Page 78 of Promise of Destruction

The biggest regret I have—my only real regret in life—is that I didn’t give up on her sooner.

Once she realized that I’d “thrown away my dreams” and wasn’t going back, she finally let me know that things were so much worse than she’d let on. That’s when I became obsessed with fighting it, with keeping her by my side for just a little longer. That’s when I let myself falter, when I took a deal with people who knew they could manipulate me, when I sold my soul for the possibility of more time with my mother.

Igotmoney.

I got every penny I needed and more to fund plane trips and experimental medications, to get second and fifth and eighth opinions. I got a collar around my neck for the rest of my life, a mother who grew rapidly weaker as I dragged her from bed in the dead of night because we’d gotten a call about a transplant that would never be given to her because of her illness.

I got exactly what I had asked of the men who sat down with me in the back of that bar, telling me they could help me—that we could help each other. I got every penny I needed to care for my mother. I got everything I asked for, but I asked for the wrong thing because all of my efforts were wasted.

We didn’t get more time.

When my mother was buried, I thought that would be my biggest regret for as long as I’d live.

No matter how angry I was with myself for not asking for the right thing— things I know now that they could have given me—I knew that I had been wrong to ask her to sacrifice the last of her good time on Earth to give me hope.

Now, I look at Soren.

Beautiful and broken, a masterpiece that’s been handled carelessly and put back together without all the attention she deserved.

Soren, whose biggest regret in her life will be putting herself inmy life.

Soren, who has just now confirmed what I’ve known in the back of my head.

Soren, who has me re-evaluating every step I’ve taken for the last five years.

The greatest mistake of my life wasn’t trying to buy more time with my mother or hoping that there was a chance I could cheat death.

The greatest mistake of my life was agreeing to do business with men that I knew were going to corrupt what I’d built— men that are going to try to take her from me.

Soren Palmer has been shaped by one tragedy after another. She knows pain like what Ancient Greek poets used to write about.

But the greatest tragedy Soren Palmer will ever face—perhaps thelastone she will ever face—hasn’t even happened to her yet.

fifty-two

Soren

Iwakegently,havingforgotten that I’m sitting upright in a chair that started out comfortable.

The sky outside steals my breath before I’ve even remembered it’s there.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when my eyes started to feel heavy, I’d been glancing out at the puffs of clouds in a stark blue sky. Now, it feels like the plane has slipped into another world.

The golden light of the sun has been reduced to a yellow line on the horizon, sandwiched between swatches of sky that look like they’ve been painted. Cotton candy pink clouds in the distance, pale blue sky above it, with an inky sort of darkness pressing on that, like the dark is getting ready to fall on the world.

It's beautiful—one of those moments that pulls you apart to make you assess yourself—your priorities, your mindset.

It’s the kind of thing that reminds you you’re alive when so many aren’t, that you are so small in the grand scheme of things, that your problems may feel like the end of the world to you, butthat in spite of everything, nature persists, and the world still turns.

There’s something oddly comforting about that.

I smile, but it slips off my face in shock when I turn to find Declan staring at me.

All of the comfort I’d felt a moment ago is drowned, chased away by the weight of his eyes on me and the knowledge that he’s watching me.

How long has he been doing that?

I wait for him to say something, to mock me for falling asleep, to tell me I snored or talked in my sleep. He doesn’t speak, so I do.