.

I really didn't blame Brandon for doing that after all he had been through. But that didn't change the fact that it got me heartbroken.

"Well, if you would have succeeded, we would never have met,"

I tried my best to keep the good atmosphere between us and talk to him the way he wanted me to. I knew he didn't like it when it got more serious than it already was.

"I know, Beverly. And that's the only thing that makes me proud of my failure,"

His voice made the sound of an angel. Did he actually just say that?

My heart melted by his words and I just got one step closer to falling. This was not only a matter of attraction.

This was something more, something a lot stronger.