Intimacy | ✔️ {Wattys 2017}

Make Me a Promise

Courage. It's a tricky thing. It takes courage to do things and sometimes, you would rather play the coward. I know right now that I would rather play the coward, rather just cut off contact than speak face to face. But life is hard and if you play the coward, it is not only unfair to the other party, but also to yourself. So here I stand, at the front door of his house, my palms sweaty, my nervous all bundled up and ready to combust, and my mind running through a million different possibilities. Three knocks and my hands return by my sides, listening for any movement on the other side.

"Amory?" He asks, confused as I stand before him, the early morning bright, and I've just come from a long jog that helped me calm down a bit. "We're you in the area?" He just woke up from what I can tell, his hair all messy, face unwashed, and clothes wrinkled from a deep sleep.

I take in a deep breath. "I was sort of in the area," I reply to his last question. Meeting his blue eyes, I pull myself together. "We need to talk and I'm sorry I woke you up." He can tell by the serious tone of my voice that this is important, how he comes from relax to attentive in a mere second. Nodding, Augustus opens the door to his house wider, allowing me into the homey house as he shuts the door behind me.

"What's up?"

Courage. Don't be unfair. It's unfair anyway, how I was with him while I was slowly seeing that it's not him I want, but a boy who has a girl out there just waiting to meet him.

"I know how this happened all really quickly..." I begin, watching as he awaits my words. "But I have to call us off. Whatever we are, I have to call it off."

"What!?"

"I'm breaking up with you," I whisper, my heart feeling as if it's been stabbed. How will rejection feel anyway? Worse? Most certainly it will, there's no denying it. "I'm breaking up with you because I think it is best."

"On what grounds?" He asks, his voice stern as my throat runs dry.

Do I tell him that I've fallen head over heels for another while I was with him? Do I tell him we happened to quick and he is probably still in love with Molly? Hell, he broke Molly's heart, yet I believe that he will go back to her because he still loves her. You cannot fall out of love just because of one kiss. "On the grounds that I-I think that I love someone."

"Someone like who? How did this happen? When? Was this going on the whole time?" He asks, enraged as my wolf cowers. Our mate is mad at us and the mate bond is still present. "Was this going on from the second I asked you out, because if so, that's a very low blow."

"I know," I whisper. "I just realized it days ago, but I thought I could push him away, but I can't, Augustus. I can't because he's won me over and I feel like a jerk for doing that to you. I thought that I could forget my feeling for him, but I can't."

"So our date, was that you trying to think you could forget your feelings for him?"

Silence.

He's broken.

But that's the mate bond. I know he's not broken and that if the mate bond was not present, he would be fine. How do I know this? Because he was never in love with me, but with the thought of me. We were both in love with the thought of one another because that's what the mate bond does: it's a glue stick.

"Who?"

"Why?" I ask, my eyes beginning to water as I see his lips form a thin line.

"Because I'm going to beat the son of a bitch to a pulp."

I shake my head. "I am ending this relationship because it is unfair to the two of us, unfair to you because I have feeling for someone-

I'm cut off, Augustus pulling me in for a passionate and aggressive kiss, as if reassurance for him as the sparks fly. The sparks are just a side effect that does nothing. The sparks are a glue stick and they are temporary for us. I push him away, taking a step back as I see his jaw clench. "I love you, Amory."