Bound to Burn

Prologue

PROLOGUE

CASH

The Night We Meet by Nath Brooks

For Cash

I’m not sure where to begin. Then again, when have you ever known me to be at a loss for words? Maybe it’s because you leave me speechless. You, Cash Morgan, were the light that chased away my darkness. You caught me when I was falling, and you saved me when I was hopeless. Only, I couldn’t do the same for you. It’s okay if you hate me, but maybe someday you’ll forgive me.

I hope you know that I loved you, that I love you still. I promised myself to you - for better, for worse - to love and to cherish - till death do us part, but I think we both knew those bonds were always meant to be broken. Maybe we should have stopped before we even started and saved ourselves the heartache, but it’s not the ending that matters, it’s everything in-between.

In the story of my life, if Jack was the villain, then you were the hero.

I know you will find love again, but what I really hope is for you to find your way back to Jack. Your friendship is the purest love of us all.

Love Always, Mia

Love has a way of burning through you like poison. One tiny vial containing the elixir that has the power to lift you up but just as easily take you under. I wish it was something forced upon me then I would have someone else to blame but myself. The choice to willingly swallow it was mine and mine alone.

On the way down it burns like whiskey, coats your throat like a love song, and enters your belly with a force of a hurricane.

Hurricane.

That’s exactly what she was.

She tore through my life from the minute I met her to the day she left this earth. I had a hand in that.

The end of her.

The end of me.

The end of us.

I fold the letter carefully and stick it back inside the faux leather bound journal. The ties hang limp like the loose ends of our life together. So many beginnings that burned out before they had a chance to grow.

I didn’t want to read her journal and I was determined to keep it locked away but it held the answers to questions that weren’t my own.

Mia called this her Phoenix story where she unapologetically laid out all of the messy details of her life.

A life before me and a life after me.

I know better than to judge a book by it’s cover and it’s not how a story ends but everything that happens in-between that matters the most.

I was her in-between and she loved me, I know that now but it still wasn’t enough for us.

I thought I had made peace with everything that happened but every decision I have made since I let her go was forged in the knowledge of her. I had erected a wall around my heart, and stopped living. What I didn’t know back then was that love had the power to break me and I wasn’t about to go through that again.

But still I loved her even though I knew she was in love with Jack and for that I willingly take responsibility.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jack asks.

Both of us stare into the fire.

I don’t need to look at him to see the concern on his face. I can feel it in the timber of his voice and the shifting of his weight in the chair. There are too many years of indignation, regret, affinity, and love between us to ever be able to hide anything from the other. He knows me better than any other human being ever has or ever will. Just as I can feel his concern, he can feel my trepidation at the knowledge this journal has given me.

I granted him only one of the secrets hidden within these pages.

I can’t help but feel that Mia had a hand in delivering this journal to me when I needed it the most. A way of shoving me in the direction I was so afraid to go because it’s a place that I can’t take her with me.

The intimate details of my life with Mia are contained in this journal.

A love letter to me and me alone.

“Yes,” I answer, hearing Jack’s empathetic sigh.

I learned a long time ago that not asking for help was just bravery wrapped up in stupidity. I needed Jack in the same way I needed to breathe. The three of us, myself, Jack, and Mia, had always been intertwined like the branches of a bramble. It may have looked ugly to those on the outside but being wrapped up with the intimate knowledge of each other from the inside, was a thing of untamed beauty.

No one ever said beauty was without thorns. Just pick up a single rose and you’ll feel it’s cruel sting. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean you should deny yourself the knowledge of its scent because never knowing that is the real cruelty.

It wasn’t until I met Sasha that I realized how much of Mia I carried around with me. The mural on the wall of the record store, the journal tucked away, and the shitty bass guitar that deserves to be played but instead sits in my loft next to my bed like a f*****g guard dog.

Fate has a way of f*****g with me and Sasha was the greatest curveball of my life in more ways than one. I didn’t want to fall in love with her. In fact, I was determined not to, but she danced her way into my heart with her pink glittered Converse, and the taste of peppermint that I will never be able to savor again without thinking of her.

And then I had to f**k it all up.

Without hesitation, I toss the journal into the center of the fire. Jack flinches but we both stare, unmoving, watching as the flames wrap themselves around the faux leather and slowly consume it.

Some secrets should be left buried but some refuse to be.

This one in particular goes by the name of Peter Hayes.