At first glance, nobody ever notices that James is troubled, or at second glance or at third. That's because what people notice more is wealth. James locks away his past, wears a mask and walks around with a poker face. But for how long can he keep those walls standing?

Listen to "Epiphany" by Taylor swift.

Elisabeth left the apartment without waking me up. I'm not surprised she pulled something like this. Waking up early in the morning and leaving me here alone. I suspected it last night because I know her so damn well. Betty probably woke up feeling guilty for sleeping with me again while knowing she has a boyfriend.

Callum is just another person along the road and she doesn't have to condemn herself for hurting him because that relationship will end eventually.

She needs to let herself go and stop being so uptight and controlled all the damn time. I can see her right now crying at the back of a book shelf in the library while trying to read an Anatomy textbook.

If she enjoys what we have so much then why resist? Why not break up with Callum? because honestly that relationship isn't going anywhere. I'm certain she won't ever allow Callum to touch and explore her in the ways I have. She wouldn't last long without me and that's why she ended up in my bed last night.

Elisabeth should be aware that her and I aren't over and there's no escaping this.

After taking a cold shower and putting on fresh clothes -I decided to take my time going through the list of necessary equipments and supplies crucial for the renovation of my mother's rose garden back in Malibu.

I couldn't shake off the memories of my mother as my eyes roamed the files scattered on my living room table even if I tried.

The main reason for renovating that old greenhouse is because I've been thinking about her so much lately and I want to do something for her. Though she isn't here to see it, I know she would've appreciated it.

There three things that my mother once told me could ruin a person and leave their hearts shuttered and empty. Things that would destroy you more than anything possibly could and create scars so deep and nearly impossible to heal. At first I didn't believe her, until I got to experience one of those things for myself.

She lined them up from the one that destroys a person most.

Hating yourself and cursing your existence.

Losing the person you can't imagine living without.

Watching the person you love fall in love with someone else while you spending the rest of your life replaying the same old memories.

It was during Christmas Eve when she told me this. That was eight years ago. And I wasn't really paying any attention to her because I was busy thinking about other things.

I wish she told me how to survive those things and if there was any sly possibility of rebuilding yourself after the wreckage.

When the days I desperately wanted to pay attention to her finally came, days I hoped so much for her to inlighten me, It was far too late. And whatever pieces of knowledge she had that could've saved me were buried along with her.

The day my mother died was the day those three things surfaced from the back of my mind and hit me so hard I couldn't move in months. That was when the first of the three hit me.

I lost the person I truly cared about and couldn't leave without. And that person is never coming back. There was nothing I could ever do about it. My mother gone forever.

It's a suffocating feeling to realise that there is nothing you can do to change anything.

What is done is done.

That's the sentence I hate more than any ever spoken, because at that point you know it's over.

It's over and you've lost.

The months after her death were the hardest for me. Those were the days I prayed she was alive to tell me how to heal after the breakage.

And I broke badly. I remember not being able to speak or move in months. I was admitted in a hospital because no one could care for an unresponsive numb boy from home. And not because my father wasn't at home to do it, he was around. My father couldn't do anything because he wasn't able to.

He was far too shuttered to do anything. He wasn't broken like I was, my father was completely destroyed.

Those days I witnessed my father at his worst. He transformed from being the charming happy strong man and father that I grew to love into the most depressed gloomy broken person I ever saw. He became the shadow of the man he was. I never saw him smile ever since.

You see this man was hit by all three things my mother listed.

He lost the person he couldn't live without. He will live the rest of his life far from the person who owns half of his soul. He hated himself and cursed his existence.

The hate on himself was steered by the fact that if it wasn't for him my mother might still be alive. He was angry that day. I overheard everything.

She admitted her love for someone else and his accusations were in fact true. She told him about her misery, spitefulness and unhappiness and that she wished never to have married him because the pain of being far from the actual man she loved was too difficult to bare. He cursed at her for stealing his heart only to break it by having an affair with his own brother. He saw the signs, he suspected it but he never confronted her because he was scared as hell to lose her.

She left the house devastated because he refused to forgive her. He didn't want her near the house and requested her to leave. She left home in a rush that night. She was so shaken up that she got into the car accident that caused her death.

My father was angry at her but was willing to forgive her. He only chased her out in a fit of rage . He drove off to look for her but was met with the scene that caused his undoing. My mother's car was bursting into flames with her body inside it.

That night my father's heart burned with her. A part of him died that day.

Witnessing his downfall and suffering and guilt eat him alive year after year scared me to the core. He was ruined. And I realised that my mother was right.

Those three things would destroy and scar someone for life. It's impossible to heal from something like that. I was in a lot of pain that was hard to carry and I wondered how much worse my father was swallowed in it.

It also made me wonder about the burden my mother was carrying for all those years. The pain of having to bare living with a man she did not love as she watched the man she actually loved start his own family. The guilt of decieving a man that honestly loved her and who so happened to be the father of her children by having an affair with his own brother. The agony of knowing that there was nothing she could do about it because what is done is done.

And in the end for what? To realise that it was all for nothing because it's never going to change a thing. That she was ruining her family and sabotaging another for her own desires and her mistakes and wrong choices. And those mistakes killed her.

I didn't want to go through that. I feared love and anything that has to do with it.

I made a decision to protect myself from any more damage. The heartbreak of losing my mother was enough for me and it was a wake up call.

Pain is inevitable but heartbreak can be avoided.

After everything that happened I knew the best way to avoid trouble is by locking my heart in a cage so thick and behind walls so high and impossible to climb. To forget that I have a heart all together.

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

Being a law student has made me witness so many messed up scenarios in families that I honestly much rather avoid.

For the past six years I've been hiding the boy before the wreckage behind strong walls. No one could see through me, no one was ever able to see the former me again. Not even Callum and Adrian.

When people met me they couldn't see beyond the things I wanted them to see. They only saw the person I wanted them to see. A wealthy young man with a great future.

It was going well for me actually. Everything was going according to plan , I succeeded in masking my true self and was content with that. No one could get close enough to hurt me. I was bullet proof.

Then one day I get invited to a 90's party and this beautiful but shy woman Sees straight through me.

She didn't notice I was wealthy.

She didn't even know who I was.

So I let my guard down for the first time in years when I was around her. And in that moment I knew that this shy unsure girl would either be my saving grace or the cause of my down fall and the reason for the ultimate ruin and undoing of James Andrew Scott.

I don't think I'll ever forget that day.

The day I met Elisabeth Wilson.

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