It was always there, this invisible string between them, tethering them to each other despite the time and distance that had separated them for all these years.

It was getting shorter lately as the life events of those they loved most in this world drew them back to the same place where it started all those years ago.

Do broken hearts ever truly mend?

Do you ever forget your first real love?

Would they find their way back only to run their separate ways once more?

What would it take for the string to break forever?

What would it take for it to tether them together for the rest of their lives?

Chapter 1

Awakening

It was 6:14am and the phone was ringing in his dream but suddenly he found he wasn't dreaming after all and the ringing was two feet from his pillow. Light was barely beginning to seep through around the edges of his curtains. He lifted the screaming device to his ear, not even uttering so much as a huh, and listened as he heard a voice he'd never forget in a dozen lifetimes.

Barely registering the words but understanding the tone he quickly threw off his covers and pulled on his jeans and a shirt before grabbing his keys and heading straight for his car. Before he knew what he was doing, without a thought towards showering or breakfast or any of the other things with which one would ordinarily commence their day, he was on the road, driving to the place 22.8 miles from where her call had originated, to the place he knew he would find her - he was driving home. Home? Yes, home. The closest place to a real home he'd ever had. Even if he was too jaded to realise it in his youth, he knew it now and soon he would find himself back there. His only concern now was what exactly would be waiting for him when he did arrive.

She didn't know why, of all the people she could have called, it was his voice at the end of the line when she desperately dialled the first number that came to her fingertips as the sun was rising. Hearing his voice she suddenly felt safe for the first time in a long time and she knew she had made the right decision. She was ready to forget the past and move on, she had been for a long time really but just hadn't ever been able to set herself free but today was different. Last night was the last she would stay here under this roof. She checked her appearance one last time in the hall mirror, carefully examining her right jawbone and fluffing her hair more fully around her neck despite it already being covered by her high buttoned blouse. Today was just like any other day, she told herself as she picked up her briefcase and overnight bag and exited the house that had never once felt like a home to her in these past 8 months. The only difference was this time she would not be returning. She slid her key under the door and walked briskly to her car before she could change her mind. She blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall and without another thought to what she was leaving behind she was on the road - she was driving home.

He didn't bother driving into the centre of town, he knew she wouldn't be there. He didn't go to her childhood home either. There was only one place she would be and so he parked his car off the road and walked the remaining distance to the bridge - their bridge - the only place he'd ever admitted to liking in this backwater town. His instinct had been right but then that had never been their problem, they'd always been intrinsically in tune with each other - sometimes allowing them to push all the right buttons but more often striking the wrong ones. There she was, waiting for him as she had been so many times before. She hadn't heard him arrive and he took this moment to just watch her silently, rewinding the past few hours in his mind, wondering how it always came back to this, wondering if he was man enough to rescue her this time around. A bird swooped low over the still water disturbing the smooth surface into a cascade of ripples. Suddenly, as if sensing his presence, she turned her head towards him, her long dark hair falling away from her neck as she twisted revealing more than she had intended but it didn't matter anyway, he knew with one look into her sunken blue eyes what must've happened. The whole way here he knew it and he didn't want to believe it but now he couldn't tell himself any different version of this unspeakable truth. The worst factor of it all, worse even than the finger shaped bruises marking her neck and the swelling on her jaw, was the knowledge that this was his fault and for that he would never forgive himself.

A/N I'm currently working on fixing the format of this story so please bear with me as I update it to a more readable version :)