In an effort to drown myself to the truth, I have spent the last two years doing idiotic things.

Now, as the two year anniversary of Jake's disappearance into the world and my introduction to the true existence of our kind, via Prince Tristan approaches, I have to owe up to my mistakes.  My blemishes.  My shortcomings, downfalls, and betrayals.

The world, my friends and family, don't blame me nor do they call it betrayal.  But my heart says differently.  I have tried to do as everyone would expect, to move on and find happiness in another man and in myself.  I repeated the words Jake said to me shortly before he left over and over in my mind, trying desperately to believe them so there could be peace.  "I don't want you falling in love with me."

Over and over again I told myself that everything was just a lie, just a cover, just a facade to save the life of a young man, a prince.  I did my part in playing the loving girlfriend and companion.  Only when Tristan himself revealed the truth of his part in everything did I stop pretending.  So I thought, at least.  I showed him just how fierce I could be, I told him exactly what I think about his personal policies, and I made no secret of our disagreements.  I was so tired of pretending everything was okay when it was hell.

But I never stopped lying to myself.

Living in a city full of beautiful men, in a neighborhood overflowing with hormones and virile males more than willing to give a good roll in the sheets....it has given me a new perspective on who I truly am.  All this time I've been trying to be a normal woman, someone who can just flirt at will and seduce whoever she wants because she belongs to no one.  But standing in the middle of a swimming pool surrounded by shirtless men, standing on a small stage in a bar surrounded by men staring and leering like wolves, standing in the midst of every opportunity to "move on".... I want none of it.  I don't want a single one of the golden gods, of the horny alcoholics, nor of any gentleman who is kind enough to extend an invitation into womanhood.

I want Jake.

Two years of telling myself I can do whatever the hell I want have come into this conclusion that no, I cannot, and I really don't have the desire to.

When Simon leaned in so very close, slipped off his sunglasses, and said with just a slight slur,  "I am going to do to you what I've never done to anyone else in my whole life," something or someone so definitely NOT me lunged out through my mind and soul into his with a very loud "THE HELL YOU DO!"   I swear I saw an invisible fist connect with his head.  I matched his gaze dead-on and when he moved just a fraction closer, I threw up every single mentally-induced wall I could muster, slamming them together without the benefit of arm movement.  I felt like two completely different people were flowing through me; myself and someone else both raising to the defenses of my virtue.  I knew it was just a kiss, but even the thought of actually kissing someone else, no matter who he is, both repulsed and terrified me.

Simon's eyes clouded over.  He didn't move, didn't speak, for what felt like an hour.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Raine and Marshall watching intently, his eyes on me and Raine focused completely on Simon.  I felt a sort of....physical embodiment, like a "ghost arm", clench a fist and I felt like I should actually make a fist even if to just keep it on my lap.  Simon swallowed, and gave a lewdly gentle smile.  "Since I can't kiss your lips, I will savor the taste of your..."  I felt another pulse surge through me into him, and he muttered, "hand."

That I could live with.  I half expected him to pull a frenchie on my wrist (yes, have had that done to my poor hand by none other than a married man, ugh), but it was chaste.  Lingering, but chaste.  He repeated the notion each time I tried to slip away, but I finally gave him a kiss on the cheek after a hug just to throw him off a bit long enough for me to make my swift exit in grace and tact.  It worked.

Later on, when I told Raine about the sensations, she explained that it may have been her.  She knew immediately what Simon's intentions were and, being just like me in almost every way (which makes me wonder about her own genetics), she slammed herself into him.  Just threw herself into his mind and ordered him to cease and desist if he valued his manhood and pride.  Apparently she's done this once before on him when he put the moves on her, and his eyes clouded then as well.  I was grateful for this explanation and took it as that.  An explanation for the sensation of someone else "jumping" through me.

But it didn't feel like Raine.  Nor did it sound like her.  It was very distinctly male.

This could all be my vivid imagination, I know.  But all day I have been reviewing my life since meeting Jake and dammit all, I HAVE to believe he is alive!  I have to believe that God in His infinite wisdom and grace and unending love, not to mention the fact that He NEVER lies, kept His promises and did not just lead me on a merry chase to no where!

I prayed as a young girl for a love story unlike any other.  Dating identical non-related twins, one a marine and the other an extraterrestrial prince, definitely answered that prayer.  I prayed for guidance in finding the husband God chose for me, that He would restrict my abilities to be with whoever I wanted so I wouldn't make the common mistakes of a woman in heat.  I wanted so desperately to give myself only to the man destined to be my husband.  I prayed that my first kiss would only be with my true mate.  I prayed, I begged God to control my love life so I wouldn't end up a single mother of fatherless children, always fighting some asshole for a few scraps of bread.

I was 16 when I met Jake.  The summer of my 18th birthday was when we danced on a sandbar in the middle of the small river that flowed through our favorite "hideaway" woods, when he undid my braid and ran his fingers through my hair saying he liked it better that way, when I tried to steal a kiss and he dodged it and I moaned that he always avoids me, when he asked "what, this?" and took my breath away in the most electrifying kiss I have ever experienced.  I was 19 the following summer when we danced with the notion of taking things a step further; we knew we would be married and wanted each other so very much, but we held true to honor and a certain amount of propriety; then he left for a week and when he came back, told me he didn't know if he wanted to marry me anymore.  Then everything was shattered.  I learned the truth, learned of the existence of Tristan, of the curse placed on my family by those starving for power, and of Jake's role in my life.

When I turned 20 Jake and I decided to be friends, in the way he wasn't allowed with anyone else even within the Organization.  I learned about his past, what he would tell at least, I tried to learn about who he was as Jake, not Tristan.  I found that I liked him, despite the all-too-effective lies.  And he told me he didn't want me to fall in love with him.  When I asked him why, since he'd completed the task of breaking me the first time he dumped me, did he ever resume our relationship and plan marriage, he did not have an audible answer other than, "Things....came up.  Stuff happened."  He didn't even look me in the eye when he said that little bit.

My 21st birthday was spent drinking spiced beer alone in my empty apartment with no food other than an ice cream cake courtesy of my mother via mailed gift card.  Jake was dead.  Tristan was decidedly gay.  I was alone with my thoughts, without a job or a shred of dignity.  Virgin, overweight, decaying from the inside-out.

I turn 22 in a month.  I've never kissed a man other than Jake or Tristan, the latter so physically reminiscent of the former, it could be argued that I've only kissed one man my entire life.  I'm still a virgin; despite my attempts to get the courage to change it, the second I have the opportunity on a platter I backpedal for my life, dignity and strangely, for the honor of a man who remains a mystery to me.  And I have not dated anyone other than those two.  Online relationships, however "real" they may seem, do not count.  Because even then, my thoughts were with Jake.

Marshall asked me if I want to live the rest of my life in loneliness.  I realized that it's better than living a lie with someone else, and I told him so.  He shook his head and further emphasized the need for me to find a good man to take care of me; despite the frustration of him not understanding the situation, I felt honored that he cares about me so much.  He would see me happy, which would make Raine even happier.  Marshall was a soldier, so we do connect on that level of understanding.

I sang during the karaoke part.  Two of the songs I picked as a private dedication to Jake, remembering how he encouraged me to sing, how we would spend hours at the piano composing and losing ourselves in the music.  When I started to sing the second song, "My Immortal" by Evanescence (cliche, but fitting), the whole bar quieted.  Women turned around in their seats to watch, men sat down in tables and chairs closer to the stage.  I hid the blush and focused on the song, and imagined Jake standing right there in front of me, listening to me sing of my pain and sorrow and yearning.  Every note was hit perfectly, and I knew deep down that all this, the perfection and glamour, all of it was my crying out for him to come home.  Had it been any other song, any other words, I'd get by.  But this was my plea for him.

Jake, I don't know if you can or are reading this, or if you even know who I am through all the name changes and such.  But I have to try.  Two years ago I made the same effort for Tristan, thinking that since you didn't want me I must have been meant for him.  The effort worked, but I was so wrong.  So horribly wrong.  How can I beg forgiveness for the same stupidity I keep committing?

I pray that God will bring you home.  This is your home, where people love you and miss you and want you back.  I miss you more than words can describe!  So many times I have imagined what it would be like to see you again, even for a moment, and I honestly don't know what I would say.  My family missed you, our friends miss you, and my niece needs to meet the man who makes her aunt smile brighter than sunlight.  I refuse to believe you are dead because every bone in my body screams you're alive.  I feel you, even as far apart as we are.

And I am so, so, so extremely sorry for hurting you.

Please, Jake, find this and come home.