the past that haunts

CHAOS

I was a man of little reservations.

I could do anything I wanted.

Act any way I pleased.

And live however I chose to. Without consequences.

That was how it had always been, and that was how I intended for it to always remain.

But fate… it tested me.

Often.

Too often.

My lungs burned as I inhaled long drags of the cigarette between my lips, burning through the cancer stick in seconds.

I was in a mood. One of the worst ones I had been in since the accident two years ago. And just thinking of that made me think of her.

Merrielynn Forbes.

She had shown up at my school less than a week ago.

Looking every bit like the girl I once knew. Wavy blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and a face I had never been able to burn from my fucking mind no matter how hard I tried.

And believe me, I had tried.

It had been two years since the last time I laid eyes on her. Two years since she was banished, and sent away from the world we shared. Two years since she opened her eyes after that car accident and looked at me with that vacant stare, that obvious lack of recognition.

That day was one of the worst days of my life.

The second on my list was the day they sent her away.

The day they separated us.

I never thought I would see her again, never thought I would ever get the chance. Not after everything everyone did to ensure her existence was wiped from the face of the earth.

But like a ray of light in the darkness that had swallowed me whole for the last two years, she was finally within reach.

Close enough to look at.

To smell.

To… claim.

Close enough to realize that she still, after all this time, didn’t remember me.

Close enough to feel the fact that she was my fucking mate.

Fucking goddess.

My mate.

Sixteen-year-old me would have exploded at his seams if he knew the girl he lost would one day come back to him—not only a shell of the person he once knew, but also tethered to him by the goddess herself.

But I was no fool.

She might have looked like the girl I once knew, but everything about her was different.

One thing that remained the same though, even though she didn’t know it, was that she didn’t fear me. Not in the least bit.

And the evidence of that stared back at me as I studied the mess of my car in my garage. I hadn’t gotten it fixed yet.

Not sure why.

Might have been because I had my hands busy with other matters… matters such as ensuring that I injected myself into her life in every way possible.

I had gone out of my way to ensure that I could keep her close—but far enough that I wouldn’t lose myself in her. That I wouldn’t be consumed by her very existence.

Because I barely survived losing her.

But I was a bitter man, with a bitter heart. A heart that still bled, and pounded for the girl he lost on that bridge two years ago.

If the accident still wouldn’t let her remember who I was, then I planned to make sure that she would never be able to forget me again.

She could resent me.

She could try her best to get rid of me.

But I had ensured that everything would play out exactly as I wanted it to.

Like a domino effect of my own doing, one by one, the pieces would fall, and Merrielynn wouldn’t know what was coming before it hit her.

Call it petty.

Call it unfair.

But every second I looked at her, filled me with an insatiable amount of rage.

Rage at what I lost.

At what I could have had, if fate hadn’t chosen to be so cruel.

But that same fate had taken it upon itself to place her in my path once again.

And this time, I would be damned if I let her slip away.

This time, I would be damned if I let us be separated again.

I planned to inject myself into her very being, till the lines blurred between where I began, and where she ended.

Fate wanted to play a game with me.

And so did the goddess.

Just like last time.

Only this time… I intended to win it.