Page 26 of Golden Atonement

Now she was gone.

I think on some level I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep her. The realization that the woman I loved was never meant to be mine was a hard pill to swallow, and it would take my whole life to come to terms with it.

There would never be another for me.

As long as I lived, my soul would be hers.

Always.

Growing up, no one ever told me love would be this hard. To love someone, I would have to give all of myself—the good and the bad. I spent years hiding behind the demon that lived within me. Then she walked back into my life like a breath of fresh air. She was everything good and pure in this world. I was the darkness that protected her. For a short time, I had everything I ever thought I wanted.

Now that it was gone.

I realize I never had it at all.

How could one love the wind? For a short time, she swirled around me, enveloping me in her soft embrace. It occurred to me now that I should have had the courage to admit to her that I was too broken.

A lost cause that she couldn’t save.

I should have set her free.

Instead, my selfish nature refused.

Because that’s exactly what I was—selfish.

A selfish damaged bastard who couldn’t release the one pure thing in my life. In the end, I turned her into the very thing I’d been fighting.

I turned her into me.

A dark, soulless creature.

Holding my gun in my hand, I looked at the heavy piece. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I didn’t want to do anything without her.

“You can’t give up yet, brother,” Sandman whispered, walking out of the shadows. It had been many months since I saw him last. He was the last person I imagined seeing here.

I guess, in some way, it was fitting. We both lived our lives in the darkness, loving the wind and sun, refusing to give them up.

“She’s hurt, but with pain comes healing.”

“She will never forgive me.”

“Maybe, but if you quit now, you will never know.”

“He’s right, brother,” Bullseye added, walking into the room, taking a seat. “You are so close to the finish line. Be a real shame to end it all now without seeing how it all works out.”

“She thinks I betrayed her.”

“No, she doesn’t. I told her the truth,” Sandman admitted, leaning against the wall as I looked up at him.

“Why would you do that?”

He shrugged. “Because it was time.”

Shaking my head, I whispered, “She was free. You should have let her believe the lie. It would have been easier that way.”

“Nothing in our lives is easy,” Bullseye stated bluntly. “You know that more than any of us. The truth of the matter is that life dealt you and Remi a shit hand. You both did what you had to, to survive. In the end, you did what you thought was right, and she will too. There is no shame in that, but, brother, if you walk away from her now, you are letting every motherfucker who ever hurt the two of you win. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know how to fix this.”

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