22. Eli
Eli
TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD
Ilove her. Of course I do.
I loved her. But I didn’t deserve her, or her precious, pure love. My brand of love was toxic, tragic.
I was born from the rot of which love was unsustainable. I didn’t want to get into something with Kendra, twist our lives even deeper, poison her, and then ruin her the way my dad ruined my mom. Because that’s what would happen, right? That is why they say “History repeats itself.”
So last summer when she whispered those words on this beach in the dark, the most intoxicating, soul-crushing, beautiful words?
Every piece of me wanted to scream them back, tell her she owned my heart, had branded herself to my tarnished soul .
. . but I couldn’t be that selfish. Instead I broke both of our hearts that night, but Kendra thought I’d only broken hers.
The waves crash violently on the shore, fracturing a murky surf across the sand and warning of a big storm blowing in across the water.
I pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head as the wind picks up.
Lightning flashes far out over the angry whitecaps, and I know I should leave, but my mind summons the last moments with Kendra here, like it always does.
I transformed in front of her eyes from her lover to her enemy. What she doesn’t realize is that I’m also my own worst enemy.
Now, instead of being with her, I am drowning myself in parties and pussy. I thought it would be the best way to forget, but I’m a fucking idiot. I won’t ever forget, and now I just have a shitty reputation of being an even bigger player.
Leaning into it is so easy, because there’s no fucking way I can give my heart to anyone else.
Kendra already has it, and she doesn’t even know.
She’s not in Fox Grove, but it doesn’t matter.
I have watched the sun burn the sky all day and fade into dusky nights for a year, begging for the universe, the tides, Mother Nature, God, even the devil to take away my feelings for Kendra.
All that happens is a deeper ache in my soul, one that I know only exists because of how much I truly love her.
It scares me, and the only thing I can do is take those feelings and lock them away.
Toss them deep into the tides of the dark ocean in front of me right now.
It means letting her go was the right thing to do, because the monster doesn’t deserve the miracle. I’d tear her to pieces.