Destined Part I

Disenchantment

The next day, I did not want to wake up. I didn’t want to leave the bed, the warm sheets were shielding the wind from whipping through this hole in my heart.

My sleep was jagged, and my eyes were swollen from the tears that I couldn’t fight. I had spent the night with my arms wrapped protectively around my chest, squeezing my heart because it felt like if I let go, it would fall to pieces all around me.

I couldn’t put a finger on how I had let Haiden get inside of me. He was ingrained in my soul, and no amount of effort was allowing me to ignore what I felt when he was around. I had tried so hard to be patient, to not let myself move too fast. But I failed, every time he looked at me that way I failed.

The image of him walking away burned behind my eyes, something I would never forget. I had never in my life allowed someone to hurt me as Haiden was doing right now. And it was no one’s fault but mine.

I fell for his charm, and gave into my own desires, allowing him only to devestate me. Only I was to blame for being so careless. And because of my carelessness, here I was, completely and irreversibly in love with someone that refused to love me back.

The thought sent fresh, hot tears to my eyes again, and I blinked them away, one single drop breaking free and rolling slowly down my cheek. The cold trail the teardrop left was just a reminder of what would never be.

I laid there suffering silently, wishing I had never come to this place. Wishing I would have stayed in Austin. Let the sunlight burn my flesh, I didn’t care. Anything would be better than this. It was too much for one person to have to bear.

The pain came in swells with each breath. Every time I inhaled, the broken pieces in my chest seemed to pierce the edges of my soul. When I exhaled, a dull, throbbing ache still remained. My cheeks grew damp from teardrops, and when the breath would catch in my chest on a sob, I buried my face in the pillow in hopes of suffocation. I figured death would be an appealing alternative to the way I felt right now.

But the clock still ticked methodically on the wall, and I was still alive.

The only other sound throughout the room was my shallow, shaky breath. The tears streamed endlessly and silently from my eyes, and everything inside of me hurt.

The misery was ruling me, holding me stiffly in the bed, wrecking my spirit as each minute passed. The moment I had lost control of my heart was the moment I had let the sorrow in. But I welcomed it now with open arms.

I laid, wrapped in the melancholy for another hour. Eventually, somehow, I forced myself off the bed, shuffling into the bathroom with the covers still shielding my body.

I turned on the shower, dropped the sheet to the ground, and sat in the tub with my night clothes still on. Laying my head down on my knees, I let the spray numb me from the inside out. Maybe if I sat here forever, the water would finally drown me.

Time passed so numbly and obliviously, that the only feeling that registered was the pressure of the stream beating against my back. It was like a drug induced fog, and I had no desire to come clean.

Eventually a muffled knock sounded on the bathroom door, breaking through the nothingness. I grunted instead of answering, but the door opened anyway.

Grace pulled the curtain back and gasped in surprise at me curled up against the shower wall, my sopping clothes stuck to my body.

“Oh honey,” she sighed, her voice cracking with emotion.

She looked over at Cain, who was waiting in my room. Her eyes were rimmed with tears when she turned to him, pleading, and he came into the bathroom, gingerly lifting me out from under the water.