DELLA

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Present Day

 

 

I KNOW, I know.

I was stupid. Incredibly stupid. So stupid it almost meant we were separated again, but if it hadn’t have been for detention with my blue hair, I would never have heard the rumour until it was too late.

I’d been under the illusion that Tom was trustworthy, and my minor slip after our kiss didn’t bother him too much—not enough to tell people about. Yes, were dating, but he was wanted by a lot of girls, and I was nothing special.

Saying the wrong name after kissing him had been my error, but I’d apologised and believed him when he said it didn’t matter. I stupidly accepted his assurances and didn’t think anything more on it.

Turns out, he started making out with Tina, my so-called best friend, and she decided to rat on me. We’d gotten close over the few years, Tina and I, close enough for me to slip occasionally and reveal things I shouldn’t about me and Ren.

I never came out and said I wanted him or that I was in love with him, but I supposed she read between the lines.

And yes, I know you’re calling me names, and I totally accept them because it was idiotic to confide in someone, but…I had no one to talk to. No one to help settle my nerves every time the overwhelming desire to kiss Ren pounced on me. No one to be a shoulder to cry on when the wanting became too painful. And no one to offer advice on how to move past such a horrible situation and just accept that things would never change between us.

All I told Tina was there was a boy I liked.

A boy who liked me but not in the same way.

When she asked if it was one of Ren’s friends, I hesitated. Tying Ren’s name into any of this was dangerous but making it be an older guy who was no longer at school and who couldn’t be researched made sense.

So I gave in.

I found myself spinning a tale of unrequited love with one of Ren’s friends—not that he had any—and how I’d kissed him once but that was it.

Tina was sympathetic and sweet and acted as if I had a terminal case of the flu and needed constant mothering. At first, I loved it. I loved having someone nurse my achy breaky heart and be there whenever I needed to vent. But then, her questions became more prying, her eyes more suspicious, and I stopped telling her things.

I stopped muttering secrets like: when he’s near me, it’s all I can do not to reach out and grab him. When he’s cooking beside me, my mouth waters and not for the food. When he’s asleep, I wage a battle to stay in my bed and not go to his and repeat the mistake I made last time.

By the time I met Tom, Tina was sick of my wishing over a boy I could never have and encouraged my crush on Tom. He could be talked about freely, and I shared intimate details with Tina because she shared them with me. I knew she wasn’t a virgin anymore and I knew she’d bled when a guy called Scooter took her to the movies and ended up banging her in the back seat of his car.

She was worldly to me, and she gave good advice on how to seduce Tom and what to expect when I first jumped into bed with him.

Unfortunately, armed with her prior knowledge of me pining for a boy who I wouldn’t name, when she found out Tom had broken up with me after kissing at the Halloween party, she couldn’t understand why.

She’d badgered and badgered for answers, until finally, in a moment of utter moronic weakness, I told her that I’d said the wrong name afterward kissing him. I’d said the name of the boy I was in love with. Ren’s friend.

I thought I’d covered my tracks pretty good.

I patted myself on the back for keeping her away from the truth.

Funny, how it was the exact opposite.

Tina messaged Tom, telling him off for breaking up with me. They’d had some hate-lust-text-war for a few weeks before hooking up behind my back. Then, of course, it was just a matter of time before Tina mentioned my sad, hopeless situation of being in love with someone who wouldn’t even notice me, and Tom told her the name I’d breathed after our kiss.

Perfect explosion.

But you know what I’m most mad about?

I’m mad that neither of them came to face me. That they didn’t ask for my side of the story before they jumped to conclusions, figured I was boning my brother, and spread gossip loudly enough to get the principal involved.

So yeah, dying my hair blue was stupid. But at least it landed me in detention right next to Tina, who smirked and asked if I’d been summoned to the principal’s office lately. I waved the slip in her face and she giggled. She told me to expect a certain brother waiting for me, along with a few other people who wanted to discuss our ‘family dynamics.’

I’d bolted from detention without gathering up a stitch of my belongings. My backpack left opened on the floor; my pencil case on the desk, and my notebook on the page of my current homework assignment.

I left it all behind as survival instincts overrode everything and I hopped onto the nearest unlocked bike in the bike shed and hoofed it over to Tom’s neighbouring school.

There, I’d yelled his name until someone pointed me in the right direction. The moment I found him in after-school woodworking, I grabbed his wrist and dragged him to my campus, all the while telling him the truth.

The only person I ever told the entire truth to.

I held nothing back. I told him my last name was Mclary, and I’d been rescued from monsters. That Ren wasn’t my brother. That he was the reason I wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. And that yes, I was in love with him, but it was fine because he wasn’t in love with me and nothing inappropriate was going on. Not that it was any of his business because Ren and I weren’t related, so even if we did get together, the only law being broken was the fact I was a minor and he was not.

And once I’d spilled everything, dragging my ex-boyfriend to fix what I’d broken, I made him swear to secrecy. And because I didn’t trust his vow never to breathe a word, I added a threat. One that would surely put me in hell because it was yet another of the seven deadly sins. Lying. Or, at least, I think it’s a deadly sin. If it isn’t, it probably should be.

Doesn’t matter.

The point is, I told him I’d spread a rumour how he’d fucked me against my control. How he’d gotten me drunk at that party, had his wicked way with me, then spread a different kind of rumour about me to take the heat off him.

His eyes filled with hatred, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was ending this nightmare before it ruined everything.

You see, I only had one year left of high school.

The next time Ren and I ran, I wanted it to be for good. I never wanted to have to tie Ren to a new place so I could go to school. I never wanted him to feel as trapped as I did. I wanted to be free because maybe, just maybe, away from people and rules and constant reminders, Ren might slip enough to realise he loved me, too.