Choosing Us (Pierced Hearts Duet #1)(2)

She hadn’t let me feel her warmth, her security, her heart in what felt like an eternity.

“This is where I belong. Where I’ve always been since we were seven-years-old. I’m a part of you. I need you to hear me screaming out for you. I still need you, Beauty. I’m lost without you.” Pulling her hair away from her face to look deep into her eyes, I said the only thing that was true.

The only truth I ever knew.

“I choose us, Bailey Pierce. I will always choose us. No matter what. I. Choose. Us.”

She consciously jerked back from the weight of my words.

My girl was at a loss, and I had nothing left to lose.

“It’s you and me against the world, baby. It’s always been you and me against the world. You know that, Bay. You do. Just come back to me … please. I can’t live, I can’t breathe… I can’t go on without you.”

She didn’t say a word, not one fucking word. She just stood there, looking at me. Searching for the man she once knew. Her resolve was slowly breaking, but I couldn’t take it anymore.

I broke down. I bawled, pulling her back toward me, and to my surprise she let me.

“If I did anything right in my life, it was loving you. Do you understand me? You were the beginning of everything for me. You will forever be my always, Bay, I only need two things in this world. You and us. Just you and us, Bailey.” I leaned forward, setting my forehead against hers, taking a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts.

My emotions.

My fucking memories.

“I’m trying, Bay. I don’t know what else I can do. Please don’t give up on me. On us.”

“Aiden … please.”

I peered up at her as tears started spilling down the sides of her beautiful face, one right after the other. She didn’t even try to hide them, she let her emotions flow freely. Wanting me to see the part inside of her she thought died long ago.

“Just take me back, baby. Please… God, just take me back to the night we first met,” I faintly uttered near her ear, hanging on by a thread.

Hoping she realized the significance in what I just said.

As soon as her eyes filled with fresh tears, I wiped them all away. Not knowing where to go from here. She held my gaze until the sensations became too much for her. Lowering herself onto the edge of the bed as her chest heaved for her next breath.

In one swift movement, I fell to my knees in front of her and clung onto the back of her neck. There was no way in hell she could keep me away. Before she even realized what was happening, I was holding her delicate frame in my strong and steady arms. Kissing away the tears on her face as they fell to the floor between us. She stirred beneath my lips, her body shuddered under my touch.

Giving me hope, strength, the reassurance I needed to go on.

“Aiden, please…” Her mouth quivered. “Just let me go.”

“I won’t lose you,” I breathed out against her lips. “I have seen you in so many different ways, and I have loved you in each one of them. For better or for worse, Bay … for better or for worse, I will love you.”

She sucked in a breath, and our mouths parted in sync with one another.

“You’re my answered prayer, Bailey. I will love you until I stop breathing, until the last seconds of my heart beating, because you are my beginning and my end.”

“Aiden,” she rasped an eerie tone, causing shivers to course down my spine as I knelt before her.

I ignored the looming essence that wrapped around my neck like a noose. Simply sucking the life out of me. Shutting my eyes, I softly kissed the corner of her mouth.

Recalling every memory.

Every sentiment she ever lured out of me.

Every instance I fought for what was mine.

What do you do when you meet your soulmate at seven-years-old?

You give…

You live…

And you love…

Until you hear the words, “I just don’t love you anymore.”



Putting an end to us.

To you.



To me.



For now and forever.





Chapter 1


<>Aiden<>

Then: Almost eight-years-old



__________




“Baby,” Momma whispered like it hurt her to speak.

I sat on the edge of her hospital bed and grabbed her hand, holding it as tight as I could. My warmth comforting her cold, clammy skin just like I knew it would. She loved when I did that, giving her a little squeeze so she’d know I was there. So she’d know she wasn’t alone.

Momma didn’t like being alone.

“I love you so much, Aiden. Do you have any idea how much Momma loves you?”

I smiled, laying my head on her tummy. Cuddling closer, listening to the soft thumps of her heartbeat. “I know, Momma. I know,” I calmed her, knowing she loved hearing that too.

She looked so tired. She always looked so tired now. Spending more time sleeping than awake every day. Sometimes she had good days where she’d laugh and ask how my day was, but I couldn’t remember the last time she was awake enough to say anything to me. Making me super sad and lonely.

I really missed those days and couldn’t wait for them to come back again. To have my momma back like she used to be before she got sick. I hated seeing her sick, I hated it so much. Every night and sometimes during the day, when the sun was shining bright, I would pray to God to help her feel better, so I could have my momma back. Playing with me, talking to me, paying attention to me like she always had.