Bested

   Sights he thought he had forgotten blur by as they wind around the endless mountains. Was it going to be the same when he saw her? Would the two be unable to contain themselves with all that had been left unsaid? James grinned, running over the lines he practiced whenever the thought of her crept in. She never hesitated to paint him as the villain anyway.

   Vivid as those moments with here were, her face had long become a blank slate. Phantom pains were all he was reduced to since she had hollowed him out for her delight. He was a different person now, he had to remind himself ever moment he was there. That thought had carried him across the sea further than any thought of lost love.

  His driver said nothing the hour-long drive to the house he was renting for his stay. It was a pleasant change of pace from those who were scared of silence. He should have recognized him after knowing his parents most of their lives but if he had he made no mention of it. They pulled up to a large black gate where the driver lets James out after a small tip.

  James watches the car vanish around the corner. He was considering caution for the night ahead now. Unless he climbed into bed and disappeared for the next couple of days until his flight back there was not much for him to distract himself with. Tonight needed to happen if this trip was going to be purposeful.

  If it was one thing he hated it was wasting time. She had kept him under her thumb for just as long as he had stayed away. All that wasted time gnawed at him unapologetically in his free time. It had driven him to slave for his ravenous craft unlike his dozing peers. Whenever his eyes closed, all James encountered was despair.

  Aimless time and misery accompany him into the late hours. How could he ever forget someone anchored so firmly in his mind was so capable of getting under his skin? Visible scars were all that was truly different between then and now.