So I'm always asked how to read these books and just saw this:

1)Scratch (The first half which is the chapters set in the past && can be read as a standalone).

2)Unexpected.

3)His Forgotten Mate (Can be read as a standalone).

4)Unconditional.

5)Unbroken.

6)Scratch (The second half which are the chapters set in the present && can be read as a standalone).

7)Loving Ashlynn & Shattered (Both can be read as a standalone).

8)Undivided (Currently down but will be back). 

A/N: NOT EDITED and SOME of you will be happy...

Chapter 19 - Facing Hurt (Samson Conrad POV) Pt. 3 

Exhausted but the sun glowing above me, I think of last night.

Fatima only made it twenty minutes into my favorite movie, waking up the next day to apologize fully, even promising that she would watch it again later that day when she was more awake.

Taking hints, I left her room, heading to mine before heading for down for breakfast that Sunday morning.

Dad had already left early to head out to Portland to have a DNA test ran against Fatima's DNA and aunt Cynthia. While Fatima had a more bi-racial physical appearance, aunt Cynthia had dark blonde, thin pinkish lip with green eyes and pale skin - nothing like Fatima.

Genetics was a fascinating thing.

With a buffet style set up for breakfast, I knew mom had already set it out for everyone and was most likely with the younger children, while us older ones remained down in the kitchen. Paige and Caterina, alone with their friends still upstairs leaving my siblings, their significant others, Taylor, Brad, Shawn, Kenny and Damon at the table stuffing their faces.

"We're all heading into town, bowling after lunch, you in?" Miller asks and I shake my head distracted getting myself a cup of coffee, my body aching as it was. I hadn't expected to take Fatima on such a hike, and a bit tired still. I hadn't slept much, watching Fatima, wondering just how anyone could leave her?

Much less two people?

"You're not going to spend time with your friends? We got a pass to see-" Devin started and I could see Taylor, pushing her food around her plate. "Don't make me do this with an audience Devin," I snapped my good mood from yesterday at the end of its rope before the day had really begun.

"If you're so displeased with not seeing me when you're actually with Brennan, here for Brennan, then you two have got problems..." I wasn't a cruel guy, I didn't get off on shaming people I've known for my whole life but here I was, in that position I tried to avoid. Saying nothing else, found a plate, filled it with hash browns, lots of bacon and pancakes, before taking a look at the table and deciding that I'd go to my room and eat instead.

I could see all their curious eyes last night when Fatima and I arrived home and while everyone, my parents and my siblings downplayed everything for Fatima I knew just how rare it was that I took pictures, much less as many as we did together. But I couldn't help it, she wanted to capture everything, and the joy of seeing her, wanting to include me not as some type of conquest but just because she wanted to remember this day, I couldn't refuse her.

There were no games with Fatima.

I could read her face and see all her emotions on her face, in her eyes.

But as I was with her, in the same spot that four years ago, Silas tripped and broke his ankle and I had to carry him back down, I felt closer to my brother. Yes he was gone, but there was so much I could see of him, in Fatima.

It wasn't that I was looking for my twin, and it wasn't that I wanted her to fit that spot, but that curiosity and interest in nature were unique to her for personal reasons. Yet I could see Silas as well. Most people believe that twins share all the same interests that they want to dress alike, share and finish each other's sentences, that they are exact replicas' of one another.

That couldn't be further from the truth of just how Silas and I were. I didn't mind doing outdoor things, but he was the one that had a love for climbing tree's, jumping off cliffs into lakes, hiking, and all other things outdoor like. But he would find a way to bring me along, make it fun, make it a competition, pull me from my mind and make me enjoy the sounds around us. I was the brainy one. The twin that would make the other study, and not take many risks, or be interested in sports.

I was the quiet one that people came to but Silas was the outgoing one that brought everyone around us. Now Fatima wasn't like him completely, but being outdoors with her yesterday was like getting a piece of myself back. She wasn't trying to do it because she wanted me, it wasn't fake and I was so lost in thought as we climbed down I wondered if Silas was the reason that she was with me in that very moment. Had he seen from wherever he was that I needed someone? Pulled a few favors so that I got Fatima? We took care of each other like that...

I swallowed, looking down at my food and not feeling hungry at all, someone knocked softly at my door. Sighing, I left the desk, food untouched, and opened and stood aside for Taylor to enter my room, closing the door behind us. Going to my chair and turning it to face her, I wait for her to speak since she came in here first, although I knew that no matter who spoke first, the outcome wouldn't be any different.

She wanted affection, my interest in a romantic light, however it just wasn't there and trying to force it, wasn't - it wouldn't work for me. Not when in my heart I knew she wasn't the right person for me. Our types - we could be with whom we wanted - didn't have predestined soul mates, but even without that, I knew Taylor wasn't mine.

I wanted to share my affection with the right girl, someone special.

"Stop making everyone ask me to come along places Tay," I finally just spoke when she hadn't after a few minutes. "I don't know how I didn't realize it before you know? But I do now, and I hate it, stop making Devin and Javier invite me along places when it's you they're asking for."

The silence get uncomfortable, because I still haven't said what makes it hit home with her, but I'm hoping again that I don't have too. In all honesty Taylor is the one with the cards in her hands, she can see what I'm trying to say, read between the obvious lines and just pull back, avoid the drama before it even becomes awkward. She can think of how closely tied out families are, and back off, think of how weird it's going to be if she tries to cross this line that I think - in my own opinion - I've drawn thicker and brighter than any traffic sign.

"I'm in love with you," she finally whispers and all hopes I had of trying to keep things neutral, platonic, friendly, are out the window. She doesn't say words like 'think' or 'I'm not sure.'

A part of me wonders why I had to leave that forest with Fatima, where all our problems still existed in the real world, hidden on that trail, we had been free.

"You know I don't feel that way," respond when I focus back on Taylor and this situation. "That I don't return those feelings for you," she should.

Just recently, maybe months back - July - but still she should remember. Talia asking me if anyone had caught my interests - new or old - and now again, putting that into the right perspective with what Taylor said the words make sense. Yet when asked, my answer was 'no, no one has caught my eye,' and she was around, she heard that.

"I've had a crush on you since I was five years old, remember when we were playing at the park, and we were all there and I fell, and you helped me up, walked with me over to our parents and then when I couldn't go back out and play you stayed with me, holding my hand the whole time?"

"I think of you like I think of Harleigh, or Talia, or Samantha - Paige or Caterina - and Amy even... I've always thought of you that way, when I was five and now at seventeen," I naming my sisters as she watches me with hurt, greenish - turquoise like - eyes. Nothing like Fatima's I note.

I say it softly, I don't lie, but I don't sugarcoat the truth.

"What if I changed?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat at such an absurd question. "There's nothing wrong with who you are, or how you are, I'm just not interested, but that doesn't mean someone else won't be..." I say standing and opening my bedroom door, wanting to avoid hypothetical situations.

Shock crosses her face and I keep my blank, determined, waiting for her to cross the threshold and when she does I close the door with a heavy yet relieved sigh.

.

.

.

It took a week to notice, but after that weekend, Fatima seemed to retreat back into herself. She avoided me, mom, everyone and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what had happened.

I ran over everything in my head from the trip, questioning whether someone had said something to her but when I asked Fatima herself what was wrong, I was only met with blank stares. What changed?

.

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