A Risk Worth Taking

Prologue

Saige's POV:

When I was younger, I used to always do small things like pushing Mama's hand away when she tried holding mine to cross the road or trying to get a book from the top shelf and crying when someone helped me. I guess I haven't changed much in all 22 years of my life. I know my family always jokes about me liking to do things on my own, but I only recently realized why it was so hard for me.

Fear. An absolutely ludicrous thing that's been brought up in the world since the beginning of time. Heck, even Adam and Eve feared God. It's an emotion that hasn't been naturally implanted into our minds, despite everything we've been told. Fear is something that has to be learned and I know this because I was once a child too.

When we're small, we don't realize the dangers of the cruel world we live in. We tend to look on the brighter side of things, like capturing a butterfly because it's pretty or going down the slide and feeling the rush of the wind in our hair. We don't think about how we're potentially killing that beautiful creature, or how we could fall from the top of the slide and break something because of its height. Our childhood innocence is robbed of that fearlessness the second we grow up and open our eyes to what life is really like.

I've always hated the idea of depending on people. Feared the concept of putting so much trust and hope in someone. By doing this, you're giving them the power to easily destroy everything you've built together in a single second, and you wouldn't be able to do anything but helplessly watch it crumble to the ground. Everyone has their reasons for fearing something and so do I. I guess I kind of always knew that I feared being let down by others, but the one thing I feared even more was letting others down. After him, it all just got worse. I never thought I'd have my first heartbreak so young, but things don't always go as expected.

After that, I decided that I'd do everything in my power to avoid hurting anyone I've grown to love. I don't want anyone to feel how I felt, to feel the excruciating pain of losing something so captivatingly beautiful that you just about lose yourself along with it. I've failed a lot and will continue to do so because that's natural human nature. However, I refuse to drag anyone with me when I go down because that's just not fair on them. So I guess they're right. I like to do things on my own and resent the idea of giving someone an opportunity to ruin me. Sue me for not wanting to be destroyed a second time.