Shadow's P.O.V.

Late last night, I took Kaia into her actual room. She was asleep for most of the journey, mumbling into my chest as I got up the stairs. I struggled to fight the urge to chuckle, tucking her in around close to midnight. Cooking wasn't something that I was good at – but I wanted to at least show her that I could try to make her feel at home. Early this morning, I asked for breakfast to be served only whenever she decided to wake up.

After I took my shower, I did a few light cleaning chores around my room as I waited for the faint noise of her footsteps down the hall.

But they never came.

Once I grabbed my second cup of coffee, I figured it was only right to at check up on her. Clearing my throat, I paused at the sound of a conversation.

From what I could tell, she was having a disagreement with January.

Gradually, she became louder.

A flying vase, aimed for my head, came in my direction the second I opened the door. The glass split into a million pieces across the wood. Hopping at the instant splash of water that reached my feet, I cursed to January for some napkins. No one told me that I would have to brush up on my ducking skills, avoiding a good whack against the cranium for merely saying good morning.

"Perhaps she doesn't want to be bothered at this hour," January proposed. Long ago, he had closed the door when she started throwing household items at me. It had been ten minutes since then, and I hadn't left the hallway.

"I don't understand."

"What is it that you're having trouble comprehending, sir?" January paused from the task at hand, collecting the broken shards off the ground with gloves on and a dustpan to his side. "I'm all ears, Mister Blaine."

A laugh took over me. I dropped my face into my hands, muffling the words as I spoke. "I'm not sure."

"Sure of...?" he trailed off. "You're going to have to give me more of a hint than that. I'm no mind reader."

"I wouldn't know where to begin," I made aware, rising my shoulders up to my ear. "I thought it would be easier than this."

"She came the other day, sir, as an outsider. You cannot conclude that the witch who placed this curse on you wanted you to solve your dilemma in the matter of minutes of meeting your one true love."

"One true love." I hooted. "Stop with that nonsense."

"Do you want me to repeat the witch's incantation?"

"Don't bother - I wouldn't believe you any more than I believed her."

This was such a joke to me. If you were to ask me, people from generations passed put love in such short measurements.

My one true love.

A soulmate.

But for me? It was never that absolute.

My belief was less dreamlike; sensing that love was something that lived in us endlessly, flowing through our veins and seeking more of it.

As much as that was my system of understanding, that was also what got me into this mess in the first place.

"The ones who are deprived of the love they desire," she had said, placing her hand over mine, "are typically quick to shift their affection to affliction."

- Years Before –

Growing up, our town didn't get that many new arrivals. Dario and I were practically raised together, both being introduced through our mothers. They graduated college together as roommates. We were destined to be friends, or at least forced to witness the awkward phases of puberty. Like it or not, I shared some of my most formative memories with him. When it came to Warner and Nolan, it took about a year into seventh grade for Warner's family to move in next door to me. And only a month after that, Nolan appeared in my homeroom.

It wouldn't be until our senior year till we got another addition to our student body population.

The same week it started to snow in town, we got a new visitor.

She refused to speak the moment she was introduced to class.

That was what I remembered about her, to this day.

Not before I think of her name, not more than I recall her attire, and not even the aroma that floated around her anytime she walked in a room—making the other girls turn their head to the left. Contemplating where she got it, wondering if she was from a well-off family, or simply got rich quick through good fortune. She didn't come to class late and wasn't prone to being the first one in the room.

But you knew when she attended class.

She had that presence about her.

The feeling of an unexpected cold wind, blowing through the crack of a door. A nagging pulse, deep within, whenever you leave your home. Almost as if, faintly, you can predict the burning dread waiting for you at the corner.

Regardless of that, and anything else my brothers would say about her, she was the first woman that I ever said I love you to.

I know, I know. Barely a big deal for my brother Dario—considering he probably said "I love you" to anyone willingly to give him five minutes of his attention. And yes, that would count the mailman.

The witch that placed the curse on my brothers also happened to be the only person I ever contemplated marrying, the one person I thought of living with beyond just family, and first person I betrayed.

But most certainly, not the last.

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