Chapter seventy-seven

**OLIVER**
It’s yet another night without Gabriel, and yet another night I wouldn’t sleep in my bed. I swore as I lay at the river bank, looking up and admiring the stars as they twinkled. The howls of wolves and the sounds of other night animals no longer bothered me. I lived amongst apex predators. I chuckled as I remembered the first time I had seen a wolf in the forest, the poor creature had been as scared of me as I was of it.
I closed my eyes and sighed as a gust of wind blew across my face, and I made a mental note to set up a hammock out here. It seemed a better place to sleep than in my own house.
Yet again, Carrie was the reason that I was out of my bed, and lying on the warm earth at such an ungodly hour. I had heard her moaning and thrashing in the living room, the sounds of her pleasuring herself, the sounds of her sultry moans and groans and grunts, the sounds of the vibrator as it pleasured her, and calling out my name caused all the blood to flow from head to my nether regions. The more I lay in my bed trying to force sleep, the more my mind played tricks on me, envisioning her on top of me just like the other day, riding and pinching her nipples as she used me for her pleasure. A part of me had wanted to go down to her, to get it over with, to fuck her so hard and fast that her legs wouldn’t function the next day.
My hand had found its way south, and I shuddered as I pleasured myself. Later, I had stood in the bathroom in disgust as I cleaned myself up, hating how low I had sunk to pleasure myself to the sounds of another while in the bed I shared with my soulmate. It didn’t help that Gabriel’s mark sat pretty on my neck, challenging me whenever I looked in the mirror…judging me.
And so here I was, at the riverbank, chased away from my bed. I swore again, and thought of Gabriel, wondering how long he planned to keep this up. His silence was more painful than I had thought it would be, and I hated how my brain kept cooking up scenarios and running with it. I took my phone out of my pocket, no calls, no texts. Radio silence. I stared at the phone an unhealthy amount of times, as though willing it to ring, willing a text to come in. Nothing. I sighed heavily and slid the phone back into my pocket, resisting the urge to call him, to hear his voice, to know how he was doing.
The more time we spent apart, the more I was convinced that he didn’t care about me. That he never cared about me. He had planned to leave without it telling me, and now not as much as a text…a call. Nothing. It broke my heart, but heartbreak was something that I had gotten used to anyway.
The hairs at the back of my neck rose and I suddenly felt eyes on me, watching me. I sat up and turned sharply to see Shanice standing there, almost obscured by the darkness, looking right at me, unblinking, her gaze unwavering.
“Shanice?!” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest. “What are you doing over there?!”
I stared at the older lady as she approached me with a sinister smile on her lips. No matter how many times I saw her do it, I was still amazed at how quickly and silently Shanice was able to move herself. Even despite her disability. Sometimes, I doubted her disability. It was a marvel to me that no matter how many times I saw it, I could never quite get used to it.
“How long have you been standing there, Shanice?”
Shanice giggled, and moved closer to me, stepping into the moonlight. “Long enough to see you miserable, wallowing in self-hate and pity.”
I opened my mouth to respond with the same amount of vim, but words failed me. I hated how her words were true to a fault.
I sighed and then chuckled mirthlessly. This was the life I now found myself living. “Why are you out here by this time, Shanice? It’s a little too late to still be out at your age, don’t you think?”
Shanice cocked a brow, clearly unamused at being called old, and looked down her nose at me. “I’m a grown woman, I don’t owe you an explanation!”
I raised my hands in mock surrender, and then lowered them when I realized that she couldn’t see them…she couldn’t see me.
“What are you doing out here so late at night?” She asked.
I threw my head back and laughed, my voice carrying through the forest. “I’m a grown man, I don’t owe you an explanation!”
I laughed again and she huffed and rolled her eyes to the back of her head, and muttered something unintelligible under her breath.
We sat there, cocooned in the darkness, enjoying the beauty of the night as the bright rays of the full moon shone on us, blessing us. The silence was peaceful but pregnant. She wanted to say something, I could see the gears in her head turning, and the way she pursed her lip was all the confirmation that I needed.
“Why exactly are you out of the house, and by the river by this ungodly hour, Oliver?” She asked, her voice solemn, the cheery one she had spoken in a few moments ago, gone.
“What do you mean? I already answered you. I’m a grown man, and I can make my own decisions,” I said and laughed.
Only this time, Shanice didn’t laugh back. She stared at me with a deadly calm, her eyes turning slowly to me but not focusing.
“It’s because of Carrie again, isn’t it?” She asked, humor miles away from us.
I sighed heavily, and ran my hand through my hair, never minding the fact that I was threading sand and tiny stones through it. “Can we not do this right now?” I asked, feeling drained from being in the same space with Carrie, and not wanting to meditate on her behavior.
The same behavior I had left the house to escape.
“You’re being very selfish and stupid, Oliver, do you know that?!”
I groaned and ran my hands through my hair again, feeling the insane urge to grab it by the roots and pull till there was nothing left atop my head.
“What do you mean by me being selfish, Shanice?”
“You know that this isn’t affecting just you, right?”
“Yes—“
“You know that this is affecting Gabriel as well, your relationship with him. Your relationship with me.”
“If I go on to do what she asks, more than I had would be affected. Why is no one seeing the bigger picture?!”
Shanice’s nostrils flare up. “There is no bigger picture. What we have is what is in front of us here and now. Just get this over with, and you can go be with Gabriel. Be happy together! Why do you want to punish yourself?!”
“I’m not punishing—“
“Really? You know that at the end of the day, you’re going to give in, right? You cannot fight the goddess!”
“Shanice—“
“You’re so afraid of hurting Gabriel in the future that you’re hurting him now. All for nothing.”
“But Shanice—“
“I’ve said this before, I don’t know how many more times I have to say it for you to understand it, for it to stick to your brain like glue,” she said, her voice rising with each word. “He doesn’t have to know!”
She took several deep breaths, her cheeks burning a bright pink from the exertion. We sat in silence, she trying to catch her breath, and my deliberating on her words.
“I still have questions, Shanice…”
“I don’t give a fuck about your questions, child. Grow up and grow a pair, Oliver. Stop punishing yourself and the people around you.”
She said nothing else to me. I sat and watched as she stood to her feet, and found her way home through the forest. I watched as her feet deftly carried her through the path until she was out of sight, her voice ringing in my head, my mind a maze of decisions.
I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling tired, and then I felt her. My nemesis. My eyes snap open and I see her, seated cross-legged on the water, and smirking at me.
“You look miserable,” she said, her bright blue eyes assessing my features.
I cocked my brow, mildly irritated by her statement, her voice, her face. Everything. I wished she would go and never return.
“You should listen to her, you know?” She said.
“What?”
“Shanice. You should listen to what she’s saying to you.”
“Never.”
She spared a glance at me, amusement and mischief dancing in her blue depths. “Are you sure?” She asked mockingly.
“There’s nothing to listen to.”
The goddess chuckled, her flowing white hair blowing lightly in the cool breeze. “I’m impressed,” she said. “I never thought you would have been able to hold out this long. You make me proud.”
I stared at the confusing beauty in the water, mouth agape. My mind struggled to reconcile the goddess who had hounded me to give in and the one praising me.
“However, I’m getting impatient,” she continued, her voice taking on a more harsh tone, a striking contrast to the one she had used before. “You must make haste.”
I swore under my breath as sudden anger overtook me. I hated just how much control she now had over my life, I hated how drastic the change my life had endured because of her.
“I would rather die.”
The goddess laughed. “Oh, dear…you won’t do that. I won’t let you.”
And just like that, my eyes snapped open, and I was once again back in the land of the living, lying on the river bank.