Chapter 64: How To Truly Listen

JADE:

I looked at Kix’s stunned face… Was I too harsh?

“Jade... You’re rejecting me?... You’re really going to reject me just like this?”

My head was throbbing with too much talking, but I sat up to meet Kix’s stare.

“Because you won’t listen to me.”

“I’m listening to you, but I can’t understand why you’re pushing me away!”

“Exactly, Kix! You are not listening to me. Did you even ask me if I wanted to be your mate? During the ball, I already told you I have a boyfriend, but that did not stop you, right? That didn’t stop you until you finally got what you have wanted from me!”

“Jade, did you think all I wanted was that, to sleep with you?”

“Then, what is it Kix? What is it that you really want from me? Why do you keep hanging around? Why won’t you just let me be?”

“Because I want to always be a part of you… I want to be in your present and in your future. I want to be the one who makes you smile, not him!”

“Oh, yeah?... Then right now, aren’t you the one who’s positively breaking my heart into pieces?”

If Kix really loved me as he said he does, shouldn’t he respect what I wanted, for a change?

“Back in high school, I always put you first. I made you my entire world, but in just one day, that world fell apart… Now that I had finally regained those broken pieces back, you come around asking me to build my world around you again, Kix… Do you even… Do you even care about me? Do you even love me at all?...”

“I love you. I love you, Jade! That’s why I came back to you!”

“Then, if you love me, let me breathe from all this... Just set me free.”

I looked at Kix and the glazed look in his gray eyes as tears threatened to trickle down from them. He looked at me incredulously.

“I-If that is what you want, Jade, then I’ll accept it… I accept your rejection. You and I are no longer held by the destined bonds that tie us… I’m setting you free!”

It was only as he said this that bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.

Suddenly, there was an excruciating pain in the middle of my chest. It was as if my skin was being ripped apart with acid.

I clutched at it, trying to dull the pain with the pressure of my hands.

At the same time, I saw something blue and silver flew out of Kix’s chest like grains of sands in the air. I could only guess that it was the counterpart of the tattoo that has been etched in my chest and was now disappearing away so painfully.

Kix told me a long time ago that mates could reject each other. He was planning on rejecting his fated mate to be with me before…

I can’t believe that that mate turned out to be me.

Kix’s face was stoic and tearless when it had finished. “Good bye, Jade,” he said as he discarded the bathrobe on the floor.

He transformed back into his wolf and exited my veranda like nothing had ever happened.

Once more, I was left in my silent reverie to cry…

**********************

KIX:

All it took was a spoken vow of rejection, and all the years I had spent pinning for my first love had gone with the wind…

Riley and I wept internally. Our heart felt like it had ripped itself apart into pieces… There wasn’t much reason to live now, is there?

How did it come to this? How did Jade end up hurting and rejecting us?

I loved her all throughout the years she was not with me. I tried to get the whole pack under my full control, so she won’t encounter any problems when she becomes my luna. I toiled hard to get the company at the palm of my hands. I shamed and banished all those who had hurt her from my pack, and for what?... She didn’t even hesitate to throw me away just like that…

The tattoo that symbolized our union was gone now. It had flown away into the air the moment I accepted her rejection.

My Jade was really gone…

I went back into my condominium out of habit. In reality, my mind drew a complete blank. I stumbled into bed on Riley’s form, utterly crushed.

What was I supposed to do now? Jade was my everything, and now nothing had remained…

There was a bell on the intercom of my room. It rang several times, but I never picked it up.

Finally, the door of my room had unlatched itself as the emergency card had been used to pry it open.

As I had expected, it was my trusty beta, Edril.

“Sir Kix, where did you go?... I thought you went to school today since you had left early, but they called me up. What happened?”

I guess it wasn’t a secret. My snotty face would have betrayed me even if I tried to lie to Edril.

“I was rejected.”

“By whom?...”

“Who do you think?”

We stared in each other for a while. Edril blinked several times before he finally seemed to comprehend.

“By Miss Jade?... But, why?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t f*cking know,” I said as I exasperatedly buried my head back into the bed.

Jade said I never listened to her. She said I never tried to hear her thoughts…

“Edril… was being mated with me really that awful? Am I such a spiteful person that she’ll reject me just like that?”

“Umm, no offense, Sir Kix. I didn’t think it was not a question of whether you were spiteful or not… To be honest, I can see she still has feelings for you.”

“You think so too,” I said, shooting a hopeful look towards Edril.

“Yes… But I don’t think she was ready to be your luna. She seemed detached to the idea that you are made for each other… If I may be bold to say, I think Miss Jade was frightened of our kind. She also felt like she wasn’t a match for you at all…”

Edril was right… Jade couldn’t believe it when I told her we were mates. The doubt was too thick even when the tattoo had already appeared in her body…

She also mentioned that I should have been paired with another werewolf and not her. She had told me that at least several times…

I closed my eyes, the reality of how Jade must have felt sinking into me… Maybe that’s why she had felt everything was forced. It must have been like being engulfed by a whirlwind… It would have been too much for my shy and timid Jade…

She was right… I failed to hear what her heart really wanted.

Now, it was too late. I just suffered a massive blow on the heart, and so did Jade.

“Edril, book a flight for me somewhere.”

“Somewhere, Alpha Kix? You’re going off on a vacation?”

I nodded.

I didn’t want to force Jade again this time. I didn’t want to suffocate her again as she had said…

“I can’t stand being here. I need to get away.”

I had loved only one girl in my lifetime. Now I have to learn how to un-love that girl so that she could truly be happy… without me…