𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍✔️

EIGHTEEN|DROWN

  STRONG ARMS.

I awoke to a pair of strong arms wrapped protectively around my waist, but they weren't the arms of a monster, they were the arms of my mate, pulling me close to his chest, engulfing me in his scent.

I lay there for a few moments, just familiarizing myself with how things had changed. I no longer lived every day in fear, fear that every night would be my last, that at any moment the beatings would go too far, and that I would be pushed over the cliff of no return, that the path of destruction I left in my wake would be too great, and destroy me too in turn.

That the sadness that once consumed me would one day suffocate me... And it almost did, that day at the Grey Winter cliffs, if it wasn't for Kaden and his strong arms.

They always seemed to save me, from the monsters, from myself. Because he cared, possibly even loved me. My mate.

I slipped out of bed, out of his sleeping embrace, and padded my way into his large marble bathroom, gently locking the door behind me, careful not to wake Kaden.

I turned to face the large mirror that dominated the wall above the sink, and a feral-looking girl with wide, fearful green eyes stared back at me.

She was beautiful, in a strange sort of way. With long brown hair cascading down to her hips, and her unusually thin body covered by an oversized t-shirt that concealed down to her mid-thigh.

She looked vaguely familiar, yet at the same time, she was altogether foreign. She no longer looked like the terrified child that was once associated with my reflection. She had grown into a young woman.

And I, was that woman. A woman no longer haunted by imaginary creatures that roamed the night or basked beneath my bed, but by the real monsters that plagued my past.

In the middle of the bathroom, there was a large white bathtub, one of the biggest I had ever seen. I walked over to it and turned the taps to begin to fill it up. I watched how the icy water cascaded from the tap, briefly free falling, before slamming into the already pooled water below.

Not bothering to wait until it was filled, I stripped myself of my clothes, the loose fabric crumpling on the floor beneath me and stepped into the half-filled tub, the water that continued to flow from the tap was bone-chillingly cold, but it didn't matter, I just wanted to no longer feel dirty and impure.

I lay there for a minute, my head barely above the water.

Breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I slowly submerged myself until I was under the water completely, and the water caressed my face. It was peaceful down there, with no noise or felt to distract me. I exhaled the air I had been holding, and my muscles relaxed. This was the one place that felt completely peaceful on this earth when I was alone.

Usually, the overbearing weight of loneliness would threaten to crush me, but this. This was different, I knew that nothing could happen to me as Kaden was only in the next room. White noise was the only thing around me, the blaring emptiness that echoed throughout my body.

My eyelids began to droop and my mind began to lull into the darkness of rest. I tried forcing my body to cooperate, to raise to the surface, to breathe the air above the water, but my limbs were too heavy, immobile, and blackness began to cloud everything. My world going dark.

I tried so hard, to breathe, to even thrash my limbs about in the water, but it was useless. I was drowning once again, but this time no one was there to save me from myself.

A loud bang was muffled above the water, I heard vague shouting somewhere far off, and two callused hands grabbed me under my arms, hoisting me from the water.

I gasped as I broke the surface, and was instantly pulled into a tight embrace. Kaden's embrace.

"What the fuck are you doing!" He shouted, but his words were muffled as I flung my arms around him, desperately gripping onto him as if he were the last thing tethering me to this earth.

I cried as the salty tears ran down my cheeks, "I'm sorry..."

Uncontrollable sobs wracked my body, as I just sat there, clinging onto him for dear life. I wanted to say more, but I couldn't. He couldn't let me go, or I would break, completely and utterly coming undone.

I almost died. I almost lost Kaden. Forever. And somehow that became my greatest fear of all.

"Shh, it's okay," Kaden whispered breathily, running a shaky hand over my wet hair. The air was cool against my bare skin, causing me to press closer to Kaden's warmth, my bare chest pressed firmly up against his.

"H-how did you know?" I asked unsteadily once id caught my breath.

"— Because..." He said darkly. "I was drowning too."