“I need to find her, Ski.” But the look in his eyes tells me I never will.
"Her phone. I can trace it." I pull out my phone to call Gage but then Ski holds his hand out.
"This one?"
Fuck!
I’m jolted awake by the nightmare that has haunted this night for eight years. January 22nd.
Happy birthday, Leo.
An arm drapes across my chest. But it’s not hers.
A scent invades my nose. But it’s not hers.
A moan escapes as she rouses awake. But. It’s. Not. Hers.
I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of my bed. The cold of the floors seeps into the soles of my feet, but it doesn’t affect me anymore. Why would it? When you live without your sun, you getused to the cold. Everything in my life is dull, void of any color, absent of her.
“Everett, come back to bed.”
“I have a plane to catch, Nat. You need to leave.”
I run my hands down my face, disgusted with myself. The sickness I feel in my chest is ever present as this day haunts me. My stomach is constantly in knots, never giving me a reprieve from the guilt and disgust I feel for myself.
As much as I despise myself for it, I couldn’t cut Nat out like I had wanted to. Not after Leo ran. Nat is a comfort. Someone who knows me—knew me. Who has been there. Even when I pushed her away. No one knows me now though. I don’t even know me anymore.
Nat came back into my life two years after Leo left. I guess she thought I needed time. I guess she didn’t understand what I meant when I told her I wanted nothing to do with my parents or anything to do with their life. She wanted me to come home. But I couldn’t come home. At least not permanently. I’m sure Nat was expecting the old me, but what she found was a ghost. And as much as I once thought I would marry Nat, I never could. I couldn’t then, and I sure as fuck can’t now. A part of me still loves her, a very distant part, but nonetheless, Nat is the person I have known the longest in my life. She was my best friend since we were three, and then she was my girlfriend till we were seventeen. And she never left me. Never ran from me. But she isn’t the one.
There is only one.
And I can’t find her.
She ran.
She ran from me.
But I will catch her. I always do.
“Everett, please. I miss you. I hate only seeing you every few months. Come home.”
“Nat, you know what this is. A release. Nothing more. It will never be more.”
“But it can—”
“Natasha. Stop. Just fucking stop.” The anger in my voice startles her.
Checking my phone, I have less than an hour before I need to leave for the airport. Time for her to go. “When I come out of the bathroom, you need to be gone.”
With that, I slam the door and try to wash away my sorrow, my anger, but it's painted to my skin like glue.
The click of the door tells me that Nat has come into the bathroom. I can feel her looming, wanting to say something. “Everett?”
“What, Natasha?” I couldn’t keep the irritation from my voice if I tried, but I don’t try. Because I don’t care.
“Is this all because of her? Because of Leora?” Her voice is no longer thick with envy, but pity.
I don’t know why, for the life of me, I continue to fuck her. Every time, I feel fucking sick, like I am cheating on Leo. I’m still hers. But I’m a man, a man who has needs, and ever since Leo carved my beating heart out of my fucking chest and ran with it, I haven't been able to move forward. So, I moved backwards, back to what and who was comfortable. Nat meets my needs, so fucking desperate for meshe will do just about anything. The old me may have felt bad about using her, but now, fuck it.
