Chapter 148

• The sky looked like it was about to collapse. The wind shaking the leaves grew stronger by the second. A storm was coming—and it wasn’t nearly as bad as the one brewing inside my chest. I tried to bear the weight of my choices, tried to believe there was a better way, that I just needed to hold on a little longer… just a little longer… and a little longer still.
• Now I was stuck in this fate of rejection and pain. I ran—ran like hell—as fast as my legs could carry me. The wind kept picking up, and even though it was reckless as hell to run into the forest with a storm on the way, I had to find my own damn note of hope.
• My heart led me there—to the waterfall where I’d so often found comfort in the company of the water, the same place where a mysterious man once held me, consoled me on one of the darkest, loneliest nights of my life. His energy was already there, blanketing the water like he’d been waiting for me—like always. And that made me believe maybe he needed me just as much as I needed him. Maybe it was stupidly selfish to think that way, but I had to cling to something, or I’d have nothing left.