Tell Me Ariel, Are You Mine?

Chapter 22 - Choices

Hey all. To anyone who has wanted to read this update,sorry about the time its taken to post this. I couldn't get the ending right. I have literally written the ending NOW. There may be a typo somewhere in it, but i'm off to bed now (as I always am after an update). There's no instant gratification with this chapter (sorry). They need to talk. You'll either like it or not (obviously), can't please you all but I know where i'm going with it so that's the way it is. Sticking to my guns. And Thank You to everyone for every comment and vote on the last chapter. Wonderful stuff! I'm sure you're used to my chappy lengths by now. ..anyways, onwards...                       

 Chapter 22 – Choices

I was once told there was a certain kind of boy in every girl's life that she will always love but she should never be with. The kind of boy who claimed her soul, but could never really be her future. He's the one you love with every piece of the heart he so desperately claims, but he's not the one you settle with. You settle with the good guy, the one you can rely on, the one who is a part of your world and will be there in your world with you.

The one who can be.

If Dante was anything else, he'd be a comet; completely strikes you, is rare and so very extraordinary, enters your life in a seeming flash and is so immense an experience it leaves an impression. An impression on your mind, in your heart, through your soul, against your skin, and all over every inch of your body as though claiming ownership, as if I were his property and I'd just signed over the deeds to me. That fast, but that incredible.

Dante was one of these wonders, these physically magnificent men who almost seemed as though they were conjured from a dream, a fantasy, as if he were the stuff of reverie. I could literally stare at him all day wondering how a demon could be so beautiful...He was it; fire, spirit, passion, rapture. He bordered on obsession. Honestly, how could I let go of such a man?

To look at him, he looked like any one of us, in form anyway. To see us walk down the street together we were just two regular people. You wouldn't think anything of it. In fact I longed for the day when we could simply hold hands down the street with not a care between us other than what we were going to prepare for dinner that night. Normal was heaven with him. Normal never felt so good when that little piece of normal was us. That little piece of the regular world. But he wasn't a regular person. He was about as regular as that flash-across-the-sky comet. A man like no other.

Sometimes I thought he would be that comet in my life. That he would appear out of nowhere and catapult himself into my existence. That he would light up my ever static world, ignite me and set me ablaze, and then just as quickly, fizzle away, fade into nothing. As if the beauty of what I'd just seen was too good to be true.

As if good things don't last.

I lay over him having been rolled over by his arms secure around me, moulded by my body against his but propped up on his chest. I put my hand against his chest touching the blood-stained front; a clear reminder of what had taken place between him and Nate earlier. The burnt singe against the base of his sleeve a nod to his power. The heat through his skin, a sign of the rage brought on by the demon inside. In more ways than one, he was a demon fighting his demons.

I could feel the weight of his breath against me, an awaiting breath, the kind of loaded inhale that held the deepest of burdens, as if it carried a thousand thoughts, a thousand worries, a thousand questions and a thousand hopes. A reminder of what he'd said to me only moments ago. The look in his eyes was telling me so much, I just knew he wanted to ask me; was he worth enough for me to want to fight for? Or was I leaving him? There was no in between.