There was no going back from the where we were. Some people devoted an entire lifetime to one another. They stood at the altar and promised forever to each other. Until death do they part. Yet, something told me few actually knew what brewed between Drex and me. It was in the way his eyes adored me as if I was the very thing to gift him sight and he’d been stumbling through life blind before me. For me, I was less subtle, or at least I wanted to think so. I wasn’t. While we lay naked in each other’s arms, my hand somehow found his. I didn’t want to hold his hand; I had to. If I didn’t hold onto him, I was afraid I’d only exist again. He made my life bearable. At times, people only believe they have a choice in certain matters. I never had a say when it came to Drex. My heart decided long before I realized its verdict.

Disbelief that love was achievable in such a short period of time rushed heavily through my veins. Skepticism intoxicated my thoughts, and I continued to drink from its spout. Every sensible portion of my brain told me it was impossible, but I was never one to listen to reason. Why start now?

As my stomach growled, I internally hushed it along with the doubts sinking into my mind. Seeing the best of situations wasn’t exactly my forte. I definitely in no way resembled an optimist.

“Hungry?” Drex smiled, running his fingertips up my arms and bringing my lingering fears to a standstill with one tiny gesture.

“Mhm,” I truthfully answered him, but worry outweighed my need for food. The moment our feet touched the floor, the second we weren’t in each other’s arms, would mean I could backslide into the past. Panic constricted within my blood vessels as my heartbeat bound in my ears as loud as a gun in battle. I didn’t want Drex to know how truly fucked up I was, that the past overshadowed my every decision and often bent me to its will. Even though I didn’t want to, I pulled my hand from his and dressed, hoping to hide my insecurities.

“I’m not sure what food is in the kitchen, but I’ll meet you down there. I have to take care of business.” He smirked and headed into the bathroom adjoined to his room.

It was dark, and I was pretty well drunk when we finally came upstairs last night, but I remembered passing the kitchen on the third level of his house. Slowly, I took in each aspect of his house I passed, my palm dragging the rough edges of the deep crimson wall. Multiple pieces of black metal were scattered as wall art, contrasting the crimson color. There appeared to be no method to where they hung, at least I didn’t see one, but they were amazing. In a way, they reminded me of Drex’s black tribal tattoos that vined up his left leg.

At the bottom of the stairs, the kitchen was on my right, and the dining room and living room were on the left. Despite the overwhelming exterior and height of Drex’s house, the interior wasn’t as overzealous as I’d expected. It may be four stories high, but the open floor plan of each level dialed back the overwhelming factor. It suited Drex’s intricacy.

A chair scooted away from the table caught my eye and my inner server twitched. Instead of taking a left into the kitchen, I shifted right into the dining room. It was a universal pet peeve shared among restaurant workers to have all chairs placed against the table’s rim. At least it was among the ones I’d met and worked alongside. As soon as my fingers touched the arched back of the chair, its legs scraped against the hardwood floor, and I lost my balance due to being distracted. Hesitantly, I turned my head further to clearly see what had distracted me, praying I was hallucinating.

A noose of horror tightened around my throat, and I told myself I was still drunk from the previous night. That or I was dreaming. I had to be. There wasn’t any other acceptable reason for what I saw. Each step I took was harder than the former. My legs felt as if cement had hardened within them. Terror drove my heart rate to quicken, but time slowed the closer I was to the mantle. Panic pulsated through the air and I breathed it into my lungs, letting it harden once inside.

Pain-stricken tears streaked my face, and disbelief collapsed upon me. I had to be having another nightmare. At first, I barely touched the hat’s brim, expecting not to feel a thing; this would be the first time my reality collided with fantasy. I did, though. As my fingertips moved up and down, I counted the stitches in a sad attempt to remain calm. Surely, there was a reasonable explanation for this.

The amount of fishing hats in this world was more than any one person could count, so the likelihood of it being the same hat was very slim. I prayed the logic I found would bring truth to the situation. It had to. I needed it to. Cautiously, I lifted the hat’s edge and closed my eyes, prolonging the inevitable. When I reopened my eyes, four letters I never wished to see in Drex’s house stared back at me and tore my heart from my chest. The pain was so unforgiving I actually glanced at my chest to make sure it was still intact. It didn’t make sense that someone was capable of withstanding this much agony, yet bare no physical wounds or scars. My body was battle-worn from pain. The scars were engraved too deep within and never healing.

The tears no longer streaked my face, but flowed freely as I read, “Noah” in his handwriting. Regret hammered so loudly in my head it was as if someone repeatedly pounded steel against slate, and the world around me trembled as an aftershock. Noah had wanted to keep the new “cool” kid at school from stealing his hat, so I had him write his name in the top of it. Of course, he had chosen to write it in green. The color had faded, but the memory most definitely had not.

I fell to my knees, clutching the hat to my chest, and the fishing rod hooked to it smacked against the floor and snapped into three pieces. I lied to myself because I couldn’t handle the truth. This was a dream. Maybe Drex had a long-distant cousin named Noah, who just happened to be his favorite cousin, and they shared the love of fishing. I rocked back and forth, concentrating on my breathing, trying to slow it or speed it up. Fuck! I didn’t know what to do but cry. That I could do and had no idea how to stop.

Drex’s footsteps echoed behind me and came to an abrupt halt once he reached the dining room. Turning to face him, the tiniest shard of hopefulness found its way into my heart and I believed in its deceit because I needed to. There was no way I could lose Drex, when we’d just found our way to each other. I believed for once in my otherwise dreadful life, we could actually make it work. I was wrong, so fucking wrong!

His facial expression spoke the words his mouth didn’t have the audacity to breathe. Panic pounded outward from him as he closed the space between us. His silence and lack of excuses told me he didn’t have a cousin named Noah and this wasn’t a dream. With one look, he suffocated the passion within me and poison spread throughout. Each time I inhaled, the acidic truth raked down my insides, and my stomach began to churn with the sickness I was now accepting.

“Eris,” he articulated my name, his voice colder than I’d ever heard it before. “Why do you have my hat?” His words seethed outward from between his gritted teeth, and judging by his jagged movements, he was without question using every ounce of restraint his body held to control his anger. He exhaled heavily as he waited for my response.

“Your hat?” I screamed, flipping it over to show him Noah’s name. The hate withering through my veins continued its atrophy, and I could feel myself withdrawing into the past. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what kind of sick, twisted game this man was playing, but he would lose me in the process. Truthfully, I may lose myself.

“How in the fuck is this your hat, Drex?” My voice grew louder with each word that ripped through my lips. He stood inches away from me, but didn’t so much as offer a simple apology or even bother to make up a lie to cover his ass.

“Tell me I’m wrong! This is my son’s hat. Why in the fuck do you have my son’s hat, Drex?” I demanded, breaking the fishing line and throwing the end of the rod into the unlit fireplace.

His eyes widened as he watched me. I knew I’d lost control, but at this point, I didn’t care. He’d crossed the line by tying our present with my past. No reason in the world could make this okay.

“Holy shit.” He released his balled fists, and his palms scrubbed his face as if he didn’t believe what was happening, which was a good thing because neither did I.

“Holy shit is right. Start explaining. Now. I’ll only ask one more time before I start breaking things, Drex. It’s what I do. I ruin everything.” I offered him one last chance to tell me I was wrong, to call me crazy. I wanted to hear all of the words to prove I’d make a huge mistake and wrongfully accused him, but he didn’t say them.

“You’re her,” he said in an almost inaudible tone and reached out to me.

“Her?” I asked, getting to my feet and stepping backward away from him until my back was against the glass door, needing to distance myself.

“It’s impossible.” Disbelief rushed from his words, and he stilled, covering his gaping mouth with his hand.

“Noah can’t be your son.” His eyes squinted, and he sniffed, fighting the tears pleading to break free.

Hatred spun in my mind as soon as my son’s name left his mouth. Anger dripped from every pore in my body, and I ground my teeth in a sad attempt to remain calm, knowing I was well beyond that point.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Eris. I tried to save him.”

His words echoed in my body and paralyzed what little hope I’d stupidity clung to and ripped it into shreds. I’d never wished to hear those words again, especially from Drex. Hell, I denied them the first time I heard them. This would be my end. I knew better than to let anyone in, but like the idiot I am, I did, and this is where it led.

“I tried, Eris.” He sounded like a broken recording of the trooper that came to my house after the accident. A record I’d rather shatter than listen to again.

I hated the world for letting me feel happiness with Drex, no matter how brief we’d known each other.

My knees kissed the floor as I wept in front of the man I now hated. Despite the betrayal rising and falling as the tide, my arms extended and wrapped around his legs, needing something to ground me. A man, until a few moments ago, I was certain I loved, bent his knees and knelt to the floor to hold me.

“I hate you,” I cried, beating his chest with as much force as I could as defeat took over my body.

“I hate me, too,” he whispered and I only cried harder, wishing he wasn’t who he was. Some may say life isn’t fair. I longed for a trivial situation to say that cliché statement. My life was far beyond being unfair. It was downright vengeful. I’d fought connecting with someone for eight years, and I finally forgave myself enough to feel love, only to have my chest ripped open wide and left to bleed.

“Why?” I begged him for the answers I didn’t want, but knew I had to have them. Even if this was the end of us, I needed to know what he knew.