✓ Chaos Theory | Diego Hargreeves [1]

【CHAPTER EIGHT】

—chapter eight.

  ❛ d'ya ever just realise how much
your life is falling apart? ❜  

LET IT BE KNOWN, IT HAD BEEN A YEAR AND MAYBE FOUR MONTHS SINCE THE LAST TIME ELODIE KISSED SOMEONE.

She couldn't remember their name, their face, only that it happened and then it didn't. And it made sense. Before, years before, she was eager to build relationships with people after feeling nothing but pain her entire life - she wanted to experience love, real love. But love wasn't found in the dark eyes watching her way too closely, or in the harsh language that sent her spiralling for weeks after those fateful days. She soon realised that the ones she looked to for love cared more for lust, and the ones who might offer love, would never look at her for anything but their coffee order.

The idea of a romantic relationship, whether it lasted one night or a million, was a painful concept that she didn't get. Or rather, she came to realise, that she wouldn't get from the people she sought it out from.

So, she gave up the concept entirely.

It wasn't a fact Elodie hid. She embraced it. She moved out and moved on and left her baggage burning, just as she had her entire life. All that mattered was work and Ellis and sometimes just plain ol' survival, and that was fine. It was manageable, and albeit mediocre, but maybe she was satisfied with mediocre. She would live mediocre until it killed her, and that was fine.

Until some sonofabitch had waltzed right back in and flipped that mediocrity off.

And then, the sonofabitch kissed her. 

He had gone right for it, swooped in and kissed her like in those old movies, taking the maiden in their arms and walking out a complete mystery. Sure, it was a dirty apartment lobby, she would refuse the title of damsel right until she was half past dead, and he had not really saved her, just walked her home.

But as much as she hated to admit it to herself, it had been a damn good kiss.

It nagged at her all through the night, through her tossing and turning and shallow sleep. It followed her through the rush of waking up too late, chanting in her ear as she showered and choking her up as she sipped her morning tea. It chased her down the street to the meeting she was running late for and even when she screamed at it to 'leave her the fuck alone', it just laughed and made her smile like a teenager after her first real smooch.

Elodie found herself hobbling into her lawyer's office with aching ankles, frantic curls flying all about her head in total pandemonium, and the memory of her first kiss in maybe-sixteen months haunting her like the world's shittiest ghost.