Tethered Hearts | ✓ | Books 1 & 2

Episode 59| Make it Count

Bryce's P.O.V.

I shut my mouth and held her, thinking that would make the hurting stop.

It didn't work though.

Biting my tongue, I forced my emotions down so it wouldn't reach the surface. Holding Sophia while she cried into my arms made it ten times worse, but I managed to put a seal on my thoughts and prevented them from bursting from the seems and polluting our special moment. If she saw me break, it would diminish any kind of hope for us.

What is there to hope for? I pessimistically hissed. You're hopeless.

My world could be on fire, inches from hitting rock bottom, and I'd still try to find a way to see a bright side - an optimistic twist where Sophia and I didn't have to end our relationship this way. I'd always have hope, exclusively reserved for her.

I waited until I was in the bathroom and turned on the shower. I waited until then for it to consume me, tear me apart, and eat me alive...if you could considered me alive anymore. I was certain that my heart had been ripped out of my chest the day I realized that Sophia would no longer be mine. The day I died - from the inside- would be marked as the day I lost her.

Conner was right to push my away from her. I didn't deserve happiness. I didn't deserve anyone. I should've learned my lesson with Julia. Perhaps there was curse, floating above my head that attracted bad fortune.

A inconsolable part of me that believed in that knew there was some truth in that claim. I didn't deserve Sophia; I didn't deserve anyone with the reckless history I possessed.

A tsunami of pain and melancholy was harbored in my soul, ready to be unleashed onto the world. At the sound of the door closing, shutting me in, I let the waves of devastation latch on to me like fish hooks, sinking deeper into my skin until I was pinned to the floor, gasping for air and muffling my sobs into the crook of my arm.

She's going to hate you more when she finds out that you're going to snitch on her family.

"No, she won't."I seemed to speak to my own inner thoughts, debating about the fallout of our relationship. It entailed considerable doubt in this working out in our favor. Each path that was before me would lead to me losing her.

There was the one option. She could come with while entering the witness protection program. But that was too selfish for me to seriously consider. I'd steal her life, remove her friends, and force her to come with me and only me.

Who would leave their friends, family, school, and previous social life just to be with me of all people? She'd laugh at my suggestion. I knew that for a fact.

I had to do this on my own and give her the chance to move on. Even though the thought of her dating someone else, kissing another guy, sleeping with a different person killed me inside. However, I understood that was the selfless (right) thing to do.

Sophia deserved a happy ending. And with me, there was no possible happy ending.

She'd constantly be worried that we'd get hurt, hiding from everyone we ever knew for our own safety. Sophia deserved better than that.

Sophia deserves the world and I'll try my best to give it to her.

Taking off my clothes and setting them on the dry countertops, I stared at me forlorn reflection in the mirror. I only had on my boxers. With the pad of my finger, I traced my under eye. Touching the puffy skin, I wiped away any sign that I had been crying. My eyes were bright red. I wasn't fooling anyone.

The steam from the shower clouded the glass, making the bathroom misty. Using my palm, I swiped the mirror, seeing a new figure behind me standing there like as if it was my shadow.