Page 33 of Pocketful of Us

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If Seth Dillon thought that I would do his dirty work for him without getting confirmation of Romi's wellbeing first, then he thought right.

It took me two weeks to come to terms with that.

Fourteen days and nights of frantically searching for Romi and coming up empty before finally accepting the fact that I wasn't going to see Romi Dillon again without her brother's help.

In order to receive the help I desperately needed, I had to take a life.

Cal Dillon's life.

No fucking problem.

A small part of me wanted to run away like a child, the prospect of facing both Romi's father again, and the man who was apparentlymine,scared me half to death, but I couldn’t run away.

Ihadto find her.

I couldn’t go back in time and erase those horrible months after Chris's death that I spent tormenting Romi, but I could help her now.

I could find my girl and set her free.

I loved her more than she could know, than anyone could comprehend. The power she wielded over me was something fierce. Knowing that she was out there somewhere in danger and alone, well…that made it hard to function.

When I lost her the first time, I went through the same stages of grief that I had when I lost Chris.

This time was much worse.

She was like the ocean and I was the sand. Always being swept away and torn apart, but relentlessly chasing each other. Touching, seeking, tasting, loving, waiting. It was a painful state of affairs. She was the painful love of my life.

I just wanted her to know how sorry I was. That I regretted every cruel word and bad look I'd ever given her. I needed her to know that I'd loved her all along. That I'd never stopped loving her and I never would. I just needed her to know these things. I couldn't stand the thought of her never knowing the truth.

I'd made a lot of mistakes and most I couldn’t take back, but fuck, I loved her. Right down to the core of me, I loved that girl. Now she was gone, I felt like someone had taken a knife to my body and carved out half my heart.

Pain enveloped me twenty-four-seven, making it hard to breathe. Like a reliable beating drum, my heart continued to thump in my chest, keeping me here, but fuck, I needed to find her or I needed to find an out.

At least if Cal was dead, we could finally be together.

She couldn’t hate me for that, right?

At least, that's what I told myself.

It was how I eased my conscience.

Resigned to my fate, I found myself back in my hometown of Pocketful, and back to the beginning of the end.

It felt weird to be back and normal all at once. It had been so long and not nearly long enough all in one breath.

Chris was right. Nothing in Pocketful was as it seemed. Nothing about my whole damn life was as it seemed. I got that now. Oh yeah, I got that loud and clear.

Questions? I had millions of them.

Anger? I was drowning in it.

Fuck me, whoever said the past tastes bitter was dead on the money.

Slumped against the familiar gravestone, I folded my arms behind my head and stretched my legs out in front of me. Imagining that I was lying in the exact same place and position as my brother six feet beneath me, something that had always given me some morbid sense of relief, I cast my gaze up to the storm-ridden, grey sky.

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