Moira

Chapter 21

I was standing in the middle of the clearing wiping away my tears as I watched Ryan leave. I knew he wasn't leaving me forever, but I knew this was the end of something. It was the end of something that could have been, it was the end of a future that could have been between us.

But I knew that was a path I could not have taken, not in a million years. Maybe in a different lifetime, I would have taken that path, but not in this life. I had a mate and he had one too. If I had chosen a path with him, I knew it would lead to both of us with our hearts broken in the end.

Ryan had a mate somewhere in this world who was perfect for him. He would someday find her and he would have no control over how he felt. I knew that if we were together when he found her, he would feel guilty about his feelings. He would end up choosing her over me and it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

I fell to my knees sobbing from the pain I felt within my chest. This is what I deserve, this is the Moon Goddess' punishment for me. Feeling pain from a broken heart was the only way the Moon Goddess could hurt me. I had fallen in love with a man who wasn't my mate and I had let him fall in love with me too knowing he had a mate destined for him.

I felt the sobs take control of my body causing my body to spasm. I couldn't control it, I couldn't control my heart. I knew what would happen one day, I knew I would have to give Ryan up. But like the selfish person I was, I didn't give him up. I didn't distance myself from him until it was too late.

I had only wanted someone to be there for me, with me. But in the end, we had been there for each other. He was the shoulder I could lean on anytime I felt like my knees would give up. He was the chest I could lay on and cry until I had no more tears and no more worries. He was there when I had no one. He was the candle that I needed when all I saw around me was darkness.

I knew we were never meant to be and he knew it too, but we allowed the human emotions to take control over us. We always knew one day we would have to say goodbye and say hello to the one meant for us, but this day turned to another and another. Every day was never the right day to end it, to say goodbye.

We didn't give up on us, not because we were determined to be together, but because we weren't quitters. We were too headstrong for our own good. We thought we could be in control of our own destiny and now look where that had gotten us.

The broken girl that was healed by a man's love was now the same broken girl that she was years ago. But this time I was broken by the same love from the same man that had healed me in the first place.

I grabbed my chest while crying out in pain. It was too much, I just wanted it to stop. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, I wasn't supposed to be this person. I wasn't meant to be the person who came in between two people's destinies.

I didn't want to be the Brittney that came in between Ryan and his mate. I let out a scream of pain, but it wasn't physical pain. I couldn't do this without Ryan. I couldn't live without him, I didn't want to live without him but I had to. We weren't meant to exist in the same pack, the same world, or even meet one another.

Ryan didn't deserve a girl who was already used and broken beyond repair. He deserved a mate that wasn't shattered in a million pieces by another man. He deserved someone who could lead his pack as their Luna. Someone who could love freely and not worry about getting hurt. Ryan deserved someone that wasn't me.

The love we had developed and kept through the years was only meant to teach both of us a lesson. The Moon Goddess wanted to teach us both that we couldn't change fate and we couldn't choose our own destiny.

That once one person tries to change it, it only caused pain to everyone involved and the people they involved themselves with. That by Ace rejecting me as his mate, it had caused all of us to suffer: Ace, Ryan, and myself. It had caused us to form bonds with people we grew to love, only to have to destroy them in the end. This wasn't what our destinies had planned for us and by trying to change them, we had only caused ourselves more pain in the end.

I fell onto the cold, wet forest ground. No more tears were falling from my eyes. All I saw was the light streaming through the canopies of the trees surrounding me. It was like the trees were trying to protect me, but from what I wondered. There wasn't anything that could destroy me anymore, because once you're broken you cannot be broken again. Or that was what I had thought the first time a boy had broken me.

I felt the sun on my face as my eyes grew heavy. The tears and drama of the day finally catching up to me as I felt myself drift off. My last thought as sleep caught me was: Love is meant to exist only in our memories.