My grip on her shoulders tightened, causing her to wince slightly. “I wasn’t stalking you. I had no idea who you were until I pulled you out of the water.” My words came out cold, hard, and showed every ounce of anger that coursed through me. “And I had to remove your clothes because they were soaking wet…I didn’t want you to get sick.”

“You should’ve left me there, Axel. After all, you’re great at leaving me behind.” She held no fight in her words, only resolve. Only sadness and surrender.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I roared in her face.

She took a step back, wincing from my tone.

My grip loosened as I said, “We need to talk, Bree. I need to know—”

“No,” she firmly stated while shaking her head slowly. “We have nothing to talk about. I have to get home. They’ll be worried about me.”

“They?” I asked as she continued to pull away. My hand slipped from her shoulder to her forearm, and finally down to her hand. I held onto it, not ready to let her go completely. Even after all she’d put me through, I was never able to fully let go of her from my mind. But once my fingers tightened around hers, I felt something cold and glanced down. A plain, silver band adorned her ring finger, and I had to mentally check what hand it was on. I hadn’t noticed it before, probably because I’d been too focused on her breathing and hadn’t paid any attention to the rest of her.

My painful gaze met her cold stare, and that’s when my heart finally broke for the last time. Up until that moment, I’d harbored some kind of unfounded hope that one day we’d meet again. And when that day would come, we’d talk about everything, starting with the moment I’d walked out of the school, and essentially cut her out of my life. We’d catch up on the lost time, realize we belonged with each other, and then finish living out the dreams we made together in my back yard on prom night. But feeling her wedding band against my fingers, knowing it wasn’t mine, and not finding a speck of remorse in her eyes…that hope I’d carried with me dissipated. The last piece of my already broken heart disintegrated. And the strength I’d fought for weakened. No…not weakened. It gave up. Left me feeling like I’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler, dying a slow, agonizing death.

I dropped her hand and her gaze, at a loss for what to do next. For six years, ever since the day I’d heard her crying my name from behind me as I exited the school for the last time, I’d wandered through life. Making one bad choice after another, just waiting for something to make sense. I needed a purpose, a reason why everything fell apart. I needed clarity. And last night, when I looked into her wolf eyes again, I thought I’d found it. I thought we’d been separated by time and distance to allow our ages to catch up to our hearts.

But that wasn’t the case.

She was taken.

She belonged to someone else.

My mind darkened with the reality that while I’d never been able to move on, she had. It solidified my previous worries that her feelings for me were nothing more than naïve, young love, while mine were real, hard, and unforgiving. I was at war with myself over this. On one hand, I wanted to be happy for her. I wanted to feel content with the knowledge that what had happened to us didn’t destroy her the way it had obliterated me. Even through all the anger I’d harbored against her for the decisions she’d made at the end, it still didn’t negate that I wanted her to be unaffected by our relationship. But even though I wanted to be happy for her, I couldn’t help the menacing anger that burned bright inside my chest. Aubrey Jacobs had ruined me. She ruined me for any other woman, for the chance at a healthy relationship, and worse, she’d ruined my chance to carry on with a normal life.

In the end, resentment won out.

“I’ll take you to your car…if you remember where you left it.” I stormed past her, not once raising my sight to hers, and grabbed my keys off the counter. I pulled her clothes from the dryer, balled them up, and shoved them at her. All while she stood there, not one word falling from her lips. I stalked to the front door, hearing her ragged breaths behind me.

“It’s okay, Axel. If you let me borrow your phone, I can call someone to pick me up. I don’t need you to drive me.” Her voice sounded disheartened, but I had no idea why.

Keeping my back to her and my hand on the cold door knob, her resolve wore me down as I said, “Last night, I thought I’d have to watch you die. And now, this morning, I feel like I have died. So before I let you go completely, can you just at least concede and let me make sure you leave safely? Can you just give me this one last thing?” I wanted to keep all emotion out of my tone, but that proved to be impossible with the amount of pain and grief that flooded me. It was true…I wanted to keep her safe one more time, hoping that would save my soul. Maybe give me some peace. But what I couldn’t tell her, was that I’d never survive watching her husband pick her up and take her away to their happily ever after. I could feel myself hanging by a thread, and I knew without a doubt that if I had to witness that, I’d willingly let go and fall into the dark abyss again. Only this time, I doubted that I would be able to climb my way out. I’d barely made it out the last time.

“I don’t need you to save me, Axel. I’m not the same damsel in distress as I was in high school. I’m not the poor girl that needs you to run to my rescue anymore. I can’t say much about last night…I don’t remember it. But I can promise you that I wasn’t trying to harm myself. I’m stronger, happier now than I was all those years ago. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Hearing her soft-spoken voice and the strength behind her words, I turned slowly to take her in. I’d spent so long watching her from afar, never knowing who she was to me. And since pulling her from the depths of the cold water, realizing her identity, I hadn’t once taken a close look at the woman she’d become. When I awkwardly peeled her wet clothes from her body, I had to fight with myself to not study her every curve, her every mark, her every freckle. I had to force myself to keep at the task of getting her into dry clothes, not letting my eyes fall on places I’d only dreamt about before. And once I had her resting on the couch in front of me, I couldn’t look anywhere but her covered chest, studying the rise and fall of her breaths. But seeing her now, standing in front of me, her spine straight and shoulders squared, it became obvious that she was not the same girl from my past.

“Last night wasn’t the first time I’d seen you, Aubrey.”

“So you have been stalking me?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, and I couldn’t tell if she’d meant it as a tease or an accusation.

“No,” I gritted out through clenched teeth, frustration taking the front seat of my emotions at the moment. “I told you, I had no idea it was you until last night. I’ve been going to that lake a lot, and sometimes you’d show up. I like to sit against the trees, and when you’re there, I watch you for a few minutes before leaving to give you some privacy.”

“Gee, Axel…that sounds a lot like stalking.” This time, she didn’t sound as if she’d meant it as a joke. But it still didn’t come out as condescending or condemning.

I snapped my head side to side before slapping my palm hard on the drywall next to me out of unbridled irritation. “Just stop! I wasn’t there for you. Okay? You just happened to show up some nights. And on those nights, I simply observed your sadness. I watched the way you carried yourself to the dock with your shoulders down, your head down. You just seemed…down. Sad. Lonely. Fuck! I don’t know what you were, but happy and strong were never words that came to my mind when I’d see you.” The strained and heated words scorched my throat and left my cheeks burning.