Margo's POV

The hours of the day had passed in amiss as I faced the swimming pool, unaware of the girl gazing from the other side of my reflection with fine lines and a lived-in complexion. I knew she bored a troubled soul when I beheld my decimation in her very essence and fell at the hands of her callousness. I despise her and the way she graces the hallway in dominion traced with the ruin of lust. Then again, I can't seem to fight the urge to unravel a smile of vigor out of pure damnation, and in some way, I want to possess the emotion behind her soul. I want to feel her heart coursing through my veins because she isn't fragile like the tears I shed from causing a rift in Andre's virtue, or the lies I tell myself when Asher constantly abhors my existence.

"Relax, Asher's nothing, but a name in the wind," my alter ego whispers as tears race down my cheek. "He made that clear when he obliterated us in a series of moments. You have to control your mind and break your heart to survive every aspect of Rosewood."

"How do you not feel my heart racing whenever he's around me? Where are you when I lose every sense in my body, and I'm walking around the world aware of all the intricacies in each color? When I'm around Asher, it's like everything's gray except for the vibrant blue gleaming in his eyes, and in his arms, I know I'm weak. Although, if strength feels like novocaine, I'd rather be delicate with him for a decade, besides falling under a lifeless skyline for eternity." I smile, thinking of the overwhelming emotions clouding my judgment whenever I'm around Asher.

"You think I can't feel his breathing as he inhales softly, and exhales while he chases after a girl he's never once squandered. Do you know what a lost opportunity means? It means I've had ages to die, so for once, Asher can finally remember me, but here I am alive and still forgotten. I love Asher with every fiber of my being and a helluva lot more than a school girl's infatuation. You're still discovering things about a person I've known for months, and I was still finding out things Juliet knew for years. I've already been through every emotion your feeling, so spare me the heartache." I gaze at the water's movement, seeping between my toes as a frozen reflection appears on the surface.

Butterflies rustle in my stomach as their wings glide around my abdomen while my counterpart sulks amidst the waters of the sixth floor. I analyze the waves floating around his indignation while he falls in silence, meeting my anxiety with a glimmer of curiosity. Sometimes, solace forges behind the walls of his nature, and then for a millisecond, it's hard to unearth the soul within him. Asher captures my thoughts in the creases of his dark eyebrows as he raises my chin in his hand, observing my neutral expression in his fingertips. I bite back a ricocheting exhale as Asher releases my chin when he realizes I'm no longer inebriated.

"Margo, what happened yesterday when you led Andre straight to his mother." Asher questions, almost amused as he watches me squirm in my skin, unaware of the fallen angel holding my tongue captive. "Forget about Gabriella for a second, and tell me why you were drunk off your ass at seven a.m? You rode the elevator higher than anyone at Rosewood, and then you just disappeared the entire day. Where did you go yesterday?"

"I was at school yesterday," I say, gazing out the bay window, watching the sunset dim in marigold. "You said to stay away from you, so I was preoccupying my time since you guys didn't want to be around me. I was trying to make friends, but everyone kept staring at me like I was less than a human being. They were looking at me the way you look at me, and I couldn't take so many people despising me in one building, so I just buried myself in the back of all my classrooms."

"You're still lying, I can hear it in your voice," Asher says, piercing my skin with his cold hands as he pulls me inches apart from his lips. "Is lying straight to my face the only thing you're capable of doing? Why can't you be honest for once? I'm not the monster here, Tinkerbell, he's upstairs waiting to pull the trigger, but you're not even afraid of him. Why do I have to hold you to get you to be honest with me? Do I frighten that little voice inside your head that's begging to tell me every aspect of the truth."

I fawn over the gruffness of his voice as each syllable settles into his esophagus and stalks in the deepest parts of my mind. I ponder the movement of his psyche as he releases his tongue and utters the thoughts of his brain without a single care for the man he might offend with his razor-sharp words. It's like he gains pleasure in causing the weak-minded to squirm in the eloquence of his two edge sword. Although, I can't say I'm not enthralled by the fierceness of his masculinity as it projects from his chiseled jawline and protrudes over his sculpted biceps. My heart races as a drop of sweat cascades down his bicep and imprisons me in his broad shoulders.

Do I frighten that little voice inside your head that's begging to tell me every aspect of the truth? Asher's husky tone resonates in his chest as he softly inhales while focusing on his shallow breaths. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, I can't deny the way my thighs tremble whenever his voice emerges from across the room. Then there are the vibrations drifting in my abdomen when he unknowingly collapses my face in between his hands, not understanding the wavelengths of my mind. Before Asher can speak, I imagine our lips colliding with our souls intertwining as I whisper everything he wants to hear. Then the power shifts, and I slowly begin to despise the light in Asher's gleaming eyes.

"Well, maybe I am afraid of you, Asher, because one second you want to know all my secrets, then the next minute you hate everything about me," I interject as midnight takes over while I stand still, glancing at his sharpened eyebrow. "Then you only see the beauty in my presence when I dress up in Juliet's expensive clothes and designer heels. It's funny how you parade around here acting as if your better than everyone who has their noses stuck up their asses, but I see straight through you. I'll never be good enough to escape with you into the sunset. Since I'm too homely to be apart of your world even though you've already watched mine fall apart, but you never stopped to ask how that makes me feel?"

Asher coarsely blinks as he stares at me with intensity brewing in his spirit while reflecting on the thoughts of a girl still hidden from me. "Finally, the real, Margo Kennedy makes an entrance, and just in time, I was starting to hate the lost girl. She's nice, understanding, even obedient, but she's too soulless. She lacks depth, whereas the real Margo was feisty like a chihuahua ready to pounce. Still, she was the opposite of Juliet even though she tried to resemble her to a fault, then when she untangled you were all that remained of the girl I met a year ago."

My fingers quiver as my alter ego releases the wheel and allows my notions of her to continue without persecution. "Sometimes, I feel her prying into my brain and exposing herself strictly at her leisure. I wonder what she was like when she was around Juliet? Was she ever as lonely as I am, or did she have someone beside Juliet to keep her attention?"

"I can help you remember the heights," Asher whispers into the still water. "all you have to do is stop going to war with every instinct in your body. Think of it as sinking to the bowels of the sea as you claw for one last breath of air, refusing to inhale while the world twinkles above you in Persian blue. Then as you drown, you realize the harder you fight, the more you sink until eventually, you find yourself at an impasse. In a moment, you see your life flash before your eyes and the beauty of it. Then just before you suffocate to death, you decide to stop waring against the ocean, untimely choosing to inhale the water inside your lungs. Choosing to accept death rather than living in chaos."

I glance at the harrowing attributes of Asher, and I've come to comprehend our shared mindset as our endgame pounds inside my heart. If I succeed in this battle for dominance, then the girl with the blank slate will think I have a "martyr complex" seeking to save everyone I've encountered. She thinks I'm trying to save Juliet when I've already watched her bleed in an ocean tainted with her blood, and maybe if I could reconstruct Juliet's final moments she'd be right. Albeit, I never said I wanted to be Juliet's savior to elicit admiration from a lost ballerina - that's more of Asher's department. After I'm free from bondage, they will never steal my sanity again.

"I don't want to trigger anything from your past, but what does it feel like to die? I'm asking because I've always wondered if the suffering continues on the other side? Do you remember every awful thing you've ever said or every time someone pierced you so deep your heart couldn't look past it for months, maybe even years? Did you see your lovers face?"

"I was all she had during her last moments," Asher mutters, staring relentlessly into my eyes while the thought crushes his soul. "but I never expected to die watching her soulless eyes glaring into mine. Everything was so clear in that second she was already gone, and I was ready to die for her. Then I closed my eyes, but my flesh eyes never blinked because I was already dead. I looked to the opposite side of the riverbank, and there Juliet was clothed in the entire galaxy. I still think I remember some distorted version of the truth and that Juliet is out there alive somewhere. But the only thing I remember is that dying is a lot like drowning. You're helpless as you sink further, desperately gasping for air until the second you aren't anymore."

The marbled columns glisten into obscurity while we precariously sit at the natatorium's edge, growing suspicious of our separate ventures to bliss, but growing closer to one another than we've been in weeks. There's something magical about this room, and the way it's situated above the evergreen countryside, burning in our vision while the freshly mowed blades of grass bloom in precision. For instance, the light pales on the sixth floor of Goulding Manor while we perch in silence, and Asher gazes at the water. Somehow, I know he's wandering back to when they drove from the bridge into the bottom of the ocean, and I can never imagine the agony he's endured to continually watch the love of his life die a lifetime of deaths. Then I wonder what exactly drove them over the bridge in the first place, or maybe who provoked them?

"Well, you're not drowning anymore, even amidst everything. Your heads still above the water, and you're not completely submerged. Even if your life is mimicking the same tide that buried Juliet and a part of you underneath the waves, you can survive this. She may have been your anchor to the outside world for a long time, but it's time to plant your feet in the sand. Do anything that doesn't involve you dead in a body bag because you deserve to live." I stammer, fading in my sentences as the thought of Asher in love with someone else propels a fist at full force into my abdomen while tears swell in my eyes.

"I was fond of the way she gleamed across the room after she landed the perfect arabesque. She waited when she thought no one else was watching, and then she'd break out in this bewitching smile. She'd even bounce around the room, squealing like a toddler. Then she'd glide across the floor, turning backflips as she let her hair cascade down her back. God, I was in love with her for who she was without all the makeup and perfection. I was crazy about all the blemishes she'd try to conceal because they were so beautiful."

Asher trembles as his concrete walls subside while he digs his fingernails into the edge of the pool. I rush to his side, gazing at his countenance as he clenches his jaw, hyperventilating. He lowers his head into his lap with just his eyelashes visible as he screams in torment. I didn't know what to do as I erect over his body, wrapping my arms around his shoulders while he envelops me into a constricting embrace. Everything happens so quickly as Andre rushes into the room, and Asher lays in my arms, blinking senselessly while he whispers into the void.

"It's all connected."

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How did you like the chapter? (PLEASE, CONTINUE READING FOR A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THIS STORY!)

Tell me what you think about the opening paragraph? Can you tell when Margo and her counterpart are speaking? What attributes of their personalities make them stand out in your opinion? Do you favor Margo over her alter ego? Or do you prefer Margo's alter ego over her personality?

What do you think will happen when they unite under one soul? Do you view Margo's counterpart as cold hearted, or do you feel her wrath's deserving? Margo hates her alter ego and believes she will destroy her innocence, do you believe her? Remember in chapter twenty two when Margo's alter ego took control and when she graced the hallway in a way that Juliet would've done? Well, her alter ego remembers Juliet completely and those interactions have affected her personality.

Hello guys, how's everyone doing this blessed day? Well, I have some great news to share with you. You may know I've been applying to different outlets on Wattpad trying to get promoted on reading lists, and I recently heard some great news yesterday. The Wattpad ambassador run Romance team decided to feature Amidst Crimson Kisses on their Featured Reading list to their five hundred thousand followers. I give all the glory to God for this and thank you guys for supporting me!

I'm still shocked I actually got featured, but God is good! Also, remember to social distance guys and stay blessed during these perilous times! P.S Don't forget the trailer to #ACK is in the section titled, Amidst Crimson Kisses. P.P.S The picture shown in the media box was just inspiration for me to write this chapter. P.P.P.S The next two chapters will definitely be written in Margo's, and Asher's POV.

Thank you so much for reading
GOD bless you all ❤️