This Love ✔️

Xmas Bonus Chapter Part 4

Bash's POV

I needed to get out of there. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It felt as though my chest was tightening so my erratically beating heart would stay in it's cage.

I never wanted my Sadie to see me like this. I made a promise to myself weeks ago that when I came home I wouldn't think about what happened over there. I would only think of Sadie. But the demons in my mind were clawing to get out and they did, no matter how hard I tried to keep them in.

The snow was falling down hard but it cooled my body down as I stood in the middle of Mr. Jefferson's large lawn.

As I felt the snow melt against my forearms and hands I was reminded of Christmas with Sadie and her family years before. I remember thinking how badly I wanted to spend every other Christmas with her and so far I have. But then I had to go and ruin it.

Just like I always did.

"Want a smoke kid?"

I spun around, surprised to see Victor standing behind me, wrapped up in his jacket with a cigarette pack in his hands. He looked at me expectantly but I shook my head. "I don't smoke."

He looked down at the carton then back up to the sky. "Eh, I probably shouldn't either. But you know habits are hard to break." He flipped out a small stick before tucking the rest of the box in his coat pocket.

I watched slightly amused as he struggled to light the cigarette with snow falling down on him. Eventually he cursed and threw the wet stick away.

"Why are you here?"

He looked at me as if he forgot I was standing before him. "Because I sure as hell wasn't going to let the love of my life spend Christmas with her ex-husband without me."

"I didn't mean that, I meant here, as in outside with me."

"I was the one who made you run out here wasn't I?"

"I'm not a child you need to look after. I don't even know you."

"You'd be surprised."

I looked at him confused. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Pointing at me with his lighter he said, "You remind me a lot of someone I know."

"Sounds like a great guy."

He chuckles, shaking his shoulders. "I am aren't I?"

"I remind you of you?"

He nodded his head. "It's kind of scary actually."

I ran my bottom lip between my teeth and rolled my eyes. I had picked up the action from spending the past two years with Sadie. "Please enlighten me."

"You're misunderstood. You've spent almost your entire life trying to protect other people, and you succeed, but people still cross the road when you approach them. They think you're trouble until you start to believe it."

I shifted uneasily on my feet. He was spot on, so maybe this guy did know me better than I thought.

"And then you meet her," he said, a grin and a far off look appearing on his face. "She's different than anyone you had ever met because she see's you. She's the first person to ever really see you." Sadie. "And then she consumes until you believe that every fiber of your being was made for her. You were born to love her, to worship her, to protect her. And when that time comes . . . you ruin her."

I gulp and cross my arms against the harsh winter snow. Every word he spoke hit me like a truck full of truth. I never thought I would be able to describe this love between Sadie and I but here this stranger was, putting all my thoughts into words.