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“Um, excuse me? Are you okay?” she murmurs, her curious expression now concerned.
My Last Letter-Heroes of Heartache
I can’t speak or look away from her. She is a grown woman now and she is fucking gorgeous. Some of her features have changed. She has always been small, even when we were kids, she was much smaller than me. She is still tiny but she has the curves of a woman now. Her hair was once black but now it is rich chocolate brown.
It suits her.
Her voice, which was once bright and ethereal is now smoky and sweet, but there is something underneath that. She used to have an easy-going quality about her when she spoke or laughed or sang. Even on her hard days, she was always shining bright. Now she sounds serious and sullen, like even her speech cannot escape the monsters inside of her.
Even though much of her is different, understandably so. It has been ten years since the last time I saw her, after all. Her face is still exactly as I remember it; covered in freckles, large pouty pinks lips, and the most incredible eyes I have ever seen. Eyes that haunt my nightmares. Eyes that I picture every single time I look at another woman. They always fall short. No one has even come close to her beauty, and as much as I have always loved the way she looked, even within my childhood crush, nothing compares to what is on the inside.
I have missed the easy way we laughed together, the smiles that so effortlessly graced her mouth when she was with me. The way she would lean her head on my shoulder while telling me about her dreams and ask about mine. She cared, probably more than anyone else ever has in my life. She cared about what was happening inside of me, in my head, my heart, my fucking soul. I miss the way her hand felt in mine and how she held me when I cried for the broken childhood I suffered. The way her soft skin felt every single time I traced her freckles with my fingers, mapping out the constellations as though she was covered in stars.
“Stone? What’s going on? Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry if the panic attack and having to take care of me messed up your day. I uh, I don’t mean to be such a basket case,” she huffs out a self-deprecating laugh mid-ramble. Even that is different. She was fearless to the point of recklessness. She wasn’t this jumpy little thing in front of me, apologizing for things she has no control over.
When I still cannot bring myself to speak, she tentatively reaches her hand out to touch mine. I watch in slow motion like a car accident waiting to happen. I cannot tear my eyes away from her tiny hand as it connects with mine. She moves methodically, calmly, as if giving me time to decide whether or not her touch is warranted, or acceptable. She softly squeezes my hand, like she’s trying to strengthen me to speak with her touch alone.
Thatis something my girl would have done.
Mine, she has always fucking been mine.
The thought causes my head to snap up from our joined hands. The quick movement has her trying to pull away from me, but I can’t let go. I can’t. I squeeze gently, reassuring her that I’m okay even if I can’t say it. My entire body feels alive for the first time in forever.
Her hand in mine feels like coming home.
“I’m sorry for touching you without your permission. I know you said that hugs and bodily contact are no-goes for you. I just, I don’t know. I couldn’t help it. I felt like it was the right thing to do,” she shrugs, her cheeks turning pink. The color makes her blue-green eyes pop even more than they already do. “You look so sad. Are you okay? Did something happen?”
Her questions pull me back and like a tether snapping, everything inside of me recoils. I yank my hand from hers even though the action makes me physically ill. This is all too much. She is looking at me like a sweet, innocent, concerned woman looks at astranger.Because that is what I am to her right now. She doesn’t know what happened because she doesn’t fucking know who I am.
My soul is shouting at me to pick her up and hug her, kiss her, tell her I love her and that I have missed her more than anything. That my life has been absolute trash without her by my side and that not a fucking day has gone by when I haven’t felt a real-life visceral ache inside of my chest at her absence.
But I can’t tell her a goddamned thing. I cannot say a single thought that is on my mind, on my tongue, screaming to be let out. It is not fair for me to burden her withmymemories and pain. It is not fair for me to subject her to the years of death I wished upon myself when the one good thing I had was ripped from me at the worst time possible. It is not fair to tell her that I fuckinggrieved her deathwhen she is standing right before me.
And I cannot tell her all of these things because I am no longer the person I once was either. I am broken, damaged, a shell of a human. I am dirty and I will taint her, destroy her, if she lets me.
“I have to go,” I rasp, my voice sounding hollow.
I take a step back, her eyes go wide in confusion. I force myself to continue to move away from her, never breaking eye contact because even though I know I cannot be near her right now without doing something I will regret for the rest of my life, the idea of not being able to see her makes me want tofucking die.
My heart is warring with my head. One of them is yelling at me, pleading with me to stay. Reminding me of what happened the last time I walked away from her, the last time I saw her. Reminding me that life is short and fickle and that walking away from her right now could mean losing her again.
The other part of me is much louder though and it’s telling me that losing her right now, after knowing she’s still alive, will be horrible. But not as bad as her knowing that the smart, thoughtful kid that loved her like she was his moon, sun, and sky, no longer fucking exists. In his place, is a monster.
With that thought, I tear my eyes from her somber and questioning gaze andrun.
Nyxon
Pullingintoourundergroundgarage, I park my gunmetal Maserati GranCabrio and take a minute to get my head straight. Ever since the job in Bakersfield, I’ve been off. Even more so than I was before with Ella’s presence constantly throwing me off.
Seeing all of those women and kids, dirty and malnourished in the back of that truck has fucked with my head. Bad. It brought back so many fucking memories of finding my mom and the fact that my sister is still missing. I know in my gut that Carolina is more than likely dead and honestly, I think at this point, I’m actually praying that she is. It’s better than the alternative.
Shaking those fucked up thoughts out of my head, I run a hand through my hair and force myself out of my car. After the trip down south, I was thankful as hell to get called in when Ben, one of our trainers at the gym had to take off for a family emergency. I filled in for him, training his last three clients for the day.
Personal training isn’t my favorite thing to do atThe Den, but with the amount that I work out, I know my way around weights and cardio. I can help out where and when needed. I just prefer the self-defense and group classes. But today, I was happy to do something so normal as going to my business and working a full day at a respectable job. Making a paycheck the honest way.
I know it sounds stupid to want something that’s mundane and average when I could be making millions on the regular slinging guns and drugs in our gang. We do it because we have to and yeah, we reap the rewards of a criminal lifestyle. But it wouldn’t hurt to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day and not fucking hate who I see.
Stepping into the elevator, I pull my phone out and check my messages, seeing I have a few from Gage and Maddox. I roll my eyes already knowing who they are about.
