Hidden Within the Moonlight

Prologue

Aspen

I remember so much of the day I left. It was almost like a breath of fresh air. Although most people would have seen it as a bad thing.

I thought when I left that my entire world would fall apart.

I now know that that wasn't the case at all.

Glancing around at the life I now have, I realize that there was so much that I was missing.

He was what I was missing.

Everyone likes to say that he ruined me, that he stole me away from everyone.

In reality, I feel like it is the other way around.

It was all so different. It was all such a battle. I remember the night he took me away. I remember those green eyes, the color of the forest. The way I could get lost in those beautiful eyes. But I always doubted that he got lost in me. However, he did get lost in the idea of stealing me away. Taking me away from what I knew and making me create a new life to live. A life I thought that I would hate at first. Now, it is all I want in life.

I want his smile.

I want his touch.

The man everyone called a monster.

Who I used to call a monster.

I spent so much energy running and fighting him off. So much energy in trying to save my own self. There was once a time that I thought my fight was to protect my family, but it was to protect myself from them. Protect myself from him. From his games and his taunts. His harshness and cruel sense of being. The way he would so easily spit his venom into the world like it was second nature to him. He carried his presence that if he made one wrong move, the world would completely end. I never knew what was going on behind those green eyes, but my body yearned to know. Know what he was hiding. Know what turned him so cold.

Know what made River Manick tick.

I spent so much time trying to figure out who he was. Everything about him called to me, even when I knew that it shouldn't have. River was alluring and always around the corner. He had been around most of my life, but I never noticed him much until I was seventeen. It was my birthday, and my family being who they are hosted a giant party. He showed up with a small box with a note. A note I never opened until it was too late.

I still to this day don't know why I never opened the note. Why did I not think to open that stupid note?

Maybe because he scared me. Maybe because he was a family friend and I assumed it was just a simple "happy birthday" note. I kept the letter though. It forever stayed with me. Why did I never read it?

I stare down at the bracelet, my fingers lightly touching it. The bracelet was what was in the box that came with the note. The gold shines in the afternoon sunlight, and I smile thinking back to the memory. I never asked how he knew I wanted the bracelet, I had only told my father when we were traveling around Scotland. I fell in love with the simple gold band with a single carving, a moon crescent. I always loved the moon. I loved the night. The way everything calms and quiets at night. How people are able to let their guards down in the darkness of the night and be themselves. The night provided a chance for freedom and reflection.

Sitting in the grass, I look up at the sky. A small smile threathens my lips, and for a moment I think about letting it take over.

Maybe River Manick was a monster.

A cruel unforgiving monster who was cold and never an open book.

I was once scared of him. I once convinced my own being to believe he was the monster that could make the Devil owe him a favor. And that may be true. But no one is a monster simply because they want to be or because they chose it. There is always more.

I sigh. "There's always more," I mumble to myself.

More to the story, more to the person, more to the situation. More to everything.

I pull my knees to my chest. The fear, the coldness, the way he never opened up or spoke up that's what drew me into him. I like to think that I knew what the end of the story was going to be, and that is why my brain fought to be near him. To choose him. Even in times when I wanted nothing but to be rid of him. When I was too stuck in my own fear to mention his name. Then I remember the he was always present in my life. For my entire twenty years of life, he was there.

River Manick was always there.

The monster worse than the Devil himself was there.

We watched each other.

Haunted each other.

In another life, the story may end up being different.

Maybe it will never change.

But River Manick is a man that I knew would change my world forever.

And I was desperate for change.