folklore .| for brentley

First love has nothing on the real thing.

I knew from the moment Brentley took root in me — when all the scars started to heal. When the nightmares finally stopped. I didn't wake up screaming because I saw the face of the first boy I destroyed, and I was grateful. Because I was so tired of the blood, and the loss, and the hatred torn between myself and my sister.

It was always a difficult choice for me — figuring out where to point my gun. Until he took it in his hands, and he kissed my empty palms and told me I was beautiful even with all of my walls down. And I had always refused to love; only to watch a boy dying at my feet. Because his body couldn't handle the punishment. Because I asked him to run with me.

I broke the rules, and he paid the price.

What gave me the right to love this one? When he appeared at my door, staring through me with those winter eyes — it shouldn't have been so easy. It shouldn't have been so cruel. Because I knew he hated my sister, too, and I knew that I wanted to hurt her as much as I wanted to hurt myself. And I'll admit, I thought he'd be the end of me.

I never expected a beginning.

But I fell, like I always had. Down deeper, and deeper still — until I was drowning in our romance, telling new stories to myself and no one else. That I could stay with him in that house he made by the sea. That his friends were precious to me, like the memories we were making. That I wanted a family with him. Enough that I asked him to burn all of his dreams to ashes for me. Just to prove that he could.

Feeling the ache inside myself at the thought of being his wife — a mother, a provider, sobbing in the middle of the night and waking up in his arms. Pretending that I was fighting a monster that didn't share his face. Never telling him that I was growing to resent him. Because I never wanted a love like this. A boy that would give me everything, and never break.

A boy I couldn't run from.

This is what he gave me. Four walls and a foundation of stone. His lips on my neck, his embrace all around me, holding me together when I just wanted to collapse into nothing. Because that's the catch. I never wanted to be whole. And I shouldn't have lied — shouldn't have set him up to fail. I gambled on tragedies, only to find my soulmate. What a fool I was.

Everything in me was destined to lead back to him.

How could I ever escape the inevitable?

He'd wipe my tears away, promise me everything I could ever want. And then he'd stay. And I could feel that cord between us tighten around my throat — until it was suffocating me. Until every time his friends came over, and sang their praises for us, I wanted to scream. To kick them out, and lock the doors, and burn it all to the ground. Every memory.

Until they realized.

Until he realized.

Until I realized I'd never be happy again.

Not while he was. Not while I was. And I hate for myself for it, but then I don't — because he should have known what he was signing up for. That's what I tell myself. He saw the warning signs, and he ignored them, and now he has to pay. Now I do. Of course we do. Good things don't happen to me. I don't let them. He never had a chance.

Because my heart was made for him. It was his from the start.

So I buried it, and never mourned.