And there’s no way in fuck I’m letting her slip from between my fingers now that’s she’s finally close.
If I have to chase her, so be it.
I’ll run after her until she realizes there was no escaping me in the first place.
Because there’s one thing my toy doesn’t realize yet. Or maybe it’s buried too deep for her to recognize it.
She’s mine.
Body and fucking soul.
And it all started the day she got off on having me chase her in the woods.
Or maybe it started the first time I saw her three years ago when she smiled while she was crying.
31
Naomi
I foolishly believed in something.
The fact that I’m strong.
That’s nowhere near the truth. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be crying hours after I learned the biggest lie of my life.
It’s a pain I’ve never felt before, not even during the red night.
It’s like free falling to the sun and burning before hitting the bottom.
It’s like dying while being unable to express any pain.
As I sit in my unmoving car, hugging the steering wheel, I mourn a part of me that only saw the light for a while before it was snuffed out.
A part that wasn’t even supposed to see the light. Sebastian wrenched it out just so he could burn its wings and leave it to drop to its death.
But what I mourn the most is my naivety. Since I was a kid, I’ve made it my mission to build a wall between me and the world. And yet, I let him sneak in ever so easily.
I didn’t fight him enough.
But it’s not because I didn’t want to. It was more because I couldn’t. We share a twisted relationship, after all, and not in my wildest dreams did I ever think that type of connection could be faked.
Apparently, it can.
And I’m a fool for believing otherwise.
By the time the afternoon rolls by, I’m done having a pity party on one of the forest’s secluded roads.
I’ll have to get past this somehow.
I need to. Otherwise, it’ll break me beyond the point of no return.
After cleaning my face with some wipes, I hit the gas and head home.
Every time I think of the scene in the cafeteria, a fresh wave of tears assaults me, and I have to take deep breaths to stop them from flooding my face.
Maybe I was only ever meant to be alone and I’m just fighting a losing battle.
When I take the road to my house, I notice a black van behind me.