I gave him complete control as he bundled me into some sort of Chrysler, and drove us silently to the very same house I’d lost more than just my virginity in—I’d lost Ren.
He guided me inside, past the tastily decorated lounge with wall stickers of life quotes, up the stairs and past the bedroom where we’d ended up screwing on the floor, to another at the end of the hall.
He welcomed me into his bedroom with its charcoal and black colour scheme, pulled back the sheets on a king bed, and cocked an eyebrow until I crawled exhausted into the offered cocoon.
He set up a tray and let me eat the soup in private and swallow a few pills before he returned with a box of tissues, a hot water bottle, and passed me the remote control for the large flat-screen above his dresser on the wall.
I camped in his bed for two days.
And this is so hard to admit, but…I felt something for him. Something warm and grateful and, when I could breathe through my nose and showered away the stickiness of sickness, I wanted to repay him for his unbelievable kindness.
So, when he asked me to stay, when he said he’d thought about me a lot and wanted to see what else was between us other than just a one night thing, I said yes.
I knew what I was doing.
I wasn’t stupid to think I liked David enough after two days of him playing nursemaid to move in with the guy, but I was lonely, I was lost, and just like the first time David made me feel wanted, he had a knack at making me feel it again.
So…here is my latest confession.
For the past three weeks, I’ve been living at David’s house.
Actually, right now I’m typing this ridiculous never-to-be-read assignment at the breakfast bar in his kitchen.
It feels like yet another betrayal to admit that.
But why should I suffer in a place that stabs me over and over again with memories of Ren when he left me so damn easily?
Why can’t I run, just like him?
After I felt better, David took me home to gather some clothes, toiletries, laptop, and school gear, and we returned to his place, slightly awkward and a little afraid of what we’d just committed to.
I had no intention of letting the lease on my apartment go.
It wasn’t just an empty home.
It was the last place Ren had shared with me.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I only left because I was more afraid of sleeping another night on my own than sharing a house with a kind-hearted stranger.
If you’re shaking your head, thinking I leapt straight into sleeping with him—you’re wrong.
Three weeks and we haven’t even kissed.
I’m innocent.
But at the same time, I can’t lie to you.
I can’t type the words that pigeon-hole David into the friendship-only box.
Just like that first night, there’s a chemistry between us that simmers rather than burns. It heats up my blood just enough to melt the frost Ren left inside.
In the past three weeks, I’ve learned the A in David’s full name stands for Alexander. That his dad is rich from aluminium manufacturing, and his parents bought him this house close to the university so he’d be warm and safe to study. The three-bedroom place is all his, but he opted to share with a girl whose room we’d shagged in that night.
She’d been away for the weekend, and David’s room had already been stolen by other party-screwers.
The third bedroom was storage and a gym—the same gym that kept David’s body trim and taut rather than fierce and strong like Ren’s, thanks to a life of physical labour.
The first night I met Nathalie—who went by her favoured nickname of Natty—my hackles rose. After all, I’d gate crashed her cosy love nest with David.
But my worries were for nothing.
Natty adopted me as her sister and had a flair at finding the worst movies but making them the best with commentary and snacks.
Turns out, I’m not the only one nursing a chronic case of a broken heart.
We all were.
A house of rejected losers all banded together, banishing—or doing our best to banish—the nightmares who had scarred us.
Natty had been cheated on by her fiancé.
Me, you all know my story.
And David…well, he’d been jilted by the girl he’d fallen in love with while working the confectionary stand at the local cinema a few years ago—he didn’t know she was married and he was the other man.
It destroyed him.
And, it destroyed me too because their tales ended with someone cheating on another.
Was that the only path for romance?
It hurt to hear their sad stories, but it also helped because I was no longer alone. I had two misfits to help heal me, and for the first time in my life, I stopped analysing everything I said and learned the novelty of telling the truth.
I held nothing back.
What I’ve told you, dear assignment, is what I told Natty and David over the course of three weeks.
They know who I am.
They know who Ren is.
They know my pathetic tale and life moves on.
CHAPTER SIX
REN
2018
LEAVING HER WAS the hardest thing I’d ever done.
Harder than living in the city.
Harder than existing at Mclary’s.
The hardest thing, and I’d done it voluntarily.
Walking away with my back aching beneath a rucksack full of tins and bottles, tents and sleeping bags, I physically fought myself every step.
What the fuck was I doing?
This was Della.
We’d never been apart except for three incidents in our past, and each of those only separated us for the shortest time possible.
I loved her.
I needed her.
So why the hell did I walk away from her?
The forest ought to have filled me with relief, being back in nature’s sweet embrace. The warbles of birds and clear air, far from city smog, ought to slip the stress off my shoulders like an unwanted coat.
But I found no pleasure.
I found no sanctuary.
Because I was alone.
Della was my home. She was it for me. She was my everything.
And I’d always known she’d leave me eventually—as she should. As it was meant to happen when a kid outgrew their mentor. I used that excuse over and over.
Me leaving her was merely quickening the inevitably of her leaving me.
But it didn’t stop the pain.
It didn’t stop the regret.
It didn’t change the fact I no longer had the most important thing in my life, and I was slowly dying without her.
*
That first day, I didn’t get far.
Trees weren’t just landmarks guiding me deeper into their midst, but supportive friends, holding me up as I stumbled beneath heartbreak.
I’d travel a mile with my thoughts full of disgust at my response to seeing her naked. I’d stride onward with fists clenched and teeth clamped against nausea for ever thinking about Della the way I had these past few years. I’d punch a sapling for the lust masquerading as love and beg for a way to be free—to somehow find simplicity again.
But then, my thoughts would change, and all I’d see was the little girl I raised. The sweet, trusting blue eyes gazing at me with uncomplicated love as I brushed her blonde hair or fed her a piece of crisp apple straight from the Wilson’s tiny orchard.
My confusion would vanish, and I’d backtrack at a jog, staring at the city line below where Della existed without me.
She was my responsibility.
She was mine, and I’d left her all alone, undefended, uncared for.
Who did something like that?
Who put themselves first when their entire life had been wholeheartedly promised to another?
I’d hate myself the most in those moments.
The moments where my love was once again pure and full of self-sacrifice.
I was being an ass.
I was reading into things that weren’t there.
How the hell did I think I could abandon her?
She was my kid.
My best-friend.
Fuck, she needed me, and I ran away like a thief. A thief who stole her protection, familiarity, and comfort all because he couldn’t handle his own demons anymore.
I thought I’d protected myself from the vile whispers in my head. I thought I’d found a suitable outlet for the prohibited dreams about a blonde goddess who kissed me, loved me, and told me it was okay to fall and fall hard.