I drove my hands deeper into my jeans pockets, striding faster.
She chased me, catching up as we rounded the corner of the street.
“Gil.” Her hand landed on my arm, her eyes watering, lips thin with stress. “I can’t do this anymore. I need to know why you suddenly don’t want to be with me.” Tears fell, sticking to white cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did...but I love you. I miss you.” She walked into me, pressing her forehead to my chest. “I miss you so much.”
I stepped away, dislodging her hold. “Go home, Olin.”
That was the worst part.
Not being able to walk her home.
Not knowing she was safe.
Not escorting her through shadows and sinners.
She followed me, her breath catching with wet tears. “Please. Talk to me. I don’t know what’s going on.”
I didn’t speak.
My boots thudded as she chased me down the road.
“Gil...please!” A sob hiccupped in her chest. “If we talk about this, we can go back to the way it was.”
It was too much.
To believe we could be together again? To think I could have her, despite everything?
It hurt.
It fucking hurt.
I whirled on her, my nostrils flaring, temper firing. “Leave me alone, Olin. I won’t tell you again.”
No more nicknames starting with O.
No more togetherness after school.
It was over.
All of it.
She trembled on the sidewalk, her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to argue but didn’t know how. For a second, hate flashed in her gaze.
And it tore out what pieces I had left and threw them in the gutter.
Then she launched herself at me, her hands reaching for my cheeks, her lips seeking mine.
I didn’t think.
I just reacted.
I shoved her back, making her trip and stumble.
Shit.
Shit!
I moved to support her, but I forced myself to lurch backward instead.
The last time someone had touched me, kissed me, it had been against my control. I supposed, in some way, I would have to work through that violation if I ever stood a chance at having a good relationship with affection again. But there, on that street, I couldn’t stomach the thought of Olin’s lips on mine.
Not after Tallup’s had been there.
I wasn’t clean anymore.
“Forget about me,” I muttered, turning away from her. “Just forget I ever existed.”
* * * * *
She didn’t forget about me.
For weeks after, Olin tried to talk to me countless times. Cornering me in the corridor, trapping me in the classroom, chasing me over the grounds.
Tallup was there for all of it; her smugness making me sick. Her rules making me howl for this to be over.
I wanted to leave.
To run.
I’d begun having nightmares on the rare occasions I actually slept.
Dreams of being tied down, unwanted fingers on my body, hated tongues on my cock. I’d dream of Olin being violated like I had. I’d dream of both of us dying.
I’d wake in a full sweat, listening to the sounds of fucking in the next room and wished I could stop myself from ever falling in love with Olin.
Because my love for her was now twisted with what happened in that hotel room.
I hated my body.
I hated the reactions it had and the erection that’d condemned me.
I didn’t care I’d been tricked into taking Viagra—it was still me who fucked my teacher, and I couldn’t unscramble that from choice or command.
“Gil.”
I rounded the corner by the gym, almost smashing into Olin where she waited for me. Her bag rested by her feet, her hands wrung in front of her, shadows decorated beneath sleep-tired eyes.
I sighed hard, pretending impatience and chilly disdain when really it took everything I had not to crush her to me and beg for her forgiveness.
“I love you, Gil. Doesn’t that mean anything?” She reached for me, her body jerky and foolish.
Again, I just reacted. Instincts that no longer attributed affection with love lashed out and hurt the one person I never wanted to hurt.
Affection came at a cost. A cost I could no longer afford.
My hand latched around her throat, and I shoved her against the brick wall. I was tired and struggling, and I had nothing else to give.
Nothing else to offer.
I was dead.
And she deserved better. “Stop. Just stop.”
She stiffened.
I froze.
Time stood still as I physically mauled her.
Bruised her just like Tallup had bruised me.
I reeled backward, ripping my touch from her, drenched with disgust and dismay.
Fuck!
Trembles hijacked my limbs as I almost tripped to the ground.
Olin stood there, shock making her eyes wide, fear making her breath fast.
And we stared at each other.
Stared with our history and our hope, knowing that this was the moment it was truly over.
She didn’t say a thing.
I couldn’t.
I turned and walked away from the best thing, the only thing, my forever.
* * * * *
She started dating Justin Miller a few weeks after I’d bruised her.
The first time I caught them together, I ran off school property before I did something that would end with me in jail for two crimes.
Seeing her with him?
I couldn’t bear it.
I couldn’t survive it.
I’d taken three steps toward Olin, words on my tongue full of apology. Of how much I missed her, wanted her, needed her, craved her. I’d taken another three with my fists curled ready to pummel Justin’s face into his skull.
But somehow, in the mist of possession and pain, I stopped.
If I told Olin how much I loved her, Tallup would ruin her life and have me arrested. And if beat up Justin Miller for laughing with the girl who owned my heart, I’d be sentenced to yet another crime.
It took everything I had, but I endured the flirting, the tentative smiles, the knowledge that Justin touched her.
I deliberately picked fights with my old man when I caught them kissing behind the gym where I’d shown her my sketch book for the first time. I thought I’d die from the way my chest split in two.
But I didn’t die.
And my father cracked a rib with his drunken fist.
Week after week, I had to bear witness to Olin replacing me with another. And week after week, I crumbled inside, turning into an empty shell of grief.
By the time school holidays rolled around, I was hanging on by a fucking thread.
Knowing Olin would spend most of her time with Justin during the holidays.
Wondering if she’d give him her virginity.
Imagining her kissing him, laughing with him, touching him.
Fuck, it made me break into a million pieces and roar with fury.
I’d have nightmares of him hurting her like Tallup had hurt me. Visions of Olin writhing in ecstasy with someone who wasn’t me.
It was enough to drive me insane.
Maybe I was already insane.
Even my father started leaving me alone. His beatings weren’t as often, his slurs and drunken tirades not as loud—almost as if he didn’t like the way I encouraged them, accepted them, needed them.
I got a job working at a local construction company, accepting payment in cash. In return for hard labour, I earned money to repay my debts. I returned to the places I’d stolen from and left the exact dollar amount for what I’d taken—the art supply shop where I’d stolen the cans of spray paint. The stationery store where I’d nicked a sketchpad and pencils.