Page 106 of Collateral Damage

“Why is this so important to you?” She grabs my hand, locking her fingers with mine and they are muggy with sweat.

“Because I want you to experience normality. Go out, get drunk or something.” I realise she never got to experience hers and my gaze softens watching her younger self talk to me.

“Because you couldn’t?” I coo softly, watching her throat bob as I take her thoughts and put them into words.

“I went to prison at nineteen, but I was stripped of normality long before I was thrown behind bars. You have the chance to live like any other and I want that for you.” Her attitude towards my life has completely shifted and I won’t lie, it's slightly strange. She suddenly wants me to experience everything she couldn’t and I know her guilt plays a huge part in that.

“Well on my 21st birthday you can tell yourself you did it, as we dance in a random club somewhere. Ok?” I grace her with a smile, waiting for her to smile back and she does, hesitantly for a brief moment before it disappears.

“Ok.”

“Ok.”I whisper.

C H A P T E R 61

REPEATING HISTORY

Puppeteer

Play - ‘Sleepyhead (Acoustic) - Jutes’

I’ve not been to sleep. Glaring up at the ceiling as I caress every perfect inch of her in my arms and I’ve never felt so at peace. Taking in this blissful moment knowing it may soon be over. How do I tell her I want to walk away after last night?… Every word she spoke was so full of hope I think it really will break her.I’m all she has left.

I contemplate my decision and even if I wanted to retract it, it’s too late. I’ve put myself out there and now it’s up to my fate. It's down to luck if that boy didn’t pick up that phone and that is if the CCTV didn’t catch me regardless. I knew what I was doing. It was the right thing to do. For once I'm doing the right thing, so why do I feel like I just made the worst mistake of my life?Why do I feel like this betrayal will shatter her until she cannot find any pieces of her inside me. The way I know she will loathe me because I'vebrokenher heart yet again. All I can do is wait and as much as I’m telling myself luck is on my side. It never has been so why would it start now. Realistically we were never going to make it and my heart pinches with that horrific ache I've tried my hardest to run from. That pit of nothingness I’m feeling as I sink under water, gripping her tighter in my arms like she's going to keep me afloat, realising what I've already lost.

The truth is, I never had her in the first place. Our love was a waiting game. A chess board. A means to an end and I glance at everything that she is, everything she will be while I'm behind bars. Knowing she will do something good in the world, maybe she needs to loathe me so she can move on from this.From me.

I run my fingers over her constellation, memorising the little bumps underneath my fingertips, wishing I could forever etch her sense, her smile and her laugh into my skin. I made sure that last night I gave her as much of her as I could give. I held my tongue and promised her forever without words. Now she needs to trust me. Wait for me. I hope she forgives me for this.

I plan on taking myself to the station today but I feel that journey won’t be necessary as my heart stops beating at the unfamiliar noise making itself known from behind the outside wall. So unfamiliar that it's too familiar. No one ever sets foot within a mile radius of this property and suddenly I can’t breathe. I tune into faint doors slamming and gravel shifting underneath heavy boots, holding my lungs as emotions betray me, cutting down the scars in my cheek.

…

My time is up.

I don’t move. I don’t flinch. I lay here, admitting defeat as I look down at her so at peace with the world that's yet again, about to be ripped out from underneath her, I realise this was everything but the wrong decision. I deserve this. Maybe not even for the lives I’ve taken. But for her. I deserve to serve my timefor her. For not just destroying her life once,but twice.

I close my eyes, awaiting the inevitable as whispers and shuffling approach the building, grating at my ears and I stroke her loose strands of oily hair, inhaling her sweet scent under my nose as she subconsciously squeezes me tighter and this time Idon’t fight it. In fact, I hate myself for not letting her in sooner. So I could remember her touch for the many years to come.

In another life maybe, things would have been so much simpler, but I was an idiot for ever bringing her into any of this. I should have let her go that night. I should have walked away.I should have done better.My jaw clenches, containing this internal rage building inside my chest cavity at all the fucking things I should have done but I didn’t. But you never realise what you have until you lose it. And I've lost it.

I’ve lost it all.

Shep sits up, quietly growling at the commotion outside he can hear just as much as I can.

…

Three hard knocksrattle the front door, echoing through the house like the doubts in my mind

She jumps up abruptly, clinging to me like she's just woken from a bad dream, glaring at me trying to figure out if that knock was in her head, or very much real. But I don’t flinch. I just stare at her trying to push down my urge to let the floodgates open as she looks at me for an answer. Shep begins to bark towards the bedroom door, raising his hackles with his brave face on.

Play - ‘Build A Home - Cinematic Orchestra’

“CHICAGO P.D OPEN UP.”

Her eyes immediately bulge and within seconds she's tearing, like she's hoping she's going to wake up and this is all just a terrible dream, flinching as they bang again, harder, causing her to tug on the duvet.“Hayden, what is going on?”

They don’t infiltrate. And they won’t for a few minutes. The last few minutes I have to try and say goodbye, but I don’t know how. I never have. How do you say goodbye to your entire life?How do you walk away from the thing that keeps you breathing? Not once, but twice?

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