Entwined Souls

Prologue

My whole life has been a lie. 

Nobody knows me. Not my family or my friends. 

But I know myself, and I’m a coward.

They say when you break a bone, it gets stronger in the place it was broken. The bone heals, fortifying the fracture with more strength and protecting it for the future. 

It’s not the same with a heart. 

When my heart shattered, I put it back together with the weakest of adhesives. I breathed denial and lived in avoidance. I pushed the hurt so far down, I could almost pretend it never happened. I created a world where my other half never existed. Forgetting him was my glue—mere flour and water paste—the kind that barely holds. Even a minor heartbreak would shatter the desperate bonds keeping my heart together.

I can’t take a chance on falling in love because I can’t risk the inevitable heartbreak after. I couldn’t take it. My soul is too fragile. 

Love isn’t guaranteed. It’s always a gamble. And I know, better than most, that it’s not worth the fall. The body can only withstand so many tragedies before it ceases to exist. 

Only one person has made me want more. More than a relationship built on convenience. More than lukewarm emotions and shallow affections.

I’ve known relationships—every part of them. But I’ve never known love. Not since the loss of the greatest one. I’ve never allowed myself to find it again. The moment a spark of it is lit into existence, I bail, running far away from the source.

Only one person has ever made me feel at risk of losing my resolve. Only one has made me question my convictions. Only one has had me wondering if maybe… just maybe, I should try.

Only one. 

Yet I know it would break me to lose him. He’d shatter the feeble bonds holding my weak heart together. He’d be impossible to recover from. That loss would be devastating. So I have to stay away, but that in itself is impossible. He’s the one person I can’t distance myself from. 

He’s my best friend.