Fatal Contingencies (Book 2, the Fatal Trilogy Series)

Chapter 6.

Why does life have to be so hard?

Why does love?

What happened to the good old days of do you like me? Check yes or no. One simple check mark and that's all you needed. Now you need time and meditation and coffee and a gazillion opinions and soul searching to make a single decision that used to be so simple.

Do you want me or not?

Yes...but.

But. But. But.

If Stacey was anyone else, I'd be gone.

If Daimon had fallen for some other girl and then been torn between the two of us, I'd have walked right away.

What's the old saying? If you fall in love twice pick the second person because if you really loved the first, you wouldn't have fallen for the second?

That's fine and dandy and probably true in most cases, but what about this?

What about when the one you loved dies? You don't have the option of loving them anymore and eventually you open your heart again to someone new. Five long years that he loved no one but her, even after she was gone. Many years before that that he had loved only her. And then now there is me and she's back from the dead.

I feel so sad for him.

No matter what he does, he's going to have to hurt someone and himself and in the meantime we all just hurt.

So much pain.

We have all been through too much of it to be forced back into it now. Poor me, poor Daimon, and poor Stacey.

"You want to talk about it?" Cathy asks as she walks me into the little guest room with the full-sized bed with yellow sheets and coverlet. I slip out of my shoes and Easton's jacket and sit on the edge of the bed, looking up at her.

"I don't know if there is anything to talk about," I tell her. "It would be a lot to explain and it's already so late, but...we aren't in a good place. I'm not even sure we are in a place at all. I don't know what we are."

"You know," she says, crossing her arms. "I may be an old woman who has never been married, but I still think I know love when I see it, and I see it between you two."

"But he loves someone else too," I say lowly. "They were engaged and in love and she disappeared but now she's back." I shake my head. "You can't beat history."

"Tell me." She smiles. "Would you rather spend the rest of your life reading an old history book that you've already read a hundred times, or a beautiful story with endless possibilities?"

I laugh. "I don't think it's as easy as that, Cathy."

"Alright, what about this." She grins. "Would you rather sleep with an old dusty history book or a sexy erotica?"

"Cathy!" I swat at her and she laughs.

"I'm just saying, dear," she sobers quickly, "history is important, but so is a lot of other stuff. History doesn't always win. Remember that." She points to the bed and I lie down, letting her pull the blankets up like I'm still a kid. "Now get some sleep, and if he's a smart man like he seems to be, then he will make the right decision."

"What if I'm not the right decision for him?"

"Then he's not the right decision for you." She nods to me. "We can't force people to love us. We can only open our hearts and hope they open theirs too. If you're meant to be with this man, love will find a way."

Kind of like love finding a way for you to survive five years in captivity and escape to find your long lost lover?

The odds feel pretty stacked against me.