When I'm Gone
For as long as I could remember, I’d had a fear of abandonment.
With the exception of my two best friends, Beckett and Ayden, I closed myself off from the world. Loving two boys unconditionally didn’t come without its problems, but my love for them never frayed. At least not until the rope we entwined for ourselves was forced to snap.
We were inseparable—until we weren’t.
“If love were enough it would save you in every lifetime.” Those are the words my mum lived by.
In hindsight, those words were a lesson. One I’d learn much later on, when the world around me crumbled and my fear of abandonment reminded me of its existence.
I made bad choices.
I lost sight of who I used to be.
They say there’s two sides to every story, but in this story—there’s three.
Blue
My marriage was a farce—our vows splintered years before my wife’s lips touched another man’s.
A call from my boss overseas asking me to house his juvenile daughter seemed the perfect opportunity to create some distance.
Though Blue Sterling wasn’t the Bambi eyed kid I saved from a burning vehicle all those years ago.
Nah.
She was all grown up.
Killer legs, full lips, and a scent so alluring it made me sick.
Despite holding myself back, my walls began to crumble. She called me cold—she wasn’t wrong. Yet with each day that passed, and every forbidden touch, she seemed to nestle her way into my warmth. Warmth I had no idea I possessed.
Blue Sterling became my devotion. And though tragedy brought us together, it seemed my secrets kept us apart.
Ultimately, I realised it too little too late—the danger to be found in devotion when you weren’t all in.