Page 79 of A Sweet Destruction

Esme

You’d think casting up your accounts in front of your Soul Mate would leave you horrified. Someone needed to tell the Bond it was normal to feel embarrassed after something like that, not excited.

It was clearly some sort of base instinct that was critical thousands of years ago, only mating for survival. The only thing the Bond could understand was that Ford had taken care of me in my time of need.

It grabbed onto the fact that I enjoyed it, too. Not just the act, but all that it uncovered.

Old wounds, long repressed—not healed, I wasn’t that delusional. The orphan to isolated teenager to rejected paranima path was a rough one, especially when it came to taking care of myself.

That was all I’d ever wanted, somewhere to belong. Someone to belong there with. If they cared enough for me to make sure I was alright and would be there if I needed support, that would have been nice, too.

I’d given up hope a long time ago that I could find that with Ford. It had been painful to admit that to myself, and it was painful to try and reconcile that might no longer be true.

Because it wasn’t just as simple as surrendering to the Bond. It was never that simple.

Every other paranima who’d accepted the Bond seemed to genuinely fall in love with each other on top of the Bond’s mania. One look at Bellamy and Soren—or any of the Matches that had been on duty before us—and you’d know they meant more to each other than some biological compatibility.

The Bond had simply brought them together, but their love would have formed without it.

So then why, after eight years, hadn’t Ford fallen in love with me?

I tossed back another large gulp of my drink at the thought, earning a not-so-subtle side eye from the bartender. I’d snuck down here while Ford was in the shower, needing some space to think. The image of his shoulders slick and glistening was far too distracting.

The pleasant burn of Muli whiskey did a good job at momentarily easing the pain in my chest. Just a moment, though. Another breath and it was back.

Every insecurity I’d ever faced in my life was flying back at me, like shards of glass slicing across my skin. A deep, hopeless feeling of intrinsic not-enough-ness. Or too-much-ness.

Whatever it was, something about me pushed more people away than it invited in.

It was only when I pretended to be someone else, one of the many personalities I put on depending on the needs of the mission, when people seemed to accept me.

Even now, on a rare moment where I allowed myself not to put on airs in public, people were keeping a healthy distance from me. The bartender had looked halfway to fainting when I’d asked him for a drink.

“Ah, there you are,” Bellamy said from behind me, shocking me out of my spiral.

“Hi,” I said, mustering a close-lipped smile.

Bellamy motioned to the bartender for a glass for herself—well at least he can smile at her—before turning back to me. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Esme? It doesn’t look too fun.”

“I’m fine.” Bellamy’s eyebrows were raised in doubt before I even spoke. “Alright,” I said, forcibly pushing away defensiveness. “I don’t feel great.”

Bellamy smiled softly, coming to sit next to me. I didn’t know if she could tell how hard that was for me to admit. “Would it be easier for you to tell me or me to guess?”

“I’ll tell you.” I had a feeling letting her guess what was wrong with me would send me running in the other direction. I was never very good with accepting other people’s perception of me. A consequence of being talked about like I wasn’t in the room for the majority of my life, I assumed.

It ended up taking several minutes of silence for me to finally say. “I’m scared. The Bond is getting harder to ignore.” My willingness to ignore it was also thinning by the minute. “But I…I don’t think just blindly accepting it is the right thing to do. Ford and I have never had an easy relationship. It just feels wrong to throw my hands up and accept this now that the Bond has presented for him.”

Bellamy nodded, considering. I appreciated how long she stayed silent, thinking, before she finally said, “You two barely know each other when secrets aren’t involved. And I’m sure those secrets made you both act differently than your true selves.”

I knew, I knew there was truth to her words but I wasn’t ready to hear it. “For a little while, sure. Not for eight years.”

Bellamy’s mouth curved into a slightly derisive smile. “Maybe. But, if I may speak honestly, I think you’re wrong.”

No one had ever said that to me so blatantly, and it made me jerk back.

However, close behind, came a respect that had me listening to Bellamy with an openness I hadn’t been capable of the moment before.

“I don’t think my family is capable of loving me, and it’s because they don’t know me. In my situation, they never sought to know me. In yours, there was a large part of you hidden.”