" Love Untitled " ~ The Road Home ~ BOOK SIX

BOOK 6 > Ch. 22 ~ROAD TO US~

'Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor so that nothing can hurt you. Then, one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... you give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you. And then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple phrases like 'maybe we should be friends?' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.'

-Neil Gaiman

i...

Breathe in... Breathe out.

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...

(The voice speaking slowly fading...)

Richard Armani felt himself violently sucking his own breath while opening his lightest of brown eyes in an instant.

Disoriented, he found himself standing in front of the curtained glass wall inside his office and he didn't grasp the understanding of what's happening yet. He turned his head to the right and immediately, it told him that something wasn't quite right.

And what confused him more was when his eyes darted on his office desk, the digital clock indicated that it was December 31, 2013.

His eyes widened at what it meant. His chest heaved dementedly, this was the same year that marked severely in his roots in a very profound and damaging manner.

Five years ago, on this same day, was when his ex-wife left him.

Psyche Saavedra vanished from his life because he was a jackass who carelessly gave no damn about what she had to say when all she asked of him was a single chance to be heard.

So, yes. This was the day that he was about to lose her again in his life. The afternoon before New Year. The day before his birthday.

His reverie was interrupted when his cellphone rang. He pulled it out from his pocket and answered as soon as Amy spoke.