He’s gone!
He’s gone!
I need someone to scream that in my face and then maybe the folded threadbare towels will make sense, or the fact that if I stand still and inhale, my nose fills with his woodsy, wild scent instead of stale passing of lonely time.
I smell him.
And I don’t know what to do anymore.
I came here to put things behind me, yet everywhere I turn, the past keeps dragging me back.
I haven’t said it out loud since he left—not that I ever said it out loud—but sitting here in my bedroom that Ren helped decorate, looking around the apartment Ren helped make a home, I can’t pretend anymore.
I’m still in love with him.
Even more than before.
I’m still furious at him.
Growing hotter by the day.
And I’m afraid.
I’m so afraid I’ll never be able to get past this, that my future is a merry-go-round of prickled skin for no reason, smells of Ren in the air, and the unnerving sense that he hasn’t truly gone, after all.
Maybe he died out in the forest, and his ghost is haunting me.
Maybe this is what everyone goes through when they lose someone so damn special.
Either way, I can’t do this anymore.
I came here to burn you, and that’s what I’m going to do.
And then, I’m going to sell every piece of furniture and leave.
I can’t be in this town another moment.
Screw my creative writing course. Screw being brave. Screw lying. Screw everything.
I can’t do it.
I can’t stay.
I’m running…just like he did.
It’s finally time to say…goodbye.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
REN
2018
STEPPING INTO THE place I used to live with Della was excruciating.
Every day was the same; the pain never got easier, or the sensation that I was missing something fundamental any gentler.
She was the reason I went to work.
She was why I remained in a city I couldn’t stand rather than return to the forest I loved.
And she didn’t even know I was back because I was too much of a pussy to face her. I wasn’t ready to accept her anger at my weaknesses, to bear the brunt of her disappointment, or to stare into her eyes as I lied about what I felt for her.
I wanted that lie to be truth when I next saw her.
I wanted to hold love in my heart and no lust. I wanted to hug her hard and feel connected and comforted and not consumed with the desperation of spilling everything.
Of confessing that I loved her in a totally different way.
That I couldn’t exist without her.
That I was willing to do anything to have her back.
I hated how incredibly wrong it was to fall for the girl I’d raised, yet my body said it was unbelievably right. That it had been waiting for that moment to finally come alive and shout yes to finding everything I never thought I’d find.
My eyes glued to the carpet where she’d fearlessly stripped and offered every secret and vulnerability. And just like every day, I cringed in horror knowing that, despite the fact she’d moved on and my vow to pretend my love hadn’t changed for her, if I could rewind time, I would gather her close and kiss her.
I wouldn’t wait for her to kiss me.
I wouldn’t make her put her entire heart on the line.
I would meet her halfway because our entire lives had been a partnership, and it was up to me to carry half her burdens.
My boots were heavy and droplet stained from washing windows as I trudged down the tiny corridor to her—my—bedroom.
Wait.
I froze as the sounds of splashing water came from the poky bathroom at the bottom of the hall. Light glowed beneath the door.
What the hell?
I’d grown so used to having sole use of this place, I hadn’t considered what I’d do if she suddenly returned.
I backed up, my heart racing into overdrive.
Shit.
I’d caught her in the shower.
I didn’t know her to shower at dusk—she was normally a morning person—but if she’d had a long day at college or a fight with David or whatever other reason had brought her here, I supposed it was only natural. Then again, I had no right to know her routine anymore.
I’d left her.
I wasn’t privy to her heartaches. She wasn’t a virgin, after all. She had the man she’d chosen warming her bed at night.
Once again, that knowledge harpooned me, and my steps faltered. She’d grown up beneath my nose and, by the time I’d noticed, it was too late.
Everything was too fucking late.
A painful cough ripped from my lungs.
Turning around, I meant to head back to the living room and out the door, but a stack of papers sat on her desk beside the cheap laptop I’d bought for her birthday a couple of years ago. A few of the keys were missing and the Wi-Fi capabilities were shit, but the thing was well used ever since Della decided to take her skills at telling stories, and my past of sharing tales, and enrol in creative writing.
The laptop hadn’t been on her desk when I left this morning.
She’d brought it with her.
Was it an assignment?
Was she hard at work on a project, and this was the printed results ready to hand in tomorrow?
Looking back at the bathroom door, the sound of running pipes and groaning water pressure said I had enough time to spy.
I shouldn’t.
I should run before it was too late.
Just the action of stepping into her room uninvited—the same room I’d slept in for the past few months—and glancing at the discarded bra on her dresser, the pink panties on the floor, and strewn jeans on her bed made my hands clench and belly knot with dangerous things, but the fat stack of pages and bright green Post-it note on top beckoned me forward.
My eyes widened and my heart beat with a different panic as I noticed my old lighter propped on top with a sketch of a fire and the words, ‘It’s been fun cutting out my heart, but it’s time for you to burn. I’m ready to leave and be done with this.’
The words were written in marker, deep and black and full of sharp pain.
Leave?
She couldn’t leave.
Where would she go?
Who would be there to keep her safe?
I stopped breathing as my eyes fell to the title page beneath.
The Boy & His Ribbon
by
Della Wild
My heart froze as the title harpooned me in the chest.
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She promised.
Our secrets were our lives.
No one must know.
No one must guess.
I’d taken her against the law.
I’d kept her from everyone’s knowledge.
I’d fallen in love with her even though she was practically my kid.
And yet…she’s written it all down.
Every sordid, broken, pure, delicious thing.
I couldn’t stop my shakes or urgency as I grabbed the paper, tossed off the lighter, and ripped over the first page.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REN
2018
I’D NEVER BEEN the best reader—no matter how much time Della spent teaching me—yet reading that manuscript, I absorbed the words through my fingers as well as my eyes.
The story leapt from the pages, latching sharp fangs into my heart. Every emotion and carefully fabricated lie ripped apart my life, dousing me in blistering honesty, pouring its black and white truth into the wounds it left behind.
It wasn’t just words that sliced me, but Della’s voice. Her vibrant honesty. Her fierce tenacity reading aloud the secrets she’d written.
…that was what he did to me, you see? He made my entire life a jewellery box of special, sad, hard, happy, incredible moments that I want to wear each and every day.
*
I can honestly say Ren is my favourite word.
I love every history attached to it.
I love every pain lashed to it.
I love the boy it belongs to.
*
To me, Ren was magical.
He might not have been able to read and write, but he was the smartest person I knew.
*
I wish I could paint a better picture of how much I looked up to him.
How much I worshipped him.
How much I loved him even then.
*
Amazing what love can make someone do, right?
In my toddler brain, I associated him calling me Ribbon with his admittance of loving me. He’d accepted me as his own. He no longer needed to remind himself that I wasn’t born to be his.