Chapter 124
Tristan Pov
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The last few weeks had been complete torture. Every day felt like walking through broken glass barefoot, each step more painful than the last
It had gotten worse after what happened between Athena and me, so much worse that some mornings I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed
Tactually couldn’t explain what had happened that night, why I said what said. Even now, thinking about it made my chest tight with shame and self–loathing. That was the most horrible thing anyone could do to another person, and that’s exactly why I hadn’t tried to explain myself afterward,
What explanation could possibly make it better? What words could undo the damage I’d done?
I’d gone out that night to have a drink, like I always did when the depression got too heavy to carry alone. And God, I reall apartment felt emptier than it had ever felt before, even emptier than those first awful weeks after losing less.
The
I didn’t know if it was because Athena wasn’t around anymore, but I found myself wandering through rooms that still smell touching surfaces she’d touched, missing her presence in ways that confused and terrified me.
et shampon,
I’d started wishing that night that Jess hadn’t died. If she hadn’t died, maybe wouldn’t be missing Athena so much. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this gnawing emptiness that seemed to eat me alive from the inside out.
But even as I thought it, I couldn’t decide who I was really missing. I just knew there was this vast, aching void in my chest that nothing seemed to fill.
So I’d gone out to my usual bar and ordered shot after shot. It takes a lot of alcohol to get me drunk – werewolf metabolism burns through it too
quickly.
But that night, I’d been determined. I mixed everything they had behind that bar and downed it all in one go. It took hours to really get wasted, but I’d
been committed to the process.
And that’s where it all went wrong.
As the alcohol took hold, something strange started happening. I’d always told myself I was missing Jess, that the pain in my chest was grief for my
dead mate. But that night, as I sat there drowning in whiskey and self–pity, I started seeing Athena everywhere.
In every woman who walked past, in every laugh that carried across the room in every flash of dark hair caught in my peripheral vision. It was like my drunken brain couldn’t stop searching for her, couldn’t stop wanting to see her face.
I needed to see her before I lost what was left of my sanity. So I’d driven recklessly to her apartment, probably breaking every traffic law in existence. The moment she opened that door, it felt like all the emptiness in my chest simply disappeared.
She was there. She was real. She was looking at me with those beautiful eyes that had haunted my dreams for years.
But then, as I was telling her how much I’d missed her, Jess’s face had appeared in my mind like a ghost. The guilt crashed over me in waves – guilt for being in another woman’s arms, guilt for wanting someone who wasn’t my mate, guilt for betraying the memory of the woman I was supposed to love
forever.
I didn’t know how Jess’s name had come out of my mouth instead of Athena It just slipped out, like my subconscious was punishing me for daring to feel something real for someone else.
But deep in my heart, even as I spoke another woman’s name, Athena was the one I truly missed. Athena was the one I’d needed to see, to touch, to
hold.
