Page 122 of When Hearts Ignite

We can never be together. It’s immoral. It’s a disease.

Please forgive me for last night, for not telling you the moment I found out. I desperately wanted one last memory with you. Please forgive me for my behavior. Instead of dealing with the situation like a man, I chose to be a coward, to drink myself into hopes I’d never awaken and I can keep you with me always.

But all dreams have to end. Not all wishes come true, even the wishes made upon a wishing star.

My only regret is hurting you because I know you’ll be crushed by this news, just like I was when I found out. But selfishly, I could never regret you.

I’m thankful you exist.

I’m thankful you got his hug and love when I got everything else from him.

I’m thankful you walked into the halls of Pietra and into my life.

I’m thankful I got to be the one to love you, to receive your love, even if it’s only for a short while.

I’m thankful you’ve resurrected my heart, even though I’m dying of pain, but at least I have the memories of our time together with me always. At least I’ve loved and truly lived before.

I love you forever and always, even though we can never be together.

“You’re the stars in my skies, the reason I breathe at night, how will I live now that you’re not by my side?”

I understand these lyrics now, and I thank you for teaching me the power of love.

Forever yours,

Steven

P.S. Once you’ve had time to process this, if you want to find me, I’ll be at my suite at The Orchid. I won’t run away this time.

The letter falls from my hands onto the blankets, and I look at the photo on the bed. It’s a faded one, but I recognize a slightly younger Steven, his mother, two women I presume are his sisters, and a man I haven’t laid eyes in over fifteen years—Uncle Bobby, known to the world as the reclusive Robert Kingsley. He’s thinner, his hair graying, but those kind eyes and regal bearing are very much him.

I let out a shuddering sob as tears stream down my face. Clutching Steven’s pillow, still heavy with his scent to my chest, I cry as the reality of the situation finally catches up to me. That’s why he pulled away last night when I kissed him. That’s why he looked so broken, so haunted. That’s why I was mourning a loss I couldn’t identify until now. That’s why he told me not to hate him.

I want to be angry; I want to feel disgusted and perhaps a part of me does, with the nausea joining in or the pounding pain in my chest, but at the end of the day, I could never bring myself to hate him.

How could I? He’s very much a victim of the same circumstances as I am. Two broken people who, despite all odds, fell in love when they shouldn’t have, because of the sins of our parents.

One doesn’t fall out of love because something as inconvenient as the truth enters the picture. The heart doesn’t care about common sense, rational thought, what’s right or wrong.

They say the heart wants what it wants.

I always thought that was foolish, but now I realize I’m the fool, a fool still madly, desperately in love with a man she has no future with. With someone she isn’t allowed to love romantically.

My heart splits apart into broken slivers, joining his tattered pieces as the vultures of reality feast on the scraps.

An unbearable pain scythes through my insides, cleaving me in half as my tears wet the pillow and guttural cries tear from my throat.

It can’t be.

The denial is a constant chant, echoing in my mind. I shake my head. I refuse to believe it.

Taylor and I asked Mom if Uncle Bobby was our father and she always said no. She was vehement about it, and I never sensed deceit from her.

I fist the blankets as I rake in desperate gulps of air, my mind trying to hang on to the last vestiges of rational thought, of logic.

It can’t be. There has to be a mistake. Mom would’ve told us. I’m sure of it. My father is someone else. He can’t be Uncle Bobby.

The irony doesn’t escape me—the person I longed to be my father when I was a kid is the one person I desperately hope isn’t my father now.

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