LiviieMarie sorry it took so long to come in 😓 Here's my entry for the contest 😊

He looked down at the flower embroidered wallet in his hand. He held her ID tight in his hand, continually looking down at the photo. It was definitely her, no doubt.
"Marryanne?" He murmured under his breath as he caught a glimpse of a heavenly face in the crowd. He kept his eyes on her back and quickly moved through the crowd of people toward her. She was getting into the subway train and he panicked. This could be the last chance he had to see her. "Marryanne!" He called out desperately.

And she stopped. She turned around and looked at him with her familiar brown eyes. An uncontrollable smiled came over his face and he was at her side in the doorway of the train car. "Mary . . . ," he said softly, looking down at her. "I found you." He wanted to hug her and kiss her, but he knew from experience that wouldn't be acceptable. She would likely hit him upside the head again with her purse. She was agressive that way.

"Ummm . . . Do I know you?" Marryanne asked, giving him the sharpest cocked eyebrow and the most skeptical look.

"Well . . . No- I . . . You don't," he said, his still heart dropping into his stomach. How many times had they had this conversation again? And how many times will he be able to have it without withering away from grief.

"Oh, is that my wallet?" He expression brightened. "You were returning it to me?" I looked down at the wallet and nodded slowly as I handed it to her.
"Dang, I feel so dumb sometimes. I didn't even know it was gone," she said in a groaning tone.

She was quite different. But that came with the new times and the influence of its culture. But he knew she was herself no matter what time she was born in. "No, it's no trouble," fabricate a story, "I was gonna tell a bull until I looked at the ID-"

"A bull?" Mary looked confused again.

"Uh a policeman," I corrected, shaking my head. "When I saw your picture I knew I'd seen you and you weren't far." He smiled and the doors started to close. They moved into the car, out of the way and sat. "I remembered seeing you because I couldn't forget the face of a beautiful dame such as yourself."

Maryanne giggled, seeming both amused and flattered. "You talk like my grandpa," she said, shaking her head.

"Well, if your grandfather was born 200 years ago give or take then I'd agree," he said, bewildering her again.

"You're quite strange," she said in her raspy, straightforward voice I had always adored.
"And you're quite cute," I replied. For a moment I was weary of the sheer about of time I'd been looking for her this time. It's was the longest he'd ever taking to find her. And yet, her soft laugh and blush was the same. Her frizzy brown hair was still forever obscuring her right eye so she had to push it back behind her ear.

"Thank you." Her eyes scattered over the car floor as they avoided his figure. There's always a pattern with her. Every time he got her back, she is the same beautiful and abused thing that doesn't know how to be treated right. And every time he looked forward to seeing her smiled and cry when she finally realizes how much I love her.

"Where are you going?" Her eyes pulled to him, piercing him with the sweet prick of them. She'd left so many scars with those eyes. Tracks down his body where so looked to find his heart beat through his veins.

And all she ever found was his need for her.

"Wherever you're headed," he said truthfully, smiling. "I'm not even sure where this train goes."

My truth was her relief, as if she'd hoped he would say that. As if that was all she'd been waiting to hear since she'd left him years ago. And they were finally side by side once more. And for eternity she be his lost and found item, always cared for and always gone too soon.

The street they stopped on was unfamiliar to him, but with her nothing could ever feel out of place. Hearing her voice crack when she raised it in protest of some of his teasing was the most blissful sound. It was in these few days things were content. But soon the truth wouldn't be her relief.

But her destruction.

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"Ransom, how long have we known each other?" Maryanne asked, looking longingly out his apartment window. She was getting to the stage where she couldn't rest. There was an itch in the back of her mind that scratched a hole in her skull.

He licked his dry lips at the familiar question. He knew it his answer would get a familiar response. "About 3 weeks I'd say," he ran his finger over the dust on the window sill as he leaned on the opposite side of its frame from her.

"It doesn't feel so short," she said, unfolding her arms and lifting off the support off the wall. Her feet padded a few quick steps toward the center of the room and slowed, looking around.

"What do You think?" He asked. Though his focus was on nothing but her. This could go two ways. She could beg and plea him for answers, or drive herself mad trying to remember, to feel.

"I think it's great. But it's . . . Kinda empty. Where's all your stuff?" She felt lonely in the middle of an empty room, like there was nothing for her to hold onto. She wondered if that was the mindset of the owner. "All I have is right here. I told you I spent a lot of time traveling."

She looked at him over her shoulder and strained to meet his eyes. "Does that mean that some day you'll leave me?"

He quickly denied this, walking toward her. "I would never leave you." If her eyes could barely look at his before, It you was impossible now. His gaze was so intense and straightforward it was sharp. She let him take her hand as she looked around the room. "Why were you traveling?"

He was caught off guard a little. She had always showed hesitation asking him personal questions in these few weeks. Maybe she was afraid of the answers because she knew he would tell her the truth. "I was looking for something," he said calmly, still looking at the side of her face.

"Your hands are cold," she said with digression.

"They always are."

"I know," she said, pulling her hand away. Though not angry she did look very confused and distressed. "What were you looking for?"

Ransom took in a deep breath. He'd been waiting years for this moment. And it was time to see if she would accept or reject everything. "You know why," he said slowly, watching her start to pace. It already wasn't looking well for them and he felt his heart turning itself inside out with dread.

"No, I-!"

"Maryanne," he interrupted her gently. "I was looking for you."

She was finally able to looked at him and tears of confusing welled in her eyes. "I don't understand."

"You never do right away." He stepped toward her, reaching his hands out to hold her. "But I know that deep in your heart you know. And I see it in your eyes that you remember me." He pushed her frizzy hair back to look at her beautiful eyes that tears flowed from.

"Ransom," she whimpered, her voice cracking, "none of this makes sense. We met only a month ago, How could I know you." She started to sob softly in her throat and backed away, wiping her tears. "This isn't fair. I don't know what's happening."

"I know, Mary. Just listen to me. Please, let's sit down and have some little waffer cookies." He touched her back but she immediately moved away violently. "No! You always act like you know me. Even from the first moment we met! Why?!"

"Maryanne. . . I do know you. I've known you over and over again for hundreds of years. And every time I loose you I go to look for you again." Ransom didn't think holding answers from her would make things better.

And Mary clutched her hair in fists as she processed everything. "That can't be. No! That's impossible. You're insane!"

"Am I?" He asked, giving her a concerned look. "But you know me too. And you know you do."

Mary suddenly wiped her head around to look at the refrigerator. She rushed toward it and flung it open. She was right. And she was terrified. She screamed at the large containers of meat and blood that filled the fridge and nothing else. She fell back and scooted herself away in shock. "Shit . . ," she whimpered in fear.

"Mary," Ransom said, going to her and kneeling down slightly.

"Don't touch me!" She shouted, scrambling away. "Don't come near me! Ever!"

Frozen with shock, he looked at her as she sat crouched in a corner. She had tears staining her face and running her mascara and her eyes trained in him. She'd never reacted this way before. She'd never been so hostile to him.

"What are You?" She demanded, snapping at him with disgust.

"I'm what you might call a vampire. That's what humans labeled them anyway," he said, sitting on his legs with a defeated look. He didn't want to give up on her but this round didn't seem successful. She hated him. And he didn't understand why.

"So, You-You drink blood? That's disgusting. And . . . You keep looking for me? What do you mean? What does this mean?" She looked more distressed than to begin with. The More answers she got the more questions she had the More she torn apart she felt.

"You've died 7 times. And each time you're reincarnated and . . . I go to look for the new you." Ransom explained in a soft voice that she hated. Why was he so calm?

"Why?! Why would you do this to me?" She sobbed, clawing at the wall behind her as if to tear it down and make more space in the room. Everything felt like it was closing in and falling apart on top of her.

"Because I love you," he finally told her again. He had wished to tell her that since he said it on her let death bed. "I love you."

The words left a bitter taste in her mouth. "No you don't," she spat. "If you loved me you would let me live. Whatever we were died along with me. You can't keep ruining my lives for eternity!"

Ransom looked down at the floor and tears started to spill from his eyes. "But, we're soul mates. Our love is forged in the stars. I spent my life finding you over and over. I . . . I watched you die so many times."

Maryanne sniffled and shook her head. "You can't keep doing this. You can't. You can't relive it. You can't change my death. Because I'm mortal and I'm gonna keep dying." She forced herself to her feet weakly and wiped her face. She wouldn't look at him in fear she might come to pity him. But this was wrong. And she knew it was. And it couldn't go on. She started to walk out of the room, letting her long hair hide her face.

"Maryanne, please," Ransom sobbed, now in a fit himself. His grief would hardly let air in his lungs. He couldn't loose her after just finding her.

What would his life be if she wasn't his purpose to go on. "Please. You can't just leave me so soon. I can't live without you."

Maryanne slumped to the door and rested her hand on the doorknob. Her nails were red from clawing at the wood. "Let me go, Ransom."

This were the last words anyone spoke to him. He screamed for hours and cried, tearing up the apartment. The neighbors called the police department to complain. And when they arrived on the scene no one answered the door. They asked the landlord for the master key and when they opened the door.

Ransom lay in his own blood

With a steak through his heart.

The only good news was

That he didn't have to live without her.