Chapter One: Evan

I look up at my bedroom ceiling, just gazing thoughtlessly at the plain white concrete as I listen to my current companion snore peacefully beside me.

It's 9:00 AM right now, and from what I can recall last night, I arrived home with a woman who, as I stared at her from the corner of my eye, has luscious blonde hair, smooth tan skin, and a curvaceous body.

But the only feeling I was engulfed with was neither satisfaction nor well-spent exhaustion, I just felt empty. Despite this being the apartment that I shared with Jasper and how she'll be the one doing the inevitable walk of shame, I just can't help this sinking feeling I always get after nights of attempted pleasure.

It's happened on several occasions now every time I bring a woman home, but at this point, the more I do it the more I've given up on the idea that this was gonna fucking do anything to cleanse me and my sanity.

I shut my eyes in hopes that this wave of melancholy was gonna go away, but as soon as my eyelids closed, all I saw was her.

The image I cultivated inside my head always felt so vivid that it almost felt like she was actually here with me, right now, on my bed, sleeping with me instead of some stranger I met in a club whose name I've already forgotten.

God, can you just move the fuck on already? She's not coming back, and you got a hot chick on your bed but instead, you're just moping around like a fucking loser, stop it already.

It's been three years.

It was a pointless, short-lived relationship that was never bound to last.

She never loved you because if she did...

I shut my subconscious completely, not wanting to hear another reminder of how my life came to how it is now, sad and pathetic, pining over a girl who's out there somewhere, probably had forgotten about me.

I don't know why I still do this, all this pining and obsessing over someone who didn't have to hesitate to leave me like our entire relationship barely meant anything to her, and I get it, her stupid fucking dad just had to show up and ruin everything-

I take some time to breathe, noticing the way I'm blowing some steam off again by reminiscing memories that are already behind me. I already spent three New Year's Eve parties, graduated high-school, and moved out of my parents' house, but for some unknown reason, she's still in my mind spoiling my mood whenever she gets the chance.

Maggie Carter. Maggie fucking Carter.

The day of our supposed plan to run away like a bunch of misfits was also the same day that she decided to ditch me without as much as an explanation, a day that was still etched in my memory, fresh as ever.

Every time I look back on that memory it still felt new each time, the same as when I came to terms with the fact she was gone and was most likely never gonna come back.

I tried contacting her several times after that and even came to the point of forcing every single one of my parents' employees to get a hold of Wayne so that I could hunt him down, but it was almost as if she refused to be acknowledged.

But even then, I still didn't give up. I went as far as booking a flight to New York to do a fucking manhunt for her, but if only if it weren't for Veronica, who somehow got informed of my escapades, stopped me before I could even land a foot on NYC, saying how it's risky and how Maggie probably wouldn't have wanted me there.

As sick as this may seem, I grew an unnecessary grudge against Veronica after that, thinking how can a mother let her daughter go off and live with her manipulative and toxic father?

They could've just canceled the engagement, I would've been fine with that as long as I knew where Maggie was and knew that she was safe and sound with her mother. But the fact she allowed Wayne to swoop Maggie away from not only me but her as well, made me resentful.

Because I know how dangerous Wayne is as a person, Maggie told me so countless times and she never failed to remind me how much she hated him, so the fact she left LA and went with him could only mean the most detrimental implications.

Meaning that he clearly did some elaborate scheme to have made her come with him because I know Maggie wouldn't have gone if she knew hers or someone else's life was at risk.

But to leave without as much as a text stung, it stung in ways that whenever I think about it I just can't help but want to punch a wall or someone's face, but at the same time, I can't help but be worried about her. How she is and how she's doing and no matter how many times I tell myself to move on, there's always gonna be this part of me that cares.

That cares about her well-being even though she's made no effort to reach out to me in some form or another these past three years, but I can't help it, I just can't get mad at her nor completely hate her even if I wanted to.

Which is crazy considering that's how she and I came to be in the first place, right? Hating each other like our lives depended on it through an engagement we didn't even fucking ask for yet look where we are now.

I can still remember the first few nights after she had left, how I lost complete and utter control of myself and morphed into a destructive person that just kept pushing everyone away as long as it wasn't her. Wanting the pain to stop each time but somehow, the sadness and the anger only got ten times worse.

They swallowed me whole and even until now the aching pain of it all still hasn't left, it still lingers even in times I thought it had already left.

But I knew that it didn't, no matter how many late nights I spend with as many people I can meet in clubs or parties, it always leads back to her.

It's always her despite how much I wish it wasn't.

"Hey there, handsome,"

Cracking my eyes open, I turn my head and let a lazy smile stretch over my face as the beautiful girl I've spent the night with met my eye with a beaming glint in hers. As if she enjoyed the time we spent together.

I wish it were the same for me, God, I honestly fucking wish that for once I would enjoy one of these nights that I keep indulging in so I wouldn't have to keep fucking doing it over and over again just so that I'll end up forgetting to call them the next day as I had promised.

It was always the same cycle, I slept with someone new, told them promises I knew I wouldn't be able to keep because the idea of keeping them around longer than a night revolted me.

It was rebound after rebound, for a whole year straight, all for a relationship that lasted for three fucking months. And I know I'm being pathetic, but the way it ended just screwed me up so bad that it's just hard to start over.

To take any of these sorry excuses of moving on seriously.

Even as I walk my last night companion out the door, her heels and purse in her hand, she turns to me with a hopeful look on her face.

My chest tightening at the sight "Will you call me? I saved my number on your phone last night." she asked, the expectancy in her tone just as visible as the eagerness in her eyes.

Gulping, I nodded my head out of habit, knowing fully well her number was gonna get buried like the rest of the ones I had saved in my contacts.

"We'll see," I told her before she leaned up to press a kiss on my cheek.

"I had so much fun last night, you were really something," she whispered in my ear as I plastered a forced grin on my face.

"So were you." I don't even remember half of what happened last night.

She gave me one last smile before she turned around and left the apartment, the same time as Jasper got out of the building's elevator and passed her by, looking her up and down before sending her a small nod of acknowledgement before she left.

"Three nights in a row with three different people," he noted in a deadpanned voice as he shut the door on his way in, all the while as I tried to prepare myself for one of his occasional scoldings.

It's been like this ever since I started my newly developed habit of sleeping around with random strangers and bringing them home, he never failed to catch up with every single one of them because his classes start during the afternoon and end at night, so he encounters them when they arrive in the apartment and when they leave as well.

Throughout the time he always meets my late-night agendas with a look of disapproval, being aware that this was just my way of coping but as he said so in the past, this wasn't healthy apparently.

"Evan, this isn't healthy." he reiterated as I turned my back on him just so that I can roll my eyes "I get bringing someone over at least once a week but doing it for three consecutive nights is getting out of a hand, you're gonna have to catch something one way or another if you keep this up."

"First of all, I use protection, and secondly, I'm just going through a tough time right now-"

"Oh, that's your excuse? That you're just going through a tough time when it's been well over a month, and I'm still seeing half-emptied bottles of beer hidden in between the sofa whenever you're drinking late at night?" he chastised "You need to start reevaluating your life, Evan, and I'm not saying this to bring you down, I'm saying this because it's been three years since we've graduated but you're relying on your parents to still pay your rent for you."

"You might as well just have stayed with them, but I knew the only reason you decided to live with me instead was that you needed a way to invite women over without your parents around, and although I can tolerate it maybe once or twice, doing it repetitively just so you can ignore your responsibilities and problems isn't going to solve anything."

"Look, I'm trying, okay? It just isn't that easy-"

"What isn't? Moving on from a three-month relationship with a girl who didn't even hesitate to leave without as much as an explanation? You moved on a lot better from past relationships when you were in high school than the one you had with Maggie, why can't you do it now?"

"I don't know!" I exclaimed, whipping around to face him "I don't fucking know, okay! I wish I do but the thing is I fucking don't!"

I didn't mean to shout it at him, make it seem like he was the one at fault here instead of me, but I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I know how much of a mess I've been ever since Maggie left, and sometimes I wonder how did it come to this, with me sabotaging myself all for a girl who was never meant to stick around, who only came into my life for the sole purpose of leaving in three years after the arranged marriage.

But it's been three years now and she left sooner than anyone had anticipated, and yet here I am now moping around and sulking over her absence as if there was even a chance for us to have stayed longer together than the time we were originally given with.

Jasper and I stayed silent for a while after my sudden outburst until eventually, he was the one to break the ice "Then figure it out," he said in a firm tone before he turned on his heel and walked out.

Leaving me alone in the vast space of our living room as I walked toward one of the chairs of the kitchen counter, prompting both of my elbows on it as I cupped my head in between my hands, sighing heavily.

"How did I ever let you turn my life into this, Carter?" I asked quietly to no one in particular, thinking at this point if I keep asking the same questions, I'd be able to get my answer one day "How did I ever let something that was never meant to last ruin me completely?"