Was I Ever Here: A Dark Romance Read online

  Was I Ever Here Copyright © 2022 by Naomi Loud

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodies in critical articles or reviews and certain noncommercial use permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  FIRST EDITION

  Cover Design: Mallory Parsons (TikTok: @mal_reads)

  Editing: Louise Johnson, Literary Maiden Editing

  www.naomiloud.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. Sunny

  2. Sunny

  3. Byzantine

  4. Sunny

  5. Byzantine

  6. Sunny

  7. Byzantine

  8. Sunny

  9. Byzantine

  10. Sunny

  11. Byzantine

  12. Sunny

  13. Sunny

  14. Byzantine

  15. Sunny

  16. Sunny

  17. Byzantine

  18. Sunny

  19. Byzantine

  20. Sunny

  21. Sunny

  22. Sunny

  23. Byzantine

  24. Sunny

  25. Byzantine

  26. Sunny

  27. Sunny

  28. Byzantine

  29. Sunny

  30. Sunny

  31. Sunny

  32. Byzantine

  33. Sunny

  34. Byzantine

  35. Sunny

  36. Byzantine

  37. Sunny

  38. Sunny

  39. Sunny

  40. Byzantine

  41. Sunny

  42. Sunny

  43. Sunny

  44. Sunny

  45. Byzantine

  46. Sunny

  47. Sunny

  48. Byzantine

  49. Sunny

  50. Byzantine

  51. Sunny

  52. Byzantine

  53. Sunny

  54. Sunny

  55. Sunny

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  CONTENT WARNING

  This is a dark romance and may contain triggering situations such as active suicidal ideation (this is a major theme), mentions of a suicide attempt, mentions of self-harm, the concept of death and dying, stalking, graphic violence, graphic murder, depression and anxiety, near-death situations, grief, alcohol & drug abuse and explicit sexual situations for 18+. There are also particular kinks such as degradation and praise.

  To my sister,

  Because without you I wouldn’t be here.

  And for those who once wished the same,

  I’m so happy you’re still here too…

  Prologue

  Byzantine

  Blood.

  So much of it. It gurgles deep inside my throat as I rasp in a struggling breath. It seeps into my shirt, sticking sickly to my chest while I lay limp against the wall. I can’t tell where the bleeding is coming from against the slow delirium of my body dying. I hear screaming.

  Close, yet so far.

  Like sounds traveling through water. Where are the voices coming from? Hot breaths yelling close to my face, my ear, my cheek. Harried hands cupping my blood into their palms, holding it like a chalice to my body, believing it could somehow protect me from slipping away.

  The hands. Are they mine? No. Mine are laying limply on either side of me, a distant weight, feeling barely attached to my body. But they’re there. Must be someone else’s then. But I can’t tell who.

  Nor does it matter.

  Not when I can hardly make out my own existence from the person trying to cradle me into their arms. Or are they laying me down? I cough, choking on the blood trickling into the back of my throat. My lips part on a breath. Am I trying to speak? My eyes are heavy-lidded, unfocused. With every slow dragging blink I take, the darkness calls to me. Maybe I should just keep them closed. I can’t remember why I’m even fighting this.

  Or am I even trying?

  My body shakes as if someone is trying to wake me up. But I’m not sleeping—don’t they get that? The voice screams a name—my name—but I’m in far too deep now. The sound barely travels to the depth where I’ve sunk. Visions—or memories, I can’t tell—dance behind my eyelids but I can’t discern what I’m seeing.

  There’s another voice here…drifting through my consciousness, I can hear them cry, hear them scream. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me here. You promised. You fucking promised me…” the voice pleads. My confusion muddles my senses even further when I realize it’s happening inside my head, like a faint echo.

  But my focus is waning, drifting and straining on yet another sensation.

  Of being pulled out of my body.

  Disembodied.

  Is this how it feels to die? I slip further into the distance. Such a strange feeling, like sinking and being lifted up simultaneously. Floating. Up and up and up. I can no longer fight the current. I’m too tired anyway. Finally, I take one last tender breath and let go. I let go of the tether keeping me tied to my wasting body as the void envelops me.

  At long last.

  “Don’t touch me!” Gabriel seethed through clenched teeth.

  The blond curls of his hair fell over his hazel eyes as he stood up from the table, nearly knocking the whole thing over, garnering curious looks from the patrons around us.

  “Gabriel, sit back down. You’re making a scene,” I replied, my stern tone having no effect on his dramatic outburst.

  To any onlooker we were merely business partners having a spat. And that was exactly why he resented me. We had met during the gold rush down in Sacramento Valley and a friendship had bloomed easily between us.

  But now…we were so much more than just partners.

  He was my best kept secret. And I was his.

  Although he wished I was not.

  Gabriel’s love for me was all encompassing. So bright. Although, like the sun, I couldn’t bear to look straight into the light from fear of going blind.

  I loved him, I truly did. But I was a coward, and I was hurting what I held dearest. I was watching him wilt like a flower ripped from the roots.

  He was breathtaking, and he was all mine. And yet, I had made him what he was today. I couldn’t blame his anger. Even his anguish. I could never.

  He reached over and swiped the bottle of gin from the table and took a large swig.

  “Don’t you dare follow me out Anthony,” he hissed, promptly turning on his heels and stomping out.

  I sat on the wooden bench for a little while longer trying to give him the distance he needed. I finished my ale, the bread and cheese on the table half-eaten and discarded.

  But I would never truly let him walk away. I could never let him go.

  Finally, when enough time had passed, I rose from the chair, smoothed out my frock coat and left through the front door.

  It had rained that morning and the roads were muddy as I looked up to the gray skies, wet spongy clouds still threatening to release another torrent of water on our heads.

  The inn we were staying at bordered a small coastal village, the air humid and salty from the rough seas nearby. My eyes roved the countryside trying to find Gabriel. He mustn’t have gone very far. Then I found him. Trekking his way towards the large cliff in the distance.

&nbs
p; He’d always been drawn to the water but in this instance, my heart squeezed, hoping he wasn’t as reckless as I thought him to be. Hastily, I followed behind him. At a safe distance, of course, as to make him believe I had honored his earlier request.

  He pushed through the small copse of trees at the bottom of the hill, his body swaying from the alcohol as he took large gulps from the gin bottle. The branches snagged on his trousers but he didn’t seem to care.

  Up ahead, the cliff was so high it seemed perched on the heavy clouds surrounding it. And Gabriel was heading straight for it.

  I began to worry.

  Surely he wouldn’t be so foolish.

  Then, he stopped mid-track, seemingly entranced. His shoulders began to shake and although he was facing away from me, I knew then he was crying. I yearned to reach him and pull him into my embrace. To never let him go and lick the tears off his beautiful face.

  But I kept my distance. I knew he’d blame me for those very tears. But I couldn’t resist following him. As always. My aching need to take care of him even when I was the cause of his pain.

  Finally, with the bottle still held limply in his hand, Gabriel started up the slanting muddy hill, panting. I hurried along my shoes sinking in the muddy tracks with every step I took. He reached the cliff and I was now close behind. I didn’t bother to hide my presence any longer. There was nowhere to escape but back towards me.

  He stalked towards the edge of the cliff and my heart leapt into my throat. I couldn’t guess his intention and with his inebriation I could no longer trust his actions.

  I watched as Gabriel stared down at his boots for the briefest of moments and then leaned down and haggardly tugged them off his feet. One foot and then the other. He threw them over the cliff and into the water with a small grunt. He closed his eyes, digging his toes into the muddy earth, and raised the bottle to his mouth. I could almost taste the salty mist on his parted lips.

  Gabriel grew suddenly still as he peered over the edge. The hairs on my arms rose and I could no longer stay quiet as a sudden fear burrowed into my chest.

  “Gabriel!” I yelled, trying to keep my voice steady so as not to alarm him.

  He swiveled around at the sound of my voice, finding me standing there behind him, his hazel eyes glassy and bloodshot.

  “I told you not to follow me Anthony,” he muttered, his voice trembling and the pain I found in his gaze was suddenly unbearable.

  “My love. You’ve proven your point. Please step away from the edge. Come back to the room with me,” I pleaded.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said, choking through sobs. “What is the point of this love if it is only to leave me so hollow? I am nothing without your love but I am also nothing with it. Can’t you see?”

  “Forgive me Gabriel. Just please. Take my hand. Come down from there. Don’t you understand? I am nothing without you either. Who am I without you? You are the very breath in my lungs.”

  I was still a few steps away, my hand reaching for his when a large gust of wind blew through. I watched on in horror as his body swayed backwards, knocked off balance from the gin in his blood. His eyes went wide, taking an unexpected step back, grasping at the air in vain.

  But it was too late.

  My name slipped through his lips in dismay, “Anthony?”

  It happened all so fast. Time slipped through my hands as I watched him topple over.

  “Gabriel!” I screamed as I ran to the edge.

  No. No. No.

  This wasn’t happening. Not my Gabriel. My life.

  I peered over, terrified. Beyond terrified. There was no one word able to describe the agony I felt.

  I bellowed his name once more, watching his body bounce off the jutting rocks and into the crashing waves.

  But this time I knew speaking his name was pointless. He was gone. Swallowed up by the water.

  And I had done nothing but watch him die.

  “Byzantine?”

  My eyes shutter open, peering over to the voice coming from the corner of the room. The man sitting in the chair scoots to the edge, relief written all over his face. His straight black hair hangs disheveled over the shaved sides, his tattooed hand swiping over his tight square jaw, black eyes creased with worry despite the relief.

  I blink once. And then again. I know him. His presence is familiar but my brain is slow in coughing up the important pieces of his identity.

  Instead, my thoughts are full of Gabriel. His name still a whisper on my parched tongue. The memory of his death still so fresh at the edge of my mind.

  What the fuck is going on?

  These recollections feel like prayers, spoken in tongues only my soul can recognize. Faces from long ago—lifetimes even—flash in my head in quick succession. So many faces. So many names. But somehow…they all belong to the same soul.

  Why is this so confusing?

  What the hell am I doing back here?

  I was far away from here only moments ago. At least that’s how it feels. But now, nothing is making sense.

  I squeeze my eyelids shut, my chest hurting, while I try to sort out my current reality. All these memories are baffling but they feel real. As real as the face staring down at me when I find his gaze again.

  He paces near the foot of the hospital bed, then stops, fingers curled in tight fists, staring at me. “Can you hear me, brother? It’s me, Connor.”

  Connor? I latch on to the sound of his voice. It anchors me while everything else in my head is making me feel fucking crazy. His name brings back hazy impressions of our friendship and years spent working side by side.

  I steady my breath and realize in sudden clarity how much it burns to fill up my lungs. I try to swallow through the pain and nearly choke on the agony. My lips part to speak, but Connor cuts me off. “The doctors say you shouldn’t try speaking, your wound is too fresh. You’ve been out for a few days…”

  Wound? I lick my chapped lips, hardly able to swivel my head towards him. I cough but it comes out more like a throaty whine. I pull my trembling hand up to my neck, feeling the thick gauze tight around my throat. Questions lodged in my unsteady gaze.

  “Your throat was slit,” Connor explains, turning away from the bed, looking ready to punch through the hospital wall, his body wound tight. “It was Davis. The piece of shit ran with the money from the job, leaving you to die…you were near unconscious when I found you. You bled out in my hands Byzantine…” Connor trails off, glaring down like he can still see my blood painting his palms red. I hear the fear in the lilt of his words although he tries to hide it. All the while, I struggle to process what the hell happened to me. “You fucking died in my arms,” he adds, his icy stare holding back the pain he seems unwilling to speak out loud.

  I’m trying to keep my expression blank but his words are digging into me like a shovel into soft dirt. They’re threatening to uncover a memory I’m not prepared to face.

  Of how I looked death in the face and said show me.

  Show me what I have forgotten. Show me what I’ve unknowingly been searching for all these years.

  “I don’t know how you survived. The doctors had to jumpstart your heart. You were fucking gone.”

  I’m overwhelmed. I can’t make out one thing from the other, his voice grating at my senses. Like a tidal wave, memories, faces and places continue to pound over me and I can’t catch my breath.

  I fucking died?

  Chapter 1

  Sunny

  Five years later

  I wake up crying. Gasping. Hand to my neck, my throat convulsing like I was suffocating only moments before. My body’s drenched in sweat, wavy hair matted down my back, the loose shirt I wore to bed sticking to my rising chest. The sheets are tangled around my legs, and I wrestle with them in haste, kicking them off my heated body. I sit up, still heaving, my head resting heavily in my palms.

  That damn dream again.

  I was near the roaring sea. On the edge of a cliff so high I could hardly see the wat
er below. I remember the wind whipping into my eyes, angry and cold.

  But oddly, it also felt very still. A dream on mute.

  My fingers drag down my face, my thumb finding my mouth, gnawing at a loose thumbnail. I can taste the cheap black nail polish chipping off on my tongue.

  My heart is still beating too fast, my eyes shifty and erratic, struggling to focus. I’m desperate to mend the broken pieces of the dream I just flailed out of.

  Was I alone?

  The vision is quickly evaporating like mist in my hand the more I dig. But what I still remember perfectly is the ocean whispering my name. A melodic murmur with every crashing wave.

  Why did it all feel so familiar?

  If I allow the feeling I’m suppressing to rise to the surface it felt more like a memory than just a dream. A déjà vu from long, long ago. The near desperate squeeze behind my rib cage seems to agree with me. As if a piece of myself was stitched back up and given back to me.

  I glance at the time on my phone. It’s still early morning. I pull the covers back over my shoulders and roll onto my side, staring at the wall in an unfocused gaze. I continue to scratch at the edge of my memories, needing to recollect every detail.

  But why? Why does it feel urgent to do so? I must be delirious if I think I’ll discover this magical, life-changing answer to why my life feels so fucked up. Yeah…that will be the day.

  Suddenly, I suck in a breath, my heart dropping into my stomach.

  There was someone else there.

  Or more like the sensation of someone. An off-focused presence near me. My body chose that precise moment to convulse back to life. My skin is still pulsing with the image of it, my anxiety sitting heavy in my stomach like wet cement.

  Finally, I pull myself out of bed and tug my still damp shirt over my head. The air from the open window near the bed cools my burning skin. It’s the only window in this place but at least it’s large and airy.

  I live in a ground floor studio apartment—the only thing I can afford on my bartending wage. It faces Grand Boulevard and I often find myself sitting on the large window ledge, smoking the occasional joint, lost in thought. I’m not allowed to paint over the off-white walls so I’ve covered most of the surfaces with tapestries or colorful pictures ripped out of magazines. It’s small but cozy.