Red Blooded

Chapter 26 - The Art of Breaking a Broken Heart

This is the last chapter before the epilogue. Please let me know what you think of it. Please vote as well. I'm content with the way it ended. I'm sad that this story is coming to and end. I won't make this Author's Note too long (I'll leave that till the Epilogue :P) but, let me know what you think x

October....

November.....

 

December.

Four days till Christmas.

For once I had no complaints. To say that I was here whilst time slipped by so suddenly seemed like the greatest gift on Earth. I no longer complained about how little time I had seen day light for, because I would always make the most of the night. The little inconsequential detail of every day life made me humble. I appreciated it more. 

I appreciated a lot ever since I walked out of Dr. Sue's office with a clean bill of health. I was in remission. The cancer was no longer, nor was the White Wolf I had dreamt about. It had all worked out better than I would have dreamed. I was healthy, fit, and stronger - both physically and emotionally. And though I was happy of the matter, I openly admitted it was because of one person.

And that person was usually the one I celebrated the evenings of the last three months with.

Hayden.

The man that I had fallen head over heels in love with. And I wasn't going to question that love because the wolf wasn't a part of me anymore. It wasn't because of some freaky wolf bond that tied me to him. It was the string attached to my heart that pulled me closer to him. I knew he felt the same way. I wasn't a fool. The way he would look at me sometimes made me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. To find love more than once, true love, that made me lucky, right? It had to be luck.

Dr. Jefferson had insisted that I still see her for checkups - Hayden included. He went with me to see Sue as she confirmed my health status, and in the same moment, she confirmed that Hayden suffered no ill effects because my wolf had become extinct. I could still feel his arms around me when we got to the car and hugged me as if it was his last hug.

But it wasn't.  

He hugged me on a daily basis, sending what felt like a never ending supply of fluttering butterflies to the core of my stomach. I yearned for him. Lately, I had become painfully aware that I had been celibate for over fifteen months. And it was only whenever Hayden was in my company did that fact not escape me. The blush that rose to my cheeks were prominent features that no amount of concealer or foundation seemed to hide.

"You're blushing again." He noted, throwing the last popcorn into the air and positioning himself so that it dropped into his mouth with acute precision.

I turned away from Noah and Allie making out in the rain to look up at him and snorted. "I'm not blushing. I'm flushed. The Notebook does that to me." I responded swiftly. I tried to swivell my legs away from his lap but he held them firmly in place. My feet stayed snugly comfortable under his grip. 

"I see it. Allie is fit. Especially in the rain. Talk about your wet t-shirt. Ooof." Hayden's brows wiggled suggestively. I laughed, shocked. He was usually a little more together. Being called a prude wouldn't be totally off the mark for him, either. My feelings were surely already known to him; yet in the last three months, whenever we were close, his eyes would glisten with an emotion that I was not familiar with and he would move away, almost always leaving me frustrated that I had become one of those pathetic females I had sworn I never wanted to become. Ever.