Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 9: Apprehensions & Impressions

Chandler

This is unedited bc my wrist hurts but I wasn't going to make y'all wait.

Chloe's POV

I wake up later than afternoon shocked.

I was sure before I finally drifted off into fitful sleep just after six this morning, that I would wake up to the feeling of searing pain, the tell-tale sign of being rejected.

I've always hated the rules that conditioned a love that was supposed to be boundless and endless.

Always seemed like a scam to me.

If you pray to Celeste and resist your Soulmate from a place of hate or malice, then the pain of heart break, a severed soul and losing the tether of fate will settle in your chest where your love once was. Instead of joy and love, you'll be cursed will white searing pain that flares hotter and larger every time the rejected Soulmate thinks of them and their bond. Of course there are exceptions. Those who leave their Soulmates out of fear and safety are protected from this pain, instead the abuser claiming the torture instead. In both cases, the one who was wrong or harmed are said to be given a second chance, made by their own decision, to pursue another chance at Fate and another Soulmate or to simply live out their lives without the pain and connection to their exes and to find a simpler love.

Some call it merciful.

I call it terrifying.

Why the hell should I need some Goddess to approve love for me? Why should I allow a stranger to choose the path that I take with my life? Who has the audacity to take away my freedom to fail, and find love and heart break all on my own? Why do I need permission to live? Why do I need approval to just......be?

I've asked the same questions since I was a child and the only responses I've gotten are ones full of hate, disgust and resentment.

"Figures a worthless child like you would ask such foolish things."

"What a wretched bastard you are to question the mercy of Our Glorious Goddess Celeste."

I've asked the same damn questions. Every time.

"Disgusting Warlock, how dare you disrespect the one who gave you filthy fucking magi the right to live among Divine Children. Ungrateful brat. I'll teach you some porter respect."

And every time.

"It would be foolish to think someone as small brained as your kind would be able to understand something so complex. You just remember to be grateful if Celeste thinks any of you are worthy."

I was beaten down. Stricken. Cursed.

"You're worthless to society. Someone like you doesn't get to ask questions. Just do as your told."

It always felt as if there was always something wrong with me.

"Die, monster."

Inside and out.

"If it were up to me, you would all burn in the depths of Hell."

That just made people hate me.

I'm curled into a ball, the blanket pulled tightly over my head. My tail is curled into my lap, my arms wrapped around it securely, my ears flat on my head as tears stream across my face and wet the bed below me. My pain is silent, years of practice, of keeping my tears invisible and my cries muted so I wouldn't call too much attention to myself.

Sometimes attention can be worse than being alone.

Some things get blurred now. I no longer remember if they came from strangers or my own father. Sometimes the voices get so loud in my head and my chest, it feels like it's filling me from the inside out, squeezing whatever else inside of me to the background until I can't breath. Until it's all I am. An accumulation of all the ones who've beaten me down.