Forget Me Not (Forgotten Series Companion Chapters)

Lost Souls

Caeda

I moved through the woods. I couldn't be around anyone anymore. People looked at me with pity, they tsked and told me they were sorry. I didn't need them to continue to remind me of him. I gave a heavy snarl, slamming my fist into a nearby tree. I needed the pain to drive him out of my mind. I couldn't think of him anymore. It hurt too much.

There was a space in my chest where he used to be and now it was empty, hollow, painful. They all shook their heads, reaching out to me to apologize but all it did was bring that pain to the front, remind me that he was no longer there. Even my family pushed down on me. All of them pressuring me to talk about things, about him.

I didn't need that. I didn't want that. I wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to be reminded of the future that I lost, that was stolen from me. I gave another snarl and punched the tree again. I wanted the physical pain to drown the thoughts out out. I didn't want to think about it! Why did everyone want me to think about it?

I hit the tree again and again and again while my eyes burned. The what ifs were pointless. The thoughts of children that would never be born, the names for them that would never be used because the male I had loved so much was dead. I was breathing heavy as I grasped the tree and rested my head against the rough bark, my knuckles throbbed from the damage I had inflicted on them.

Gabriel was dead and people kept bringing him up. As if I didn't feel echoes of him everywhere I looked, as if I didn't hear him when the world was quiet, as if I didn't look for him in moments of joy that grief dashed across the ground because he wasn't there. He would never be there again. Never again would I reach out and have his hand grasp mine, I would never be pulled to his chest, never be teased by him, kissed by him, loved by him.

I curled up at the base of the tree, wrapping my arms tightly around myself. They never understood that they didn't need to remind me of him because he was everywhere. I couldn't escape the memories of him and they tore at my soul. I was bleeding on the inside and every reminder they gave me made it worse. Everywhere I looked, I went, and I hid, he was there. Algus was filled with memories of Gabriel.

I let out a small sob and curled up tighter. I was stuck in a place of never ending torment. I was living with the ghost of my future, of the male who had once held my heart in his hands and told me that he would never drop it. But he had, not deliberately, but it had fallen all the same. I thumped my head against the bark and pressed my face into my knees. I just wanted it to stop.

"Caeda?" Aiden's voice had me trying to quell the sounds that were escaping me. I didn't want to deal with him right now. "There you are." I could hear him moving closer and I just wanted him to leave me alone. I just wanted to be left alone. Why couldn't they understand that?

He sat down beside me and I held my breath, trying to stem the flow of sobs that were trying to escape. "Its cold out." It was a statement that I knew he was using to get me to come out of my position but I didn't want too. I wanted to follow my wolf's instincts, find a place far away to lick my wounds in peace. I never had any peace. Everyone hovered, they guided me but they never gave me what I wanted.

"Cae." He touched my shoulder and I jerked away from him, pushing myself further into the tree. I wanted to be left alone. "Caeda, we should go home." I didn't want to go back there, to go back to see my siblings with their families, to see Lace with her belly getting bigger with the type of future with Gabriel that I had ached for. I didn't want to be coddled anymore, treated like a spun glass.

"Go away." The words were croaked out. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to scream it out, lash out at those who approached. I needed space! He touched my shoulder again and I threw out my arm, shoving his away. "Go away." I hissed the words at him as I lifted my head to looked at him through eyes that burned from tears.