The Vow (North Woods University 4)

Lily was a reminder of everything I had lost, and everything I would never have.

There was no moving on from someone you loved, someone you never got the chance to say goodbye to. All there was, was learning to deal with the absence that they left in your heart.

Nothing will bring Amy back. It’s now a reminder I’ll have to repeat again to myself often.

But Lily… she is still here and as badly as her presence made me feel it also brought me a sliver of excitement, a zing of pleasure so foreign I nearly forgot what it felt like to be even a little joyful. I feel like an even bigger ass thinking about it. I shouldn’t feel this way about anyone, especially not about Amy’s sister.

Betrayal. I know the feeling all too well. It burns through me like a hot knife slicing through butter. Every time I would fuck another woman, look at another woman, it would sneak up on me and sink its razor teeth into my back. It was always there, in the back of my mind, eating away at my subconscious. Gnawing on me.

I was good, but I wasn’t good enough to get Amy back.

I wasn’t good enough to let go of her memory, and now I was thinking about her sister and how much they looked alike. Making a fist, I slammed it against the side of my head over and over again. The fucking thing inside my head had better start working or else…

Finally, the whiskey I all but guzzled down starts to work and my brain slows, a fog settling over my thoughts, and lifting the elephant sitting on my chest just enough for me to suck in a full breath. Everything inside of me screams for me to leave Lily alone to forget about her. To forget about Amy.

Forget, forget, forget.

She’s happy, going to college, finding her way. She has her whole life in front of her, a promising, happy life. If she hasn’t already, she’ll find love and a life worth living for.

Falling back against the couch, I tilt my head back and stare up at the ceiling. I don’t know where the thought comes from, but something inside my head says…

Do what Amy would want you to do. Be there, but only if you need to be.

The voice inside my head calms me enough for me to rationalize with myself. Yes, I’ll only be there if I need to be. Only help if I’m needed.

A little of the guilt in my gut fades away, but I still feel it deeply, like a crater of an asteroid impact it remains, the gaping hole refusing to ever heal. Lily already left her mark on me, and it’s going to take an epic amount of effort to forget that she fucking exists again.

2

Lily

Sebastian was different. Yes, I expected him to be different given the last time I saw him I was only nine, but I just didn’t expect him to stir all these feelings inside me.

It left me breathless, and dare I say, flustered. Age looked good on him. Tall, toned, and tanned. Sebastian was gorgeous, and he knew it. Guys like him always knew how good looking they were. At first glance, I thought maybe he was a student and not the Dean of the school, he looked young, and very much like the rest of the men that I had seen roaming around campus.

I tried to stop myself from thinking about him, his face that looked like it had been carved from stone, his lips, full, and his eyes dark and brooding.

He’s the same guy I remembered him to be, but without the sparkle, the life in his eyes had dimmed. I knew all too well about that. Every day, I thought about how I was still here, and they weren’t.

Every day, for the last decade, I’ve beaten myself up for being alive; breathing air, and doing all the things Amy never would, because she’s dead. Dead. All of them are dead, and a part of me wishes I was too.

Stop. I mentally tell myself. I need to stop thinking like that. I need to live up to my family’s wishes because, in the end, that’s all I have left of them. This is where Amy and my parents would’ve wanted me to be… in college, living my life to the fullest.

Sipping on the piping hot cup of hot cocoa that I’d ordered, I make my way to a corner seat near the window. My roommate, Delilah, is still upfront trying to decide what she wants. I can see her from where I’m sitting, her long brown hair bobbing in a high ponytail, while she has her hands on her hips and stares up at the menu board like it’s her enemy.