“What are we going to do?” I asked him, not sure he could give me the answers I sought.
I felt the weight of my life bearing down on me. It wouldn’t let me up.
I was a prisoner.
I knew that now.
I had been held captive for a long time.
The anger incinerated everything.
And the love…
That was almost too much to handle.
Bastian smiled and it was beautiful. My heart felt full. He wouldn’t let it break.
“We start living our lives. Onourterms,” he responded with a firmness at odds with the tenderness in his expression.
“On our terms,” I repeated, feeling the words. Owning them.
Bastian brushed his nose against mine, kissing me softly. “The world is ours. We can make exactly what we want of it.”
And then we were kissing again. And it was deeper than before. Less frantic, yet more passionate.
I would never marry Pastor Carter.
I knew that with an absolute certainty.
My heart, my body, my soul belonged only to me.
I chose who to give it to.
And I chose to give it to Bastian Scott.
The man who had changed me.
“I want to be with you, Bastian,” I said, hoping he understood what I was offering. Only to him.
Bastian’s eyes were brimming. Overflowing. I felt humbled by what I saw there. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice shaking.
I nodded.
This was my choice. My decision.
The first one in my entire life that I made only for me.
Bastian kissed me one more time before standing up and taking my hand. Silently we made our way back to The Retreat. This quiet seemed louder. Fuller.
We said so much without uttering a single word. His fingers laced with mine sang a hundred songs. Our heartbeats vowed a thousand promises.
Our breaths spoke in a language only the other could understand.
Yet, the raging guilt still consumed. It mauled me alive, threatening this newfound identity I had only so recently discovered.
My fate was meant to be something else.
I had been groomed for a different path.
