Page 1 of Forgiving Fate

Prologue

Seconds.

That’s how long it takes for everything to change. One moment you are living and the next you are simply existing.

Never moving forward. Or backward. Just stuck in a never-ending cycle of existing as an empty body floating from day to day.

I’d like to say I know it will get better. And one day the waves will settle. But I can’t.

Because every day when I wake up, I’m still here. Still trapped in this life. In this body. Every wave knocking me down, never getting a chance to breathe.

So why would I see a good outcome?

I wish I could say I don’t blame her. I want to absolve her of the immense guilt, but I can’t. Because the truth isn’t nice and easy.

I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t meet her.

I wouldn’t have felthishands on me.

I wouldn’t have watched the two people I love the most in this world become ash.

I know she would take my place in a heartbeat, but it all comes down to one thing. If I had never met Logan,hewouldn’t have destroyed me.

Even though I reserve all the blame forhim, I still can’t do the one thing I so desperately wish I could.

I can’t look her in the eyes and say, I forgive you.

I can’t look her in the eyes and tell her anything because when I look at her I see my former life.

I look at her and see the happy girl I was beforeheinvited himself into my apartment and shattered my entire world with one word.

Revenge.

Now, some may say blame and forgiveness go hand in hand, but I don’t see it that way.

Blame puts the weight of something on someone else’s shoulders and that’s not what I feel towards her. She ran away and did everything in her power to keep herself and those close to her safe.

Unfortunately,hewas smarter and always one step ahead.Hewalked into our lives like a hurricane barreling towards shore, destroying anything that got in its path. And in the end, we both lost people we care so deeply about.

So no, blame isn’t what I feel towards the girl who is my best friend and the murderer of the man who haunts my every moment.

I feel the death of my former self. The girl who was a nurse to the smallest humans. Who loved the warmth of the sun on her face. A girl who saw fear and laughed in its face.

And now that girl no longer exists.

That girl is gone and left in her wake is an empty shell just drifting from one wave to the next.

I want to give in. What is living if every moment I am haunted by a man who is now a ghost?

I want to let the tide swallow me whole, but a small fraction of my mind refuses to lethimwin. That tiny piece reminds me not to let Mike Nicholson take one more thing from me.

The problem is that voice is quiet compared to the ones that are screaming. The ones that every time I close my eyes, replay the last months of my life on repeat like a horror movie.

The truth is, I don’t know if I am strong enough to keep braving the storm because the pain I’m feeling right now is dragging me further and further into the darkness every day.

As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, the little fight I have left in me fades away into the depths of heavy waters. And the will to never lethimwin again follows close behind it.

Chapter One

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