𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍✔️

TWELVE|INSANE

  THAT NIGHT AFTER Lumen made her promise to me, she left me alone. Alone to wallow in my own self-pity and self-loathing.

The sadness was like a crippling disease, slowly taking control of my body, destroying everything in its path. Tainting me black from the inside out.

It felt like my heart was encased in thorns, constricting the once supple organ, making it incapable of love. Incapable of felt nor feeling. The war of raw emotions inside me was slowly but surely suffocating me.

One small move towards love, towards hope, and I ended up getting hurt all over again. Drowned in the seafoam of my own sorrow. The thorns dug their sharp claws deeper into my heart, puncturing the surface, burring themselves deep below my rose petal skin. They were unforgiving. They were merciless.

It was late, the soft orange hues from the impending sunset fading gently against the dark of the star-littered sky, and the once cool breeze drifting in from the open window was now chilling. It crawled its frigid fingers around my limbs, making my teeth chatter and my body shiver, wrapping my arms even tighter around my legs in an attempt to shelter myself from the cold. I stood up and closed the window, but I was still cold, my fingers lingering on the latch.

Still empty. Hollow inside, vacant of emotions. I felt nothing.

I needed heat, to soothe my aching soul and make me feel awake again.

I'm alive, I'm not living. I'm not awake.

I stumbled and swayed as I walked to the bathroom, drunk on my hatred. I turned the shower on, switching the heat on full.

I needed to feel something, anything. Even if it was the burning water scolding my flesh. Anything was better than being numb like this, in the way I had been for the past two years. Always thinking and never feeling.

I didn't even bother to take my clothes off, I stepped under the cascading water, wearing only one of Kaden's T-shirts and a pair of underwear.

Within seconds the little clothing I had was soaked through and clinging to my body like a second skin. Too tight. Suffocating.

The water was hot... Too hot. It burned but I didn't care... I didn't fight the fire anymore. I held the flame in the palm of my hand, letting it kiss my delicate flesh. I didn't care.

I slid my back down the shower wall until I sat, my legs pulled up to my chest, dark hair hanging lank like a wet curtain around my face, shutting out the rest of the world.

The numbness I once felt that threatened to consume me, slowly faded into a dull throb emanating from deep inside my heart, like a want... A desperate need.

Kaden.

I needed Kaden. I wanted Kaden.

I had only just realised how ignorant I had been, this entire time. All along it had been him. It had always been him. He was the reason the shattered fragments of my heart had slowly been shifting back into place, reforming into several scarred pieces of a whole.

I hugged my knees tighter. Did he know my pain?

I was sure that the foul scent of my misery had long since drifted far enough down the corridor that could smell it. Even when Kaden may seem distant, he was never too far away. Always close enough to protect me, or so I told myself.

Only I didn't need to be protected from others anymore, I only needed salvation from myself.

Suddenly the bathroom door burst open and a pair of strong arms wrapped around me, lifting me up, electricity flying through my limbs and setting my world ablaze.

I probably looked pathetic, red-rimmed eyes, wearing clothes that were soaked through, just sitting there feeling sorry for myself.

Pathetic. It was like I could still hear him say it. The intonation was sharp and biting, fist raised and ready to strike a blow to shake the heavens.

" — Jesus Christ, Arden! What are you doing to yourself!" He hissed, laying me gently on the silk sheets of the bed, the familiar tingles that came with his touch soothing me slightly, bringing back some sense of feeling to my dull body.

" — Arden, look at me!" He demanded, placing a soft finger under my chin, gently tilting my head to force me to meet his eye.

He was beyond beautiful, almost painfully so. It hurt. Everything always hurt. I could not so much as look at my own mate without feeling that familiar clench in my chest.

"Kaden?" I spoke so softly for a moment I feared he did not hear.

"Yes baby?"

"Can you... Hold me?" I felt pathetic for asking; weak. And my face glowed red. " — Just for tonight."

He came alight at once as if someone had lit a match behind his eyes, and a genuine smile overcame him. "Of course."

We lay under covers, my back pressed firmly up against Kaden's chest with his thick arms wrapped around me, holding me together, as though if he were to let go, I would fall apart. Shattering into a million pieces.

We were both still fully clothed and his shirt that I wore was still wet, probably soaking Kaden and the bed as well, not that he didn't seem to care.

"Goodnight, Arden." He rumbled, placing a slight kiss on the back of my head. I couldn't even respond before my eyelids begin to droop, heavy with sleep. The comforting tingles from Kaden's close proximity lulled me into the darkness.