(CHAPTER SIXTEEN :
FOREST FIRE)

✧࿐ ཾ✧

PAIN WAS THE ONE constant in life. It was the dull throbbing in your chest, the ache in the fractures of your ribcage and the shadow behind your heart. No matter how hard I tried to shake it over the years, it circled back to me because pain had grown to be part of me, attached by the vines of my veins. As I ran through the corridors of Mystic Falls High, my pain was like an Earthquake that had reached an untapped frequency. For once, I didn't hold back — my screams reached level ten on the decibel scale, hot tears ran down my face like acid rain and the cracks in my tough exterior widened. This was my reckoning and I hated how weak it made me.

"Woah, woah . . ." Kol startled me when he zoomed in front of me, putting his hands on my chest to keep me still. "You're not okay." He stated, his brown eyes bubbling with a deep rooted concern. In fact, the sincerity in his voice scared me, it made me wonder about where we stood. For so long, I've been hung up on his lack of verbal affection, but his actions spoke louder.

I gulped. "I'm fine." I lied, regaining a sentiment of self-control again as I managed to brush away the clear water droplets that stained my skin. "I'm fine." I repeated, louder this time and more forceful. It was an instinct for me to be strong in front of strong people.

"I didn't ask if you were fine, I made a statement." He amended, cocking his brown in my direction. "Now, tell me what's got you in such a bloody state." Kol pressured, advancing to tuck some unruly hair behind my ear.

I caught his wrist before he could come any closer — an automatic defence mechanism. "Don't." I mumbled, dropping my hand in embarrassment. Sometimes I worried I let him get too close for comfort. "I'm in 'such a bloody state' because my friends know I'm cursed." I made mock air quotations with my fingers, mimicking his accent as some empty promise that I wasn't as affected as he'd think by the events. "Your darling sister compelled me to spill my guts and they hate me now. I lied to them, if they do forgive me, it'll only be because they pity the dying girl." I released a throaty chuckle, knowing I'd cry if I didn't laugh. "I'm dying, Kol." I relayed, stumbling into the wall of lockers in realisation. Slowly, my body crumpled like a paper spitball and I collapsed against the lockers, sitting on the floor

He glanced at his phone, ending a call promptly — his sister could wait. "You're not dying. Rebekah needs me, but we'll go New Orleans and find Davina soon." Kol vowed, however it unsettled me he presumed I had that much time left. "Just don't isolate yourself in the mean time. It's not a crime to need someone." Sliding down the lockers, he sank down next to me. "Your friends, they could never hate you so don't push them away. They'll need time, like most, but will ultimately care too much to lose you." There was a softness to his tone that I was fond of, but hadn't heard in a long while. With shaky hands, I looped my fingers through his and wondered, was this what I wanted?

"Do you care?" I looked up at him with doe eyes. "You're hard to read. Even when you tell me all these beautiful things, there's a little voice in the back of my head questioning if it's real. I can't ignore that you've hurt me before, I want to fall for you this time and not any of your sly tricks." I half-growled, wanting to express my frustrations to him.

Although he didn't want to argue, the Original tugged his hand away from me. "I care, Lottie." He referred to me by my nickname, a rare feat for him. "But, it doesn't matter that I care if you won't give me a chance. I've never intentionally hurt you — it was Nik! He daggered me, he forged that letter and he compelled your memories away." Kol defended, the volume of his voice increasing with the progressing seconds.

In that moment, I wanted to give him a chance and tell him what I've been telling everybody else — that he wasn't the bad guy. But, it was hard to turn off the defences I had programmed in myself after fearing opening up to someone again. "I didn't mean to blame you." I insisted, concerned he thought I was still attaching the letter and abandonment to him when it was his brother. "It's just . . . I need a reason to stay away from you. You don't make it easy for me, but I'm afraid of giving you another chance." My breathing was erratic, water rimming my eyes. "Loving a Mikaelson is signing your own death sentence." I didn't want to make a grey cloud greyer by reminding him I had a death sentence already. Rather, I fought to understand my head and my heart.

"There's something else." He conspired. "It's that Gilbert boy, isn't it?" The Mikaelson accused in a self-assured manner, immediately jumping to his own absurd conclusions.

Shuffling closer to him, I locked our eyes — blue burning into brown. "I would never stay away from you because of Jeremy. In fact, I've barely saw him since I realised I love somebody else." In the empty corridor, my words echoed and I grimaced at how loud my confession was.

"Who?" Kol interrogated. "I'll kill them." He declared lowly, his expression being wiped clean of emotion.

Pinching my brow together, I considered my response carefully. Most people knew or had assumptions about my relationship with Kol to begin with — he was the only one who was oblivious to my affections. Perhaps loving him was a death sentence and even a sin in the naive eyes of some, but I couldn't hide from the truth much longer. I may have ran from the town and I may have ran from Rebekah, but this was one thing I couldn't run from. Therefore, I settled on giving Kol what he deserved from the start — bliss honesty. "Kol Mikaelson." I stated boldly. "I'm in love with Kol Mikaelson, I suppose that's evidence enough that amantes sunt amantes." I spoke our old phrase with a fluency that evoked a cheeky grin from the brunette.

"What's holding you back?" He questioned, the glint of mischief in his oak eyes catching my attention. With a ravenous fire alight in his eyes, I remembered what was holding me back — he was a forest fire. Kol Mikaelson burned bright, but was destructive and couldn't be contained. If I didn't hold back, I would be a causality to his flames.

"You're fire, Kol. And I stopped playing with fire when I got burned one too many times." I explained. "Maybe I'm holding back for the better too, it's for as much your sake as mine." I suggested, needing to pause before parroting the thing I had been told on multiple occasions by my friends and our families. "Because we're bad together and I make you weak." I finalised, twisting my head away from him in shame.

Clamping his eyes shut, he was forced to push back black veins protruding from his skin, his anger flaring. "Hey, hey, look at me." He begged, placing his hands at the side of my face and turning my head to focus on him. "You don't make me weak. Without you, I'd never have known happiness or love or heartbreak to such a capacity. Nobody — no girl, no sibling — has ever made me want to be better." I nodded along with his claims, genuinely amazed by how much of a hold I had on him. "But you do. You make me want to be somebody you could spend your immortal life with. It sounds insane because I'm impatient, temperamental and nothing you should want, but I think you know safe is boring. We may be bad together, just know that's what makes us work." Kol persisted, leaning in.

"I'm going to die soon." I recollected bluntly. In truth, it was an excuse to break the tension and lust in the space.

He recoiled, his jaw tightening. "You won't die." The Original exhorted. "You survived a knife to the heart, losing a year of your memories and a relationship with the most toxic man on the planet. Trust me, you can survive this." He convinced me, the passion in his voice almost admirable.

I licked my lips in anticipation. "Can you survive this?" I whispered, inquisitive as I crashed my lips against his and surrendered to my desires.

✧࿐ ཾ✧

PORTLAND, OREGON [1908]

"I love him!" I sobbed, hugging my pillow tight as I sat perched on the end of my bed. "I loved him before I fully understood what the word meant, I can't live without him. He's my everything and I need him — I need him far more than you need the marriage between Thomas and I." I rambled, hysterical as I shrunk under the withering gaze of my mother.

Mother pulled a face. "You're but a child, all you have for that boy is a silly infatuation." She reprehended. "Thomas Fairclough is a man you should be honoured to marry. Regardless of how you think you feel about Mr Mikaleson, you will be wed, whether I drag you on a hurdle or not." After a delicate pause, her gaze flickered to the ground. "Be grateful I am not your father. You'd be branded with the name Fairclough if he had it his way." She cautioned, standing up to leave.

I winced at her harshness. "Please, Mother." I pleaded.

"Charlotte Anne, you are bad together." She hissed, putting a hand on her hip. "Since meeting him, you have changed. You're defiant and outspoken, not to mention how inappropriate the relationship is to begin with. Your whoring around is a disgrace to the family name." Mother acted as if she knew me on a personal level whilst I was surprised she could even recall my middle name. She knew nothing about me, much less my relationship with Kol. "Maybe my expectations were too high of you to think you wouldn't drop your drawers for the first boy who said 'I love you.'" She chipped away at my insecurities with such venom I felt faint.

Like a vigorous reaction, my body began to shake. In spite of my traumatised state, I refused to talk back to Mother out of a combination of fear and exhaustion. "What about the ball tonight?" I hiccuped, the ball being my main concern given it could be my last chance to see Kol.

Pursing her lips, Mother had a moment of contemplation. "I suppose he can't be uninvited after all the money he's put into the ball." She said bitterly. The only time she liked Kol was when he was funding her expensive parties. "Just know, if I get so as much as a glimpse of you two together, you'll be on the streets. I do not house strumpets." Mother concluded coldly, ensuring to slam the bedroom door loudly behind her.

✧࿐ ཾ✧

Neither of us had wanted to come up for air. To begin, the kiss was soft and gentle like a sweet lullaby, then I fell into Wonderland. He was being too tentative, after all the pining and patience, I didn't want to be careful. His lips were my idea of luxury and I lost myself in the taste, knotting my hand into a fist and pulling him closer by his shirt. If he had been caught off guard by my assertive approach, he didn't show it, deepening the kiss until we were panting and breathless. Suddenly, all the kisses I had prior to this one were vapid — they didn't make my lips numb or my mouth blue. There was such a fervency that when the moment came to pass, I felt like a Phoenix born out of his forest fire.

It was refreshing that we were able to sit in a comfortable silence after our heated kiss — it wasn't awkward in the way one would imagine. Both of us were sat side by side against the lockers with my head lulling onto his shoulder. Even I was taken aback I didn't flee the scene, I liked what happened and wished it could have been exclusively the two of us forever.

"What exactly does Rebekah need help with?" I implored, interrupting the silence between us. Certainly, I didn't feel compelled to mention the kiss I initiated given his tongue had informed me the two of us were on mutual ground. However, a part of me was wondering why he was here, in school.

His body visibly stiffened. "She wants the cure and as the lovely brother I am, I'm helping her on the quest." Kol settled on, even his sarcastic edge holding a tautness to it. "Speaking of, I need to go collect somebody for Bekah. She's getting antsy." Glaring down at his buzzing phone, he filled me in on the situation.

As he stood up to leave, I pursued him. "Wait!" I instructed, to which he quirked a brow at. "I don't need a label nor do I want one, we don't even need to talk about it again, I just thought you'd like to know I wouldn't change a thing." Sometimes I was so consumed in myself, I fretted I overlooked Kol's anxieties about the relationship. On many levels, he was not a 'relationship' type so it was important to me we were on the same page. "I want to kiss you whenever I want, I don't want to pretend we're enemies anymore. I want you, but I'll wait. You waited for me, I think it's only right I wait until the time is right for us — for my friends, your family and when you've found somewhere to call a home." I revealed, a small smile playing at my lips. After all this time, I knew what I wanted, now it was a matter of waiting for the stars to align.

"Don't overcomplicate it, Charlotte." He chuckled. "I like you, you like me, let's be
together." The vampire dumbed down, to which I rolled my eyes at his simplicity.

"If that's you asking me out . . . Work on it." I chided, walking away.

✧࿐ ཾ✧

A.N: Fun fact, my favourite chapter from Memories is chapter sixteen (aka when Esther cast a spell on Lottie in the bathroom before the dance) and this is my favourite chapter of this book. Guess sixteen is a good number, huh? And I will say the book has less than ten chapters remaining. If I write the third book or not is going to depend on if people want it, if people are reading. Please comment if you're reading this and let me know people are enjoying the work.

Do you have a favourite line, moment, scene, chapter etc from the two books?