Shadows and Souls ✓

25:- Eiskaffe

Sienna was learning to adapt to life without Thoren, Thom and the coffee shop. She also had to now learn to adapt to life without Casey Jordan, but that wasn't hard. She hadn't started to make a life with Casey, or the people and places that surrounded him. His philosophy around relationships and clean slates made it easy for Sienna. It still, Sienna thought, wasn't worth never having a good, real relationship for but she had been able to break away with no permanent damage. 

It had been a heck of a lot easier than breaking away from Valentine Callaghan, even though they hadn't had a substantial relationship that was always unofficial, and more a bit of fun than a future.

Sienna didn't know if she had wanted a future with a man. She never had before. She just wanted sex, and always picked men that just wanted sex, too. But she wanted to go on mini breaks to the city to museums, and art galleries, and music festivals with Thoren; she wanted to spend time with him in the evenings, on the sofa; she wanted to go to all the countries she had always wanted to explore with him; she wanted to talk to him about the troubles she had with her sister, and her parents, during her upbringing; and she wanted to write songs about him.

She'd never wanted to do any of these things with any of the men that she'd been out with.

And yet, she felt, in her heart, that having a one-night stand with Thoren had spoilt things. They weren't pure, they couldn't take things slowly, and they couldn't explore each other inch by inch, because a hunger, a tension they could no longer ignore, had taken over their bodies and they'd rushed into things. Which had scared Sienna. She wanted more from Thoren. She wanted slow. She wanted a future. Yet she'd done with Thoren what she did with every other bloke she'd dated. She made it about sex. That's what they shared. That was her memory with Thoren.

Instead of falling in love, she'd falling in a pit of lust and couldn't crawl her way out with Thoren. She needed to climb and crawl out, run, and she couldn't hold Thoren's hand and escape at the same time. So, selfishly, she'd left him behind. She'd run from her problems instead of facing them and that had brought Thoren down to her level of using people for sex. She didn't want to use Thoren, she thought she wanted to do all of the things people did in relationships with Thoren.

She wanted to go on a real date with Thoren and listen to him talk about his books, and his characters, and how he researched. She wanted to know the ins and outs of how his mind worked.

She needed to swallow her pride. She needed to go to Thoren, take responsibility for what she did – sleeping and then leaving Thoren – and apologise for it. She needed to stop being scared of change, and she needed to stop running. She didn't want a clean slate with Thoren. She wanted more – so much more. She wanted all the things so many men she had dated were scared of. She wanted things that were worth having a relationship for. She wanted, if it came down to it, to have floods of memories that would break her heart if she were dumped because then she'd lived. She wanted to share her life with Thoren, and not run. She was tired of running.

"Shit."

"What?" Erica sat up, almost knocking over her green tea.

"I've messed it up."

"What?" Eric repeated. "What? Hello? Earth to Sienna? What are you talking about?"

Sienna looked at her cousin, Erica, and frowned. They'd bumped into each other in the street, and it had taken a moment for Sienna to register that her younger cousin was smiling warmly at her, trying to make conversation. Erica was a bundle of energy, with her blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders and her sparkling blue eyes looking with concern at Sienna. She looked like a childhood doll, and Sienna had only hung out with her a handful of times over the years, but she looked like nothing really fazed her. She could take the world on with her girly giggle and her knowledge of contouring and never fail to give it her all. Erica was twenty-one, and she had been the year below Sienna in school. Her specialties had been chemistry, flirty, and makeup. So she put all of her skills into a job made for her: beautician, and fully embraced it. Sienna didn't see much of her cousin anymore, but she decided to take this moment to catch up. She could do with someone shaking some sense into her. Cassidy was great, but she was too nice, never wanted to hurt Sienna's feelings. Erica was more likely to be cruel to be kind.