Chapter 1

The moment I locked eyes with him from across the room I knew my carefully built life was about to come crumbling apart. I had done every thing in my power and pulled on all my strength to move on from this, but this had the potential to derail everything.

That one look held so many promises, and so much emotion.

He looked at me with such raw and powerful emotion. I could almost feel the confusion and anger, but most of all I could see the hope and love he still held for me. It was shining straight from his heart through his gorgeous green eyes. Though, I knew my own eyes reflected very different feelings, and possibly some things I refused to acknowledge. A lot had happened since I was last face to face with him.

He doesn't know how absolutely terrified I was. Terrified that he'd storm over here and ruin my life. That he would call me out on the things I couldn’t allow myself to believe or bring up.

He used to be my world, my crush, my short lived love. He was my two years older brothers best friend. It was a forbidden romance. My brother would've killed us if he found out about the one night of passion we had before they left. He was my campfire on a cool summer night, and he alone had the power to warm my cold heart.

Or to shatter it…

He left me.

They left me alone.

My brother and my secret love; my protectors abandoned me and went to college five hours away. They left me there stranded, and had no idea what I would go through for those two and a half years.

He failed me, miserably, and in the end he just let me down like the others before him did.

There had been promises. Promises that had been broken in the cruelest of ways.

They'd promised to be there for me.

They'd promised that I would never be alone.

They'd promised to never hurt me.

They'd smashed those promises to smithereens. Each one slowly but surely turned me into the cold-hearted, hard person I am today.

I could feel my eyes begin to fill, and I quickly turned on my heel and ran. I knew I couldn't let him see them. He'd rush to my side and within a few words know that I'm not the same girl he and my brother left at home some two years ago.

I refuse to allow myself the risk of being hurt again. He had his one chance, and he blew it. All those promises he made me crumbled into nothing until I rebuilt myself stronger than ever before. I refused to give them the opportunity to get inside my heart that deep again. I can't put myself out there again. I just don't think I could handle it if things went south again.

For the next time might be the last time my cold heart can handle before it shatters beyond repair.