Are you insane?
Of course, I didn’t sleep that night.
I know Ren. Or at least, I knew Ren.
I knew I’d pushed him to his limit and there were only two places he could go.
One, he would stew all night. He’d weigh the pros and cons. He’d blame himself, his parenting skills, his lack of discipline, and beat himself up for doing something wrong. And if, by the dawn, he hadn’t figured out there was something between us that wasn’t mere unconditional love, then he wouldn’t have been able to look at me again—for fear of what he’d become—and he’d leave.
Or two, he’d watch my naked body stroll bravely away after kissing him, and think for a moment. Just a moment. A delicious awareness-crackling moment when he realised he loved me too. And not in just a brother-sister kind of way, but an earth-moving, I-have-to-have-her-right-now kind of way. He’d run after me, shove me against the wall, and his lips would taste so sweet because it would be the first kiss he bestowed instead of the other way around.
Two options.
But I knew in my heart which one he’d choose.
And I’d known the instant the door clicked, and I padded in my cupid pyjamas to stare at the money left on the coffee table, the unfinished note explaining nothing, and the woodsy, broody smell of Ren fading in the air, that I was right.
He’d chosen option one.
My heart didn’t know how to beat anymore. My lungs didn’t understand what air was.
But tears?
They’d vanished.
Not one droplet escaped as I stared at the door, wishing, begging for him to return, and gather me in his arms.
I waited all night until the sun slipped through the curtains, gently kissing everything awake. Its kiss wasn’t kind to me though, because it gave me the first day of many without him.
If someone had touched me that first dawn, I wouldn’t have been able to keep it together. I would’ve broken on the outside as spectacularly as I broke on the inside.
But there was no one to touch me.
No one to tell me it would be okay.
I couldn’t be a child and scream until my heart stopped suffocating. I couldn’t destroy everything so I could purge the destruction inside me.
All I could do was cling to routine and head to the bathroom for a shower. I dressed in my school uniform. I ate some peanut butter toast with the crusts cut off. I gathered my school bag and walked the three blocks to school. I paid attention in class. I smiled at fellow students. I escaped the moment the bell rang. I slung my backpack up my shoulders and strolled to the supermarket close to our—my—apartment. After I chose a two-day-old lasagne that was discounted in the deli, one packet of Oreos, and an iced coffee, I walked back home. I ate, I watched TV, I did some homework, and I went to bed.
I did all that.
I, I, I.
Me, me, me.
And not once did anyone suspect that my world had just fallen apart.
Not once did I cry.
Not once did I scream.
I bottled it all up—the heartache, the agony, the bone-deep cracking—and I swallowed it down like a pill I didn’t want to take.
And there it sat—a breathing, seething thing dark in my belly, blocking my usual appetite for adventure, food, and love.
Blocking me from feeling.
Blocking me from screwing up again.
The next day, I repeated the day before.
And the tomorrow after that.
And the tomorrow after that.
Until a week had passed and I hadn’t died.
My worst nightmare of Ren leaving me had come true, and I was still alive.
And I hadn’t cried.
Not once.
Not even a little bit.
CHAPTER THREE
DELLA
* * * * * *
2018
I CAN’T SEEM to go on my computer without somehow clicking on your icon and exposing a nightmare.
I should’ve deleted every word I ever typed, but last week, when I wrote to you against my wishes, I slept a little better.
I didn’t wake drenched in sweat, fearing someone had stolen into the apartment while I rested. I didn’t lie in bed in the morning, frozen solid with the thought of yet more faking, more living, more existing without him.
It was as if I had a friend again.
Two months and one week is a long time to be on your own with no one to talk to. I’d started this assignment with a new lease of hope. I’d stupidly believed by writing about him, I could make him come back. Every day I gave you my secrets, I clung to a fantasy that he’d somehow feel me spilling our life story and come back to reprimand me.
But when the due date with Professor Baxter came and went, and I claimed the flu to write a hasty tale of a girl with two parents who weren’t monsters, I shut up all that pain again.
And I suppose you caught my lie, right?
I said I never cried.
And I didn’t.
Unless you count the times I cried while writing this stupid assignment.
Anyway, I don’t have the energy to type anymore today.
These memories are too painful. My tale too familiar.
I’m no longer part of a pair.
I’m singular.
Just Della.
And I have a life that I’m wasting.
A life that Ren gave me.
As much as I hate him for leaving, I can’t destroy what he gave me.
I’m going to move on.
For him.
Even if it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
CHAPTER FOUR
DELLA
* * * * * *
2018
IT’S BEEN ANOTHER three weeks.
Three months since he left, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
But…I actually have something to write about other than Ren.
To be fair, my life has been pretty mundane since the night Ren walked out the door. I’ve crammed as much as I could into daylight and night-time hours, doing my best to delete Ren piece by piece.
I’ve stopped asking myself ridiculous questions as I fall to sleep in an empty apartment.
I’ve given up trying to find answers I’ll never earn and accept that what I did was unforgivable.
I shouldn’t have kissed him.
I shouldn’t have tried to change us.
I shouldn’t have demanded more.
I’m nothing but numb bones, dazed heart, and paralyzed soul.
Who knows…maybe I’ll always torture myself with that night. Maybe I’ll always feel wretched for hurting him.
I just had to push and push, and when he had nowhere else to go, he did the one thing he was best at. He’d run from the Mclary’s because they were monsters who tortured him; now he’d run from their daughter because she’d hurt him too much to repair.
I have nothing.
Nothing but regret and minutes upon minutes of time to contemplate the What Ifs. The What If I’d let him go to bed and given him a few days to analyse how he felt? The What If I’d just been honest and said, ‘Ren…you know I love you, but what you don’t know is I’m in love with you. Now, before you freak out, it’s nothing to be afraid of and I understand if you don’t feel the same way, but just in case you do…just in case some part of you that feels a tiny spark like I do, then let’s figure it out. We always figure things out—together.’
And he’d say…‘Okay, Della. You’re right. I do love you. Now, get naked.’
And we’d live happily ever after.
That’s the worst kind of torture, isn’t it? The horror where every outcome and scenario delivers a happier one than the life you’re currently living.
But it all comes down to choices.
I chose to sleep with David, and I chose to slug back a few glassfuls of wine to dull the ache of entering womanhood. I chose to embrace my recklessness, strip, and yell at Ren.
I was tipsy and hurt.
And
I wish I could take it all back.
But you already know all this, so I’ll stop.
The real reason I wanted to write is…I needed someone.
Summer is well and truly here, and Ren is not, and that’s left me empty to the point where I’ll do anything to fill up the darkness inside me.
I’m ill-equipped for adulthood where I return to an empty apartment every night, the couch still smelling of him, the air still laced with his voice, and the night still warm with his hugs.
The memories nick my heart with their tiny, painful blades—giving me a thousand cuts until I bleed out slowly.
It’s so slow, I don’t even notice I’m dying.
I’ve run my immune system down. And the week after I handed in my assignment, I got sick.
Just a simple flu—karma for lying about being ill—but it knocked me on my butt. I could barely get out of bed from the body aches and fever. I had no food and no way of getting to a doctor without sneezing over some Uber driver.
I stayed in bed for two days, eating dried Ramen noodles because I couldn’t stand up to put the kettle on from shivering so bad, and sipping tepid tap water for my raging sore throat.
In the middle of the second day, I honestly thought I would die, and no one was left to care.
Ren…ouch.
God, the pain never gets any easier to bear.
Thinking of him is a syringe full of poison to the heart. Dare murmur his name and it’s a mallet to my bones. Risk imagining him sitting here, wiping away fever-sweaty hair and kissing my brow while feeding me chicken soup, and it’s a cannonball to my entire chest.
By the third day of curling up with chattering teeth, I knew I couldn’t keep doing this. I wasn’t dead, but it wouldn’t take much to finish me if I didn’t stop grieving.
Ren would be furious if he knew I’d gone from chasing everything to uncaring about anything, especially after all the sacrifices he made for me.
That was the only reason I managed to grab my phone, log in to Facebook, and look up all the Davids close to me.
It took a few page refreshes and an hour of stalking social media, but I found him.
The man I lost my virginity to.
Technology connects all of us and, for some reason, I despise that.
I hate the fact there’s no barrier anymore. No corner to hide from prying eyes.
David was easy to find, but not Ren.
He’s no longer in reception.
He’s returned to the wild that lives in his blood.
I have no way of contacting him and, believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything but smoke signals.
And thanks to that butcher’s blade to the heart, I needed someone even more.
His Facebook page said his full name was David A. Strait. His birthday was New Year’s Day, he was four years older than me, and according to his relationship status, he was single.
Funny that I’d willingly searched for the man who took my girlhood—a man I knew nothing about—yet almost cried in relief when I found him.
My message was lacking and needy:
Hi David,
You probably don’t remember me, but I’m the girl who pathetically asked you to relieve her of her virginity. You took me up on the offer, and then got beaten up by the guy I was trying to forget. Remember that messy evening? If by chance I’ve jogged your memory, I hope it’s not too forward to be honest with you again.
That guy? He walked out on me twelve weeks ago. I thought I was ready to survive on my own, but then I got sick. I hate that I’m asking you this and fully expect a hell no, but if you don’t mind being kind to me one last time, I need your help. My address is Apartment 1D, 78 RuBelle Ave. I’m just a few blocks from your place actually—walking distance really…
I coughed wet and ugly as I pressed send.
It showed as delivered a few seconds later.
For a few hours, I dozed with congestion in my nose and a continent the size of Africa sitting on my head.
I almost forgot I was waiting until my phone chirped with new correspondence.
Even though I knew it wasn’t Ren. Even though I knew, knew, knew I’d never get a text from him again; it didn’t stop my ridiculous heart from jumping off a building and hurling itself onto painful concrete.
It wasn’t Ren.
But it was the next best thing.
I’m on my way.
Love, David.
CHAPTER FIVE
DELLA
* * * * * *
2018
SORRY IT’S BEEN so long.
I meant to tell you what happened when David appeared at my apartment, but the guilt…
The guilt of welcoming him inside, letting him sit on the couch Ren used to sleep on, offering him water from glasses Ren used to drink from, sharing the space that Ren used to share with me…
The guilt hurt even worse than the bone aches from the flu.
Not that I have anything to be guilty for.
I’m single. I’m alone. I’ve committed no crime.
So why does it feel like I’ve cheated so many times on Ren in the past few weeks?
Let me explain.
David arrived with store-bought mushroom soup, fresh ciabatta, and a pharmacy bag full of painkillers, decongestants, and throat lozenges.
I welcomed him in, almost hyperventilated having him in Ren’s space, paid by Ren’s money, made possible by Ren’s sacrifices, and stiffened in his arms as he hugged me and said, “You can’t stay here on your own. Pack a bag. You’re coming with me.”
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 o
wn 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.