14. ’Til death

FOURTEEN

Casey.

Casey.

I push away from the window, taking a few heavy, stalking steps away from her before whirling around, ready to accuse her of fucking with me.

I'd deserve it. After everything I put Simone through since I picked her out to be my final girl, the one I was gonna spend forever with, she should get the chance to fight back.

I stalked her.

Infiltrated her life.

Followed her to Merrill Grove, killed her husband, and made her my unwitting accomplice when I sent her the bloody wedding ring.

I messed with her car. Gave my co-worker repeated diarrhea so bad, he's going to a specialist now, all because he had the nerve to think he could make a move on my Simone. I left her flowers she couldn't explain. Notes that both threatened and titillated her.

I snuck in her house, snuck into her shower, snuck into her bed… I dominated this woman, not stopping until I had her completely under my control, and when she got her head out of the fog I created as the Watcher and made the smart decision to leave me, I proved to her that I meant it when I said that I'll never, ever let her go.

Fuck. I drugged her. Helped carry her out of the hotel before propping her up in the passenger seat, then drove her back to my house. Our house. I've finally lost my fucking mind, deciding that the only way to keep Simone was to lock her up where I could never lose her.

And now… now she wants me to believe that she's the first girl I ever loved? The one I did lose all those years ago, when I was young, dumb, in love, and had no clue to track her to Connecticut?

Because that's where Simone went to school. Where she met Will Burke, married him, and had a whole life with him until I chanced upon him yelling at her in Springfield.

I've always had a thing for blondes with sad brown eyes. When I saw Simone with the tears glittering in them, I was immediately drawn to her. I didn't know her name. Could care less that she was married. She was mine, and I was prepared to do whatever it took to make it so.

I did the same thing when I was sixteen and Casey Mead was the new girl in school. I saw her trembling bottom lip, the worry in her haunted brown eyes, dreamed of running my fingers through her thick blonde hair and knew I had to have her.

And I did. For a while. Casey was mine for two years before she started to pull away. I… didn't take it too well. I couldn't control my emotions back then, or my resolve. My obsessions were all-consuming, and I crumbled beneath their weight. I scared her. I know I did. She would bow her head, acting like my absolute need for her didn't frighten her to her bones, but I thought she understood.

I thought she loved me.

And then I lost her.

We graduated Springfield High together one day. A week later, she'd vanished, and no one—not her parents, not her friends, no one—could tell me where she'd gone. All I knew was that she got her first car as a graduation present, driving out of my life without ever looking back.

I had to let her go. Not because I wanted to, but because my skills at the time were good but not great. When Casey disappeared, she disappeared.

And now I know why.

Because Casey… is Simone.

I shudder out a breath, trying to make sense of it all. I suck in another, blowing it out through my nose. I fucking need control right now. If I scare her, if I send her running from me for a third time, I'll never forgive myself.

Her expression is guarded. I get the idea that she would've taken that secret to the grave rather than telling me that

Can you believe it? All along I was pissed that Simone didn't recognize me from all the times I ‘bumped into' her in Springfield. And Simone… Casey must've known that I was her high school sweetheart and I had no damn clue.

A lump lodges in my throat. I swallow it with force, then peer into her face.

"Jake—"

"Shh." Don't scare her Jake, don't scare her… I drop my voice. "Let me look at you."

I've immortalized Casey Mead in my memories. Straight blonde hair instead of wavy, eyes the same shade of soft brown, with a rounder face and a different nose. There's some similarities between them, but could this really be her?

Casey was sixteen when she moved to Springfield. I was a hormonal boy with a broken brain. One look. That's all it took. One look and I knew she had to be mine.

She wasn't my first kiss. That was Melissa Gordon. I kissed her during a game of truth or date when I was thirteen and it was so anticlimactic, I thought I was gay for a while. So I kissed Kevin Mitchell one night after a basketball game. That did shit for me, either.

Then I saw Casey holding her books to her chest, and I sprung a fucking boner right in the middle of history.

The first time I ever had sex, it was with Casey. Upstairs, in her pretty pink bedroom?—

Pink. How the fuck did I forget about that until now? She loved pink… almost as much as Simone does.

I shake my head. "You don't look like Casey."

She lets out a soft laugh. "That's called aging, Jake." She waits a beat. "And, okay, a nose job when I turned eighteen."

I lift my hand, ghosting my fingers over the bridge of her nose. "Why would you change it? Casey… you had a beautiful nose."

"I did. But when you're a freaked-out kid driving her new car for the first time as you're leaving your possessive, overprotective boyfriend behind, you make a mistake and crash your car. Thank God I did more damage to my nose than I did my baby. Dr. Pavil could give me a nose job. If I totaled my convertible right after I got her, I never would've forgiven myself."

"Overprotective boyfriend? What? Me?"

The look she gives me could freeze water into ice cubes. "You're joking. Tell me you're joking."

I can't say that I am.

"You wanted us to get married at the end of the summer?—"

"I loved you," I say simply.

"We were kids, Jake. You wanted us to be babies having babies when all I wanted was to go to college. And, yeah, we both know how well that turned out for me. Got my degree and a fucking MRS to go along with it, plus a husband who'd never let me use it. I tried to escape one overprotective guy only to get saddled with another."

Will fucking Burke. I have to swallow my growl at the reminder that Simone was married. But to think that, all along, it was Casey… my Casey… who slept in Burke's bed.

I didn't want to scare her, and I'm not so sure I pull it off when I whirl on her.

"If I was so fucking terrible, Casey, then what are you doing here? What am I doing here?"

Instead of shrinking away from me, Simone looks me in the face for a moment before she crosses the room again, then sinks down onto the couch. "Because I never stopped loving you."

My stomach twists, sudden fury dying down quickly as her words. "What did you say?"

Her eyes meet mine and, fuck me, I see tears. "I was scared. I admit it. I was scared of a love as big as ours. So I ran, but you used to tell me that where I went, you'd follow me. Find me. That you'd never let me go." Her lips purse, and the tears become angry ones. "You let me go, Jake. You broke my heart."

"You changed your name?—"

"Would that stop you now? If Simone became Lisa or Kathryn? If I got colored contacts next time instead of just a nose job? Would you give up on me then?"

Does she want me to?

Doesn't matter. There's something about her. There must have always been. I became obsessed with Casey when I was a boy, and the same damn thing happened again a decade later. Heather never loved me back, but Casey did once, and I'd hoped that Simone would now…

And she's telling me that not only are they one and the same, but that she never stopped?

"You know it wouldn't?—"

That was obviously the wrong thing to say. Her hands fist the couch as she snaps, "So why was Simone worth the extra mile when Casey wasn't?"

Is that what she thinks?

"If I knew then what I do know, you'd never have been able to escape me. I would've found you. I always knew you were the one, baby. The only one. I tried to move on. It never worked. All these years, I think I've only ever been trying to replace you. If I could've found you, I'd do anything to show you that you belong to me."

"Really?" She sounds like she's desperate to believe me. "What would you have done?"

I meet her stare dead-on. "I'd kill her husband because he made her cry, and because I knew that, with him gone, I had a better chance of making her mine. Then I'd watch her constantly. On my cameras?—"

"I knew they were there. I had to constantly pretend not to notice them so I didn't tip you off."

I'm beginning to understand that. "—I still would watch her anyway I could, from the cameras to standing outside in the wood because it has the best view into her window. And when she caught me watching, I'd send her a flower… and warn her that she was playing with fire."

"I like the burn," she whispers.

And that's why we've always been perfect for each other. "And then, when she finally admits to both me and herself that we're fucking soulmates, I would get my ring on her finger, and ignore the fact that some other bastard as his there first."

"You were right, you know."

I like to think I usually am. But this time… "About what?"

Her voice is small, yet determined. "I wanted you to kill him. I've spent years regretting that I let him talk me into marrying him when I knew I still regretted leaving you first. When he moved us to Springfield because he knew that the entire fucking city reminded me of you… I don't think I could've hated Will more in that moment. And then…"

"And then?"

"You came back for Christmas." Her lips twitch, a hint of a smile taking the place of the earlier frown. "And the Watcher became the watched."

The watched… like she was watching me? No one ever watches me. I hide in the crowd. I rarely stand out. I blend in so seamlessly that it makes it so damn easy to stalk any of my targets.

I join Simone on the couch. "You want to run that by me again?"

"I told you, baby. You thought you knew everything. But did you know that I waited until we were in the Springfield Shop together last December to pick a fight with Will? Just so you could see how poorly he treated me?

"When you started coming around in all those disguises, I knew you hadn't changed one bit. Jake McIntyre and his need to save me… you didn't even know it was me, but there you were." Simone starts ticking off on her fingers. "The guy with the petition and the hat. THat was a good one. Bringing up our food. Oh, and the time I bumped into you in the elevator and you pretended you were moving in even though every knows that building was rent-controlled and no one every left."

Huh. Well that explains why I could never get off the waitlist?—

Wait.

"You saw me? You knew it was me?"

She pats my knee. "Everytime. It was only when you had your make on that I wasn't sure. I was hoping you were the Watcher… I'm sorry, but that's just a very Jake McInture thing to do." Bumping her shoulder into my bicep, she teasingly adds, "Your penmanship's got a lot better over the years."

I don't… I don't get it. If everything she is saying is true…

"If you wanted a second chance with me so bad, why didn't you tell me? Why did you run?"

All of her humor flees as quickly as it appeared. I instantly regret saying anything, especially since all I needed to hear was that Simone loves me, but I did—and she actually answers me.

"Because I needed to know that, this time, you would follow me."

How could she doubt I would?

"I had a tracker on your car—" I begin.

"I know. I found it and flicked it off."

I know that. "But you didn't find the second one." I reach down, taking her hand in mine. "Or the one I hid in your purse."

She blinks up at me in surprise. "That's how you found me?"

"That's two of the ways," I confess. "And if I had this tech ten years ago, you never would've gotten away from me in the first place. I love you. Nothing's changed for me. I still want you. And if I have to lock you in my house?—"

Simone rises up, shifting in her seat before throwing her arms around my neck. As she squeezes, she says softly, "Your house. My house. I don't give a shit. I'll stay with you as long as you promise to always, always come for me."

If that's all my sweet, cunning, conniving vixen needs, I think I can manage that.

Did I think I was obsessed with this woman before? She manipulated me. When no one else did, she saw me. She used my love for her to get what she wanted: her husband gone, his money free to claim, and her high school sweetheart panting after her as if we were both sixteen-year-old virgins again.

I thought I was stalking her, following my plan… but she's the one who was the puppetmaster the entire time.

Shit. If she wasn't drawing away from me so hesitantly now because of my stunned silent, I might just throw her back on the couch, claws off her clothes, and show her just how fucking hot I am knowing that she pulled all of that off with me being completely oblivious.

I might still do just that, but before I do, I need to set my future bride's mind at ease. "Try to leave me. Next time, I bet I break my record."

That erases some of the sudden worry from her eyes. It's not enough, though. She has another question ready to fall from her lips, and I'll answer it if she needs me to.

I'll do anything for her.

I wait, and after a moment of silent encouragement, she shudders.

"Do you love me, Jake? Can you still love Simone?"

If that's who she wants to be, I'll love her just the way she is.

"I thought I knew what love was. What obsession was. And then I met you, and it made me doubt everything I've ever known. I loved Casey, but I love the woman Simone's become, too. ANd now that I know you're the same… it all makes so much fucking sense."

"Oh, Jake…"

"You've always been the one. And," I tell her, slipping my fingers through hers, clasping our palms together so that we're connected, "we always will be."

‘Til death do us part.