And I Didn't Stop...

Peyton and Jake Inspos

And the king saw the girl again…but this time he wouldn’t keep his eyes on her. In wolfhood, the answers were often written on the stars. So why were his eyes on the ground? He agreed to sing with me without a single protest, I’d already prepared a bribe for it. His eyes were strike one, the agreement to sing - strike two, please don’t tell me strike three comes tonight because my poor little heart cannot freaking deal. I held his face in my hand, wondering how it could ever be possible to love anyone in this world more than this, or how I even thought to try in the past. Like did I really try to rebound with Theo of all people? He was a pretty boy, but he was a teensy bit on the gay side right? Oh god, I should not be having these dang thoughts right now.

Where was I? Oh yeah - Let’s discuss the latest dilemma in my life, why was my husband acting like he strangled a cat and was afraid to break the news to me? I knew he had a distaste for kitties, but he wasn’t one to abuse anything unprovoked. He had to know I'd forgive him. My hands were on his face continuing to search for him. Where are you, baby? I hadn’t realized I was frowning until I felt the tension between my eyes. I quickly placed a bandaid over it and gave him a vibrant smile, one of my best. As of late, the cat’s gotten my tongue. I’ll admit that I was frequently dealing with a pretty irrational but rather critical fear. I was under the impression that if I said the wrong thing, a sentence, a word even, he’d leave again. And so I held my breath, not wanting to push or pull the way I used to do. The pieces fit back together perfectly?

My fingers fell through his hair again, aiming to hush whatever was going on inside. Don't push. I would have been lost in him forever if it wasn't for an emo girl and Lucus bumping straight into us. I could barely make out her words over the music, but I knew she was talking to me as her lips were moving and her eyes were set on Sawyer and me. Within the next millisecond, time sped up. I opened my mouth to respond to Luc, but Sawyer's body swallowed mine whole. He said he'd be right back...Where was he going? No...

I tried to grab his hand and just as I went for him, my head got yanked back so far I swear I got whiplash. Someone kissed my forehead and pulled me into a hug. I glared up at the man who was my idiot brother, Michael, and I pushed him away. My eyes found a door toward the back that had just swung closed. The journey there was more tedious than one would think - I could not get anyone to move out of my freaking way. Excuse me! I shouted at the Big Show in front of me - Don't ask me how I knew who that guy was. It's truly a long story that involves Monday night Raw and roleplaying wrestling with Michael and Dave. Which I didn't enjoy, not even a little bit, definitely not a lot a bit.

The space between me and the door felt like lightyears away. Stay...Please stay. It all felt like a bad case of deja-vu. The time sped up while he was leaving, but slowed down as I went for him. I was suddenly in episode twenty of One Tree Hill's season three: Everyday is a Sunday Evening.  Close Your Eyes by Turn comes on, Jake walks out, and Peyton closes the door, but then...but then, she opens it back up and...

I don't want you. You're fucked. You ruined everything. I don't wanna kiss you or call you or text you. I don't wanna touch you. I don't fucking care about you. I don't care about anyone. No one. His words stung harder as they echoed in my head than they did when I'd first heard them. That's when I realized, the scene wasn't when Jake and Peyton reunited...

It was the scene when Brooke finds out about Peyton and my heart was viciously hammered down to my stomach. No point in repair. Oh boy - Here came strike three, no holding back as he was holding her. It was River. Fucking River. That b-i-t-c-h of all people. How could I be so fucking stupid? Her bug eyes stared at me as if she had no idea who I was.

I'm leaving - I went back in the way I came from. This time the push and shove was even more difficult a task as I could hardly see through the tears in my eyes. The oils on my face stung my eyes and made the experience crueler than it needed to be. I bumped into someone, God knows who, and pushed my way through the main exit. I didn't even tell Lenny, I started the engine and just sat in my car like an aardvark.

After Donna…

I found myself standing in front of a 1950s Steinway. The ebony keyboard cover was decorated with dust as if it hadn’t been touched in years. That was my fault. There was no longer a reason to play. No one wanted me to. I wasn’t ever any good at it either. That was the first time I really wanted to die. For a moment, I saw my pregnant grandmother sitting on the piano bench with a hand on her belly, my grandfather stood on the other side smiling down at her with watery eyes. It was the best day of their lives. The doctors had all told her this was her miracle baby. After so much loss and pain, they were getting a chance to build their own family. Their immense love gave life to so many, and then me. This…This was my fault. I can be strong like you... I whispered.

But that’s when Vin said something…

If you tell me what it's like to fly… My burrows furrowed together as I tried to read between the lines. I’ll tell you what it’s like to die… Instantly, my arms filled with goosebumps, I could feel them like ants crawling underneath my skin. Was it a fucking song lyric? His movement was so quick that I jerked back.

The heavy back door screeched open and Alina stared viciously at me. I stared back in confusion. What just happened? Vin quickly ran after her and I stood there like I had a gun to my head. I was immobilized. Seriously, what the fuck just happened? And why did I feel like there was a knife inside my chest? The phone in my hand began to vibrate one ping after another. My eyes remained on the brick wall in front of me as if I was counting the bricks to kill time, a performer with severe stage fright.

The melody of a song I’d heard a hundred times began to play inside our bar. The familiarity brought me to my phone, my aunt’s contact name shining in the notification center. If she was really here, tonight would just keep getting worse. What the fuck did I care anymore though? Things were never good with him around so there was no point in trying, no way of pleasing a man who couldn’t be pleased.

Text from Ingrid:


I responded back.



I opened the door and waited for her by the steps. My aunt Sabrina's voice carried its way to the exit.

Ageless and ever evergreen…

It wasn’t real. Three words that should’ve brought me comfort, but how could they? I’d been at the mercy of artificial reality before. I’d been in a house of horrors, void of gravity and thick with whispers that vanished as soon as I exited. I could remember staring at the space it had taken up. The box in my hands was the only evidence that it had ever existed but even then after all I’d been through, I still questioned the authenticity of my own experience.

I’d come home to see my cousin, my best friend, my brother disemboweled. I’d buried him. I could still remember the way the soil smelled, putrid, almost like sulfur. The dryness of my throat from each exhausted breath. The sharp pain in my lungs as I dug the blade of the shovel into the earth. I could still feel my burning quads and hamstrings as I dragged him by his arms into his grave. I could still remember his face.. His vacant eyes, all the color had been drained from his skin. The feeling of his weight on top of me as we both sat at the bottom of the pit, him dead and me dying. If memories were rain then my mind was a desert, but even desert basins can pool. I guess my desert basins were just shaped like graves. I couldn’t remember the name of the street I grew up on but the memories of the dead always seemed to come back with such fucking clarity.

What makes a traumatic experience real? I’d experienced plenty. My pack too. My wife had experienced more than she ever deserved. Even Lo, I could still remember his moms funeral. It was the first one either him or I had ever been too. We were both so young. I remember stealing a bowl of sugar cubes at the wake. Him and I sat in the hallway and polished off the entire dish. Phillip spared him the belt that day when he found us in a sugar coma on the floor. I didn’t understand why. Phil wasn’t often outwardly cruel, but similarly he wasn’t often kind either. I saw my dad in him that day. The way he hugged Lo. Fuck… For the first time ever my young mind put together that he and dad were brothers.

But did I have any fucking right to have a panic attack in a goddamn alleyway with an audience no less, over bullshit that never even happened? The house was never real. Lo never died. I never buried him, or beat that man to death, or ripped out Vex’ heart… At least not physically… I never murdered that young boy, or took pleasure in it. I never set the den on fire as my packmates slept or compelled them to stop breathing.I never saw those fucking feet.

But I had experienced it. Is that all it takes? To become a weak piece of shit that forgets how to breathe because what? I had a five years long bad dream? Sure some of the shit was real. Diablo was certainly fucking real. July 24th was real. The white room was real. Red eyes was real. The cages and collars and massacres were real. The war. Her. So much did happen but that wasn’t why I was out here drowning in a phantom sea. A pair of ugly feet, that was why. I was fucking pathetic.

The doppelganger hadn’t said a word. What did I expect? A conversation? A hug? She didn’t know me, and I didn’t know her. Yeah, she was no Raven. Just a sad imitation. I guess her and I had that in common. She played at being a bird and I played at being an Alpha. But a bird with no wings is just easy prey, and a pack is only as good as their alphas mind. And mine was as fucking useless as a messenger raven with clipped wings.

I took a step back from her. The panicked expression on my face had settled into something more familiar and less friendly. Something comfortable, a consolation. Maybe she didn’t hear you. That’d be a fucking blessing and I knew better than to expect those. Maybe you didn’t actually say it outloud. That was a more realistic explanation for why she hadn’t even said anything, or moved, or blinked. She was a fucking cardboard cutout. I guess I should consider myself lucky. I never expected to expose any of my bullshit to anyone. At least the gods saw fit to give me an audience as void as me. I wouldn't even know how to respond if she had said anything. Or done anything. I’m better dealing with my shit alone. The last thing I needed was any two-bit black bird singing in the dead of night.

There was only one person I wanted to give a shit. I’d never admit it but I fucking feared her rejection more than anyone. I’d been rejected by pack before. It felt like being the last man alive on earth. Not just lonely, but hauntingly fucking despondent. Stranded. Fucking rejected and abandoned. Alone. It was the most isolating feeling I’d ever known until Red Eyes. Being packless was like being without your skin. I could only imagine the torment felt by being a lone.

You’re not alone.

How quickly my anxious heart settled when I smelled her. She was my song. The door opened and my eyes were drawn to her like a sunrise after a Utqiagvik night. It was a spectacle just to see her. But I instantly felt something wasn’t right. The look on her face… She hadn’t said a word. Another cardboard cutout. Only this one was caught by a stiff breeze. She was fleeing and I was stumbling over my feet after her. Lina! By the time I made my way back inside, and around a small crowd by the door, she was already at the entrance. How the fuck did she move so fast? Lina! I yelled for her over the crowd, drawing some attention but I didn’t give a fuck. She kept moving and so did I. Fuck what I’d give to have Los teleporting ability right now.

By the time I made it to the front door, I could see her opening the drivers side door to her jeep. I ran across the parking lot and around to the passenger side, then let myself in. I hopped into the passenger seat. Where are we going? I asked as I started to buckle up. But when I looked at her… Lina? Why are you crying? What happened? My tone conveyed my genuine surprise. I knew she wasn’t happy to see me standing outside, and sure, I assumed it had to do with that other girl. But the tears in her eyes were… I could just tell. She was genuinely hurt by something and I just immediately assumed something else had happened. Lina what the fuck? I glared as I reached for her to try to comfort her with a hug.