Tracey H. Kitts - Lilith Mercury 1 - Red Read Online Free PDF

Insanity?”

    Alfred laughed. “Honey, insanity is a side effect of life . If you live long enough, something is bound to drive you crazy.”

    RED
    Tracey H. Kitts
    19

    I couldn’t argue there. I sighed, absently stirring my coffee with the tip of my finger.

    “In spite of the obvious reasons to not look happy, I’m going to ask the stupid question. What’s wrong?” Alfred said.

    I didn’t know where to begin. My thoughts had drifted to a subject that had nothing to do with anything we had been talking about. I was thinking about my most recent failed relationship. Yes, I did have a life outside of being a Hunter. I’d just put it on hold for the past couple of months.

    I’d been dating a Hunter working in a neighboring state who happened to fit my ideal: tall, dark, and handsome. Alfred joked with me that my ideal comes closer to tall, dark, and creepy. He’s right. The point is I dated this man for three and a half years, thinking I knew him. Turns out, the bastard was married all along. I had suspected as much. But, somewhere along the way … I realized I loved him, despite my better judgment. I wanted desperately to believe the lies he told me. Sometimes, we think we’ve found something. We want so desperately to believe it’s true, despite what our eyes might see. I longed for somewhere in someone’s embrace that felt like home. It wasn’t the first time I’d been hurt, and if I lived longer, it would not be the last. But that didn’t make his betrayal any less devastating.

    To make matters worse, when he’d realized I’d found out the truth, he ran. I found out through a mutual friend that he was planning to leave the country, without so much as a goodbye. You tell your friends goodbye, you tell your family goodbye. How could he just walk away like I was nothing? So, I dumped him before he got the chance.
    I disappeared from his life, just like he had been planning to do to me. A few months later, I heard he had moved. That should have given him plenty of time to figure out he’d been dumped.

    I’d never found it easy to trust people, but I’d taken a chance. I had so much going on inside of me, so much going on outside, I hadn’t taken the time to … grieve.
    Since he turned out to be someone entirely different than I thought he was, I hadn’t lost him . I had lost my ideal. I would always love the man I thought he was, and always be disappointed in who he turned out to be.

    “I asked you a question,” Alfred softly insisted.

    Alfred was one of the few people who knew what had happened. We lived together for crying out loud. I had to talk to somebody. When I didn’t answer, he moved into the chair next to me. When he went to touch me, I backed away.

    “Don’t. Please, don’t … if you touch me, I’ll cry, and I really don’t want to cry right now. I’ve got other things that I should be thinking about, other things I should be doing ….”
    “Shh.”

    Alfred and I didn’t have much physical contact, for obvious reasons. I didn’t think it was polite to accidentally read your friend’s emotions. I felt that in not touching him, I was allowing him more privacy. I was surprised when he reached over and held me. Then, I did something I hadn’t allowed myself to do for the past two months: I cried.
    I cried, like the world was ending, because to me … it was. I mourned for the part of me that had been lost when I realized you really couldn’t trust people.

    RED
    Tracey H. Kitts
    20

    We’d known each other a long time, and I was comfortable with Alfred, but I usually didn’t let him see that side of me. I didn’t let anyone see that side of me. When I’d cried the day before after rescuing the woman in the parking lot, I’d been shocked.
    That wasn’t like me. I cried, just not often, and not in front of people. I cried when I watched a really good movie, or when I went to the theater. But now, it was like a flood gate had opened somewhere inside of me and I