Page 126 of The Heart of a Villain

Does a first love always have a tragic ending, or does it have the chance to flourish into the love of your life?

I’m much older than you, and yet you’re the first woman I have ever loved. The only one who consumes me, the thoughts of you constantly present in my mind.

I wonder if you eat well, if you’re happy, if you need anything.

The desire to come wipe all your worries away drives me hard, the possessive and obsessive parts of me urging me to just take you away again. But the sane part… the one I thought I didn’t have until you… it pulls me back.

You were right after all.

We all have our obsessions, and you’re mine. I promise, though, that mine will never hurt you.

I’d rather kill myself than allow this to happen once again.

And despite everything… I now do something I vowed never to do.

I hope.

Hope for a chance with you and that all those poets are wrong.

True love doesn’t have to hurt. It needs to heal.

I close my eyes and press the letter to my heart, my soul crying out to his pain and desperately needing to soothe it because it matches my own.

My tears fall on the next letter, smearing the ink a little, while I manage to read through my blurry vision.

Aileen,

It’s been three months since the last time I held you in my arms, and they feel empty without you in them.

Sometimes, I wish to be the better man who could leave you alone and let you thrive without me.

Love apparently is supposed to be selfless and unconditional.

Yet that’s not true for me.

I find myself incredibly selfish when it comes to you.

I want you to belong only to me, to be the one who marries you and calls you mine for everyone to see. The idea of my ring on your finger sends pleasure into every possessive vein in my body.

I want to be the father of your children.

And God knows that’s not something I ever expected to say.

To be the only man you ever loved, and to spend the rest of my life with you, because the darkness that is always present? The one that has been attached to me since being stuck on the island all alone?

It loves and accepts you too, finding solace in your presence, as you are the light it never thought would touch it.

I’ve been lonely my whole life.

With you, though?

Even if you’re never mine, I won’t be lonely ever again.

Because you’ll forever live in my heart.

At this point, the tears are just flowing from me, and I quickly wipe them away, my entire soul crying to have my man next to me.

Levi was wrong in a way.

---