Chapter 39
Sleep came often over the next several days and I found much needed rest as the last year and all that had happened seemed to be more of a dream than the dreams I sought out for solace. Anne had attended to me much as a mother would and I could see in her warm eyes the guilt she felt for not telling me that on the night of the flood she had taken Pandora with her, as she often had before. Neglecting to tell me, she felt responsible for all that had ensued.
Tristan had come by and offered his assistance to Anne, whom he seemed quite taken with. He had driven Anne to where I had been swept from the road. Together they had looked at the debris and were told that the water had never been more than waist deep. Anne had marveled at all the damage it had done, including totaling my Jeep.
It was three days after the accident when Reece and Amber came by for a visit. They had each come by before, but this time they had come together. Amber was feeling ill again and while they were visiting, Reece gazed at her protectively and as he did, I felt the perpetual inner tug-of-war.
This was getting old. Something had to be done.
I looked down at my hands and turned them up to examine my lifeline. I was no one special. They deserved someone who wouldn’t put them through uncertainty. I wanted to make everyone happy but a heart can’t be split in two, so there I was, at a precipice and I was encased by a black cloud of doubt. My mind told me that one decision could alter not only my life, but other lives as well. Who was I to command such power?
Reece decided to take Amber home when it was apparent I wasn’t much for talking. Because I loved them both I was more conflicted than ever.
I closed my eyes and saw Haven and heard the offer he had presented to me the last time we were together. I saw him hold out his hand, beckoning me to join him and to find belonging with his pack, a pack related to the one I came from. I looked into his eyes that so magically changed from indigo to sea-blue, and I saw protection in them. I also saw history and a link to my own kind.
Then I saw the past. I saw my mother’s radiant smile and the gold in her hair as she let it fall in streamers around me as she cradled me to her. I saw my father as he patiently taught me to drive and laughed when I kept stalling. His encouraging face was burned inside me, a place I could go to when I needed to feel his love. I saw him finger the photo of her and whisper that they would be together again and that their separation from one another was temporary, not forever, and here I was being offered more time than was natural, but in a place where they weren’t and could never be.
I saw Reece – the friend-who-was-more-than-a-friend. With him I felt comfortable, natural and happy. I could have a normal life with him in it but it wasn’t a choice that brought me comfort because of yet another.
Amber…
I had many choices and I could also choose to be alone, but I was tired of being alone. No matter what path I chose, there was sacrifice, but whose would it be? In a fair world, they would all choose for me.