I don’t know what the fuck it is, I asked the doctor to take a look, maybe they missed a fissured rib or something, but they said that while any other symptom I have is directly connected to my injuries, there’s no medical reason that can explain this ache.
I rub a little stronger. It hurts like a motherfucker sometimes just out of the blue. It feels like something that should be there is just gone, like there’s something I’m supposed to be missing.
I don’t know, it makes no sense, maybe it’s just grief clawing at me.
My phone goes off again and I see I’ve got another email.
I swipe on the screen and squint at the address.
Harry Winston.
Who the fuck is it?
If the email address makes me frown, the fucking subject line makes my jaw drop: ‘Your ring design is ready.’
What ring? What design?
What the heck is this?
I open the email and scan the content of the message in mild shock.
Apparently, at some point, during those two weeks I don’t remember, I went crazy and blew a small fortune on a down payment for a custom-made engagement ring that’s just been put together to my specifications.
A heart-shaped diamond center stone, a platinum band and baguette sides stones?
How the fuck could I ask for this stuff, I don’t even know what half of this shit means?
Maybe they emailed the wrong guy.
I skim through the email again.
Nope. That’s my name over there and the details of one of my debit cards.
I look through my older emails for a clue and it doesn’t take me two minutes to determine that yes it really seems like I went online on August 14 and booked an appointment from their website and then made the order, an order which the jeweler fulfilled: the ring is ready to be picked up or shipped and they’re waiting to hear back from me.
Why the fuck would I do something this insane?
What the fuck I needed an engagement ring for when I’ve been single for over seven years now?
Nothing in the emails exchanged when I made the initial query gives away my reason behind this.
Did I lose a bet to Jonny or something?
I stare at the digital rendition of the ring that they attached and I can’t believe my eyes.
If the mere existence of this ring wasn’t weird enough, it’s the words that I asked them to etch on the inner side of the band that are completely baffling.
‘To the edge of eternity’.
Now, what in the world does that mean and why does it feel like I should know the answer to this question?
Chapter 3
KENNA
Five years later…
I look over all the sealing boxes scattered around my tiny apartment and I smile with a shaky breath.
The moving company will be around in a couple of hours and then I’ll be ready to hit the road and start my adventure.
Normally, I hate driving and that’s why I don’t even own a car. I usually either walk or take the bus and get all my groceries delivered, but for this trip, I planned something special and leased a pickup.
I smile a little bigger.
I can’t believe this is really happening to me.
This is it.
After so many years of feeling adrift and aimless, I finally have something to look forward to.
I’m taking the reins of my life firmly in my hands and going where I want to go, no more holding tight while invisible horses keep dragging me wherever they please, no more wait and see, no more just reacting.
There might still be a hole in my soul, but today everything changes.
I used to always be positive and upbeat when I was younger, then Wyatt happened. For years, my life was a continuous going-through-the-motions with no feelings and no hope, but now I finally truly feel like I’m on the right path again.
This move is the right choice, everything within me is screaming it.
I waited for years for something, for a sign, I didn’t know what I was waiting for exactly, now I do: it was this.
This big change doesn’t come without its share of painful recollection and awful discoveries about my past and my so-called family, but it still makes the future look a lot less dim than it was a mere month ago when this whole thing started. Maybe I can begin to let go of Wyatt now, for real this time.
I’m finally moving on, literally and figuratively.
I waited for that call that never came long past I should have and maybe a part of me will always be waiting, my love for that man is just too powerful to let go of completely, but I won’t let this destroy me any longer.
After I got back to Jacksonville, I tried to pick up the pieces of my life the best I could, I focused on studying and shuttered myself off completely. I made the effort not to think about him every day, but he was always there, I could never really move on, never forget. It was like a curse, it still is.
He really did a number on me.
For seven days I had it all. For once in my life I was loved, I was happy.
Wyatt told me we were each other’s forever and that I was his heart and I believed him. How could I not when I felt it was so deeply true that he was inside my own?
Everything was toe-curling kisses, fast-beating hearts, and magic nights then. So many happily ever-afters floated in my head. We talked. We planned. We couldn’t wait to start living that future.
But we had to wait.
Only, I didn’t know I was going to wait alone. Going to wait for nothing. Going to wait forever.
I was so sure during that week, so sure I had found my one. I believed everything he told me, everything he promised.
I believed his story, our story. I was truly certain we were meant to be forever and it’s such a stubborn notion in my mind, heart, and soul that I haven’t been able to even contemplate dating, let alone forming any kind of relationships.
I still wish I could have felt more anger toward him, that I could have summoned that much healthier response, but it wasn’t to be, it couldn’t be: not when I felt in my soul that he had been honest, that what we had was real even if it didn’t last.
Some days it was very difficult to accept that no matter what my heart said, facts had proved me wrong and there was no reason to go look for answers or try to reach out anymore. Some days I still have to remind myself this is still true.
I told myself I wasn’t alone, that sadly life wasn’t a romance novel with a happily-ever-after, life sucked sometimes, girls got their heart broken all the time, I was nothing special, I was just one of many and if people survived this pain all over the world every day, so could I.
I really tried to focus on that and it got a bit easier with time, especially after I finally stood up to that bitch of my former roommate and sent her packing.
Not that she wasn’t right in her assessment of things, it was her delivery that was unsupportable. She used to call me stupid and pathetic for having let him walk all over me, use me and discard me and she told me so many times I was an even bigger idiot for still holding a torch for him after months without a single word from him that I had to draw the line at some point.