Burned & Bound (Love Doesn’t Cure All)

by A. Winchester

The real problem was that I was in love with Jackson Ford Myles. I had been for years. Boys like Jackson chased after the girl next door types while I just pined silently after my best friend. While it fucking hurt sometimes, I’d come to accept that this was my reality.

“No, y’all decided to bury your fucking heads in the sand, and for what?” I gestured around me. “For some fucking land? For fucking cows? You failed him—all of you—when you decided his worth wasn’t more than this stupid fucking business. Than a stupid fucking job!” “Now, it ain’t like that—” “It is like that!” I interrupted. How could none of them understand that?

“I would’ve burned the whole fucking place to the ground before I let him run away afraid for his life.”

“PTSD is a bitch of a thing. It shreds apart all the things you knew about yourself and then keeps on taking from things you never thought it could touch.”

“I’d rather go through hell with you, West, than watch it destroy you.”

“I’m not worth it,” I whispered breathlessly against his mouth. “You just let me keep believing that for the both of us,”