Into the Shadows

Lottie

Everyone told me not to fall for him. They said I was too young to wait around, and he was too old to love a girl like me.

But it only took one night with William "Teddy" Kavanagh and I fell. Hard. Now, he's all but a ghost. The only thing I have left of the man I remember are the emails he sent me after he deployed.

Because the man who returned to me isn't the same one who left.

I believed the only demons I had to fight were the ones haunting Teddy. Little did I know, I had demons of my own, ready to pull me into their darkness.

Teddy

She was my guardian angel, the only reason I made it out alive. And I hate her for it.

Lottie was the epitome of the girl next door. She was way too young to have piqued my interest, but her magnetism wouldn't let me go. Her emails were my saving grace while I was overseas, and the picture I kept in my front pocket guarded me until the very end.

I shouldn't have survived that IED. No one in my unit lived through it, and God knows I didn't want to either. But here I am, a broken shell of a man, trying to fit into a world I no longer recognize.

Yet, Lottie looks at me as if I'm whole, like I hung the moon just for her. If only I could get her to see I'm not the person she believes I am.

I'm not the hero of this story. I never will be. And I refuse to let my demons drag Lottie into the darkness with me.