Wicked Love | √

Twenty Six

I find myself reaching for the chain around my neck. But it's not there. Not anymore.

Every time I realize it's no longer clasped around me I'm kicked back to lust night. To the pain of Preston refusing to let me in. To his silence when I needed his words the most.

And then my thoughts begin to drift to him kissing me. Him touching me. Him moving inside of me.

Those memories are almost more painful because I caught a glimpse of us together. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was hot as fuck. Now it's something I'll never get to experience again.

I have to remind myself of that on the days when I wake up from a vivid dream of him. A dream of us. The reminder that there will never be an us, that realization, makes the pain strike my chest so aggressively it takes my breath away completely. It's just for a moment, but it's brutal and dark and it pisses me off because I shouldn't care in the first place. I should be better about brushing these feelings off and moving on, but not with him. Never with him.

I wish he was easier to push out of my mind. I wish I could forget him and everything he ever said to me. But it's tough because I also never want to let go of the words he tattooed so perfectly across my heart. The words that still give me strength to push myself to continue to chase after what I want, but because of me and not because of my parents. To grow every day. To become better with every test and article I read.

My fingers softly trace the naked skin of my neck as I walk up the stairs of my parent's house to my room. I'm home for our weekly dinner since I missed last week, and I already know I'm going to hear about it from my father the moment I see him.

I'm lost in the memories of Preston that make my heart burn and twist when I come to a stop with a surprised gasp escaping me, because my bedroom door is wide open and the light in my room is on.

I take a small step forward and peak my head into the room to spot my brother setting a stack of books down on my dresser.

"What are you doing?" I ask loudly with accusatory confusion laced in my words. He's never in my room. And now in the span of a couple days he's been to my apartment and now here.

It's weird and foreign and my heart has a hard time believing it's pure and real with our rocky past.

My brother flips around at the sound of my voice, his green eyes landing on me as they widen before the skin around his eyes crinkles as if embarrassed to have been caught.

He quickly recovers as he straightens and tucks his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans. "Just dropping off some things," he says casually.

My eyes narrow in suspicion as I slowly walk over to my dresser to see the handful of books he placed there. Old books. Really old ones that I've come to recognize as if they were my own. Because they are books that once belonged to our grandfather.

My gaze lifts to my brother's, showing my pure shock as words fail to find me.

"You and grandad had something I never had with him. But that doesn't mean I didn't love him also. That I didn't admire him. That I didn't want to grow up and be just like him. The watch should've always been yours. I do know that. But I was hoping maybe...maybe we can share the books?"

He winces at the suggestion as if he's nervous I'll immediately shoot him down. Shame instantly warms my cheeks and coats my skin making me feel the dirty and nauseating rise of guilt that runs deep in my veins.

I acted as if Aiden wasn't allowed to cherish his own memories of our grandfather. He loved him also. I was so absorbed in my own world and my own heartache because my brother already has everyone in his corner. And for those precious years I only had my warm and gentle grandpa by my side. I didn't have my father and my mother was indifferent towards me as soon as she realized how my father really felt about me. So my relationship with my grandfather meant everything. He was my whole world.