It Had to be You

A/N: This is not a fanfic in what is generally meant by the term. My hero is inspired by an actual individual, but as I've worked on the story, he's taken on a life of his own, and the only characteristics he shares with that person are his first name and his nationality.

Prologue

“Then like a ton of bricks the dawn descended.

Recalcitrance was hurtled to the floor.

The citadel lay breached and undefended.

You brought a love I’d never known before.”- Robbie Williams, “You’re the why”

Can you control whether or not you fall in love? Boy, what a question! That’s like asking someone to solve the mystery of life, the universe, and everything. Sometimes people talk about human emotions as if they’re controlled by some internal switch, and one can choose whether that switch is in the on or off position. This has always been my philosophy. When you’ve grown up with an alcoholic father and verbally abusive mother, you learn quickly how to mentally shut yourself down. As a child, I'd always internalized my thoughts and feelings, being under the mistaken impression that I was doomed to be misunderstood. I guess you could say that my emotional light switch was always in the off-position. My heart had been shattered and roughly sown together again so often that it no longer resembled a heart. I gave up hoping that the gaping cracks in my soul would ever be filled; that is until I met Robbie.