Chapter 9 (Sienna)

Sienna

10 years later

To my Darlin’ Sin

Love was something I thought was never meant for a man like me. But since that day you stole my bagel and sat on my table, I knew that I was wrong.

You walked into my life like a guardian angel with devil wings, and each time you left a piece of my soul left with you. My love, I know, was not an easy ride; it was dark and suffocating, but I always told you, genuine love is never smooth on the crevice, it’s jagged, filled with a kaleidoscope of colors. I was a bit too jagged, and parts of me spilt onto you.

I have watched you these past 6 years, walk into my life only to leave a bit tainted each time. But like all soul mates, you found your way home to me.

And maybe it was my selfishness that caused all of this. My desire to be loved by you, turned into a cruel obsession and I hurt you. I’ve never wanted to have to do this, but I am afraid that a coward is always that, a coward.

I have left you, and I know upon my leave, you would hate me, but I rather you hate me so much that you jump in your car and leave, with no intention of ever coming back. I have never been a man of many words, but Sienna, I love you with all I am, and even in death I will love you with the piece of what’s left. Take care of him and love him for both of us.

Yours always and forever

Gabriel

It’s funny how the person you took so long to love could become the one you took one look at and hated. All that love, dying in vain for nothing. Not even a memory.

I have pictured my death in every scenario.

Falling off a cliff been the unlikeliest way I would die. I was so scared of heights there was not one thing about it I would consider funny.

Growing up, my Uncle knew taking me on a plane anywhere would not happen without some serious Sienna tantrum. So he braced himself for days in advance before we left.

And then, too, I ended up either on a boat, in a car, or staying behind. So dying by falling off a cliff, building or anything with height was not happening. And I loved myself way too much to even consider changing that.

Getting eaten by a shark was an impossibility since I didn't skirt the ocean’s waters regularly on any basis. I kept to the safe parts of the beach and mostly just let the water wash over me from the safe side of the shore.

A car knocking me whilst I ran across the road was the silliest way I could die, and also not a possibility I would have considered. Seen as I lived in an enormous house most of my life in a small stuck-up town called Liston Hills designed solely for the wealthiest people and their rich stuck up kids. They never saw me walking on the road, besides the distance it took me to get to my motorbike or car.

Choking on chocolate cake? Yes, I could die like that, I devoured a lot of cake and my ass showed just how much of it I ate. Running until my limbs fell apart? It was a possibility. I ran a lot, that however did not show anywhere on my body. Maybe getting killed was the best option. That happened a lot to me, considering I was never the one they wanted. And last, falling off my motorbike would not happen in the near future since my bike now sat at my uncle’s penthouse in Washington.

Over the last 28 years of my existence, I have imagined every likely way I could die. Old age, not one of them because I knew death wanted me sooner. I was too wild not to accept an invitation.

At 16, I was forced to leave home before I even finished school because I was naïve and dumb enough to fall in love with my cousin’s half-brother and trusted him.

A guy as unattainable as the immortality I wished I could have every time I sat down to read a fiction book. Not only was he incapable of love, but he had one obsession and that obsession was one of the very few people in the world I loved and really liked. She was the person I happily lived in the shadow of because she was beautiful inside and out, my cousin, best friend and the reason I was in my current situation, Natasha Bray.

Of course, you are wondering why this isn’t about her, and about me. It needs to be clear I am the bitch. The infamous trouble maker, the girl so bad that she gets chased out of her town in the middle of the night with a backpack, a couple grand and a car.

Yes, that is me, Sienna Bray. Liston Hill’s most infamous slut and the Famous Bray family’s biggest disappointment. Well, now I was the 2nd biggest disappointment in my family, since my bad-ass, sexy, popular cousin, Kylie Bray fell in love with her stepbrother, Vincent Stone, who was a member of the mob and shot the guy, dead, in his hotel room.

Yes, well, Kylie definitely topped that podium. Had to give her points when she got free and disappeared. Poof, gone, like smoke and air. There were rumors about where she went, what happened to her.

And if you went searching long enough and knew where to go, you would find her. Well, what was left of her? She wasn’t the same girl after her time stuck in a prison cell. Guess anyone would change after that, though. I knew there was much more to the story than that.

I also knew Kylie was done with her family, apart from two people, and one of them needed her help. The other one I was not even going to think about right now.

Which was the reason that brought me to now, contemplating an alternative way of dying that didn’t include me and a car as I reminded myself to breathe?

My pulse and erratic heartbeat do nothing to ease the pain that is coming from the wet area around my torso down to my abdomen as I head straight down the unfamiliar road. It is so dark and my lights are on dim to save the bit of life this piece of junk car has left in it.

The shitty machine was not meant to last for longer than this trip, anyway. I bought it for one reason, ‘Get me here’ now I was here, but not exactly where I needed to be.

“Just hold on a minute, sweetheart,” I yell, as I breathe in deep, taking quick breaths as my stomach screams in pain as the insides of my body closes up again. This time is worse. Breathe, Sienna.

The burner I bought lays useless on the empty seat of the car I bought in Houston. Another bout of pain hits me. I barely keep the car on the road as it swerves. I scream I can't die. No, please not yet. Not until they are safe.