I have a confession to make. I'm a bit obsessed with death and the macabre. It feels like a guilty secret but I believe that thinking about mortality is integral to understanding ourselves, if only to put the media-driven culture we exist within into perspective. As I wrote Yellow it became obvious that I was using the narrator and protagonist to help me to understand and refine my understanding of my own mortality.
Choosing her cost me everything I'd ever loved... including her.
I had everything a guy could ask for, a loving family, the perfect small-town life, and a promising future I had worked hard for.
It should have been enough.
She was off-limits, my parent's best friend's daughter, practically my sister. I fought my feelings, pretending our soul-deep connection didn't exist. When she confessed she felt the same, I pushed her away, believing our friendship mattered more than temporary infatuation. That she agreed should have come as a relief, but it left me with this void I didn't know how to fill.
It's what drove me to the bonfire that night. Right there, with our friends as witnesses, I claimed her. Told her I loved her and made her promises I shouldn't have made.
Hours later, it all came crashing down in a whirlwind of fire and ashes. That one split-second choice to go after a girl that wasn't meant for me cost me everything I loved.
I never should have crossed that line or given in. It's why she'll forever be my greatest love and deepest regret.
This tragic story is the beginning of our end...
