REN

* * * * * *

2016-2017

 

 

FOR TWO MONTHS, our packed backpacks rested by the door ready to grab at a moment’s notice. I’d never opened a bank account as I had no identification to appease the paper pushers, and the cash I’d diligently saved was hidden in a small box under the rickety floorboard beneath the couch—ready to be snatched and taken.

I’d wanted to run the day we got home from the principal, but Della had picked a fight and we’d argued well into the night. Her reasons for staying were she didn’t want to move schools when she was so close to finishing, that she’d fixed it so the rumour would fade and the teachers would chalk it up to stupid teenage drama, and that I was too flighty.

I’d roared at that one.

Flighty?

How about fucking wary that even though Della was more adult than kid these days, she could still be taken away from me. Excuse me for not caring about anything other than her. Running meant abandoning my work and our apartment, but I would gladly give up everything over and over again if it meant she stayed safely by my side.

But even in the wake of my temper, she’d won in the end—just like she always did.

I bowed to her pleas to stay, just for a little while, and gamble with time to see who was right. If Tom kept his mouth shut, we would be free to stay. But if he didn’t, it might be too late to run next time.

I hated it.

I hated that I didn’t just grab her and leave rather than listen to her debate and bow to her conclusions. But something else made me agree and not just her excellent arguing skills.

I agreed because of the rumour that’d called me in to the principal in the first place. The rumour that Della was in love with me.

My heart had stopped and hadn’t beaten correctly since. It was just a silly rumour, but I agreed with Ms. Sapture: truth lived in rumour, and if such a thing was said…

Could it be true?

Who had started it?

And how could they screw up my mind by making me fear that my love for Della wasn’t pure, after all. That it was tainted and no longer black and white.

I withdrew even more from her.

I stopped using her nickname.

Whatever physical contact still existed between us, ceased all together.

She obeyed me and stripped the blue from her hair but that was about all she obeyed me in.

We became strangers living in the same apartment, and I couldn’t stop it because every time I looked at her…I wondered.

I wondered what she felt for me.

I wondered what she kept hidden.

I wondered about so many things I shouldn’t wonder about.

For eight long weeks, I ignored her when she was home, yet made her text me after each class. Just a quick I’m fine to let me know she hadn’t been taken by CPS. It was the only way I could focus on my work and not get trampled by the  cows. And ignoring her at home was the only way I could be civil and not tear into her, demanding answers to the sick questions inside my head.

Was she in love with me?

And if she was…where the fuck did that leave us?

The incident should’ve ended up with us homeless and running again, but somehow, it was swept under the rug and life continued as normal.

All of it, from the threat of Social Services to the rumour of Della’s affection for me, was never mentioned again.

It made me nervous.

It made a ticking clock hover over my head, speeding up time and somehow slowing it down.

Christmas and New Year’s came and went.

We didn’t celebrate it.

Spring arrived, and as snow left the world a more habitable place, Della withdrew from me as I’d withdrawn from her, causing an even worse strain between us.

God, I missed her, but I had no idea how to fix something I didn’t understand.

Then, two weeks before our joint birthday, I broke my wrist.

The pain of being kicked by a cow while trying to hook it up the milking machine was a price I’d happily pay all over again because it gave Della back to me. If only for a little while.

She swooped toward me after I’d driven home one-handed, turned off my bike, then stomped up the stairs and into our tiny apartment.

Her eyes widened with worry, taking in my swollen ugly wrist, instantly losing her wariness around me and fussing as kindly and as sweetly as she had with the splinter.

She bustled around, fear and affection thick in her voice as she charged to the mostly-empty freezer to find something cold for the swelling.

With jerky speed, she flew back to me, skidding to a stop and falling to her knees before me. Her focus entirely on making me better and no other mess from before.

Having her close.

Having her care.

Fuck.

I couldn’t help myself.

I reached out to cup her cheek as she rested a bag of frozen peas on my skin, so grateful to have my Della back.

The moment I touched her, she flinched and melted at the same time.

The nastiness of pushing each other away vanished, and with a bone-deep sigh, she rested her cheek in my palm.

It was all I could do to stay touching her innocently. My body bellowed to clutch her tight, to stop thinking about everything, to just give in to whatever pulled us together.

The sensation of holding her was one of coming home after being lost for so long, and I ached.

I ached with a need so hungry, so raw, I couldn’t think.

All I wanted to do was slip off the dining chair and pull her against me. Words and apologies filled my mouth with bitter regret. Why had I been so cruel to her? How had I forgotten how much I cared for this girl?

We stayed like that for far too long, me bent over her with my hand on her cheek and her curled on the floor with a heart-stealing wish in her eyes.

My lips tingled. My fingers fluttered. And Della arched up on her knees.

My attention fell to her mouth.

Her blonde hair—no longer blue or fantastical—hung over her shoulder, tickling my knuckles, and I wanted something I’d never wanted before.

I wanted things to be different. I wanted things to be innocent between us again but finally ready to accept that that would never happen.

She licked her lips, breaking the spell, inviting me to do something I desperately wanted. I needed to kiss her. But I needed it to be right. I’d had enough wrongness between us to risk losing her again.

I sat taller in my chair to kiss her forehead. To kiss her like I was allowed.

The moment my mouth touched her skin, she inhaled sharply, swallowing a quick moan. She bowed into me, pressing herself against my legs.

My thighs bunched as my body hardened against my will, and lust that I had no right to feel became excruciating.

With clenched teeth, I dropped my touch, removed my kiss, and tore my gaze away.

Standing with a wobble born from everything she made me feel, I stepped around her still hunched on the kitchen floor. Breathing for the first time since I’d kissed her, I headed to the dresser where my clothes waited, grabbed a cleaner pair of jeans and t-shirt, then walked down the corridor to change in the bathroom away from her heated eyes.

It took me twice as long, awkward and painful with only one working hand.

If things were simple between us, I would’ve asked for Della’s help. I would’ve chuckled as she wrangled me from my t-shirt and teased her as she unzipped my jeans.

But things weren’t simple. And that would be a complication I couldn’t afford.

By the time we made it to the emergency room, taking the bus to the downtown hospital, my wrist was three times the size and an angry blue to match Della’s ribbon.

The nurse checked us in, asked for a deposit up front as we didn’t have documents or identification for insurance, advised I’d need X-rays and most likely a cast, and finally that the wait was long.

I told Della to go home. She had school in the morning, and who knew how much time we’d waste in this place.

She nodded to appease me but never left.

She sat beside me, reading trashy magazines, getting me coffee and water, never leaving my side for longer than a few minutes. Every so often, I felt her watching me through a curtain of blonde, her fingers tracing her lips. She’d avert her gaze the second I noticed, leaving me confused and achy and in more pain than before.

It was the longest evening of my life sitting in that room. Not because of my wrist but because of her.

It was a constant fight not to hug her close and kiss her softly. All I wanted to do was be free with my actions and affections. I just wanted to touch her to reassure myself that she was still here, despite the stress of the past few months.

But I couldn’t.

I was no longer allowed to hug and touch because my thoughts were no longer clear.

When I finally saw a doctor, underwent X-rays and learned the news that a couple of fingers as well as my wrist had been broken, I wouldn’t wish it away for anything.

The cow that kicked me gave me a night I’d never forget. It deleted the stilted strangeness that festered between me and Della, and I had my best friend back.

We went home together that night, me in a cast and Della with her arm looped through mine. We sat in comfortable silence on the bus home, had a midnight snack of cereal and milk, then she took my hand and instead of saying goodnight and going to our separate rooms, she led me into hers.

I balked at the doorway, staring at her double bed, seeing it not as a place to rest but a battlefield in which I’d never stop fighting.

But I couldn’t stop her when she tugged me forward, whispering, “I miss you, Ren. Please…just for one night.”

I’d never been able to deny her anything.

And so, despite my better judgment, I stayed.

Together, we stripped to underwear and slipped beneath the covers.

We didn’t touch, lying stiffly in the dark, but having her so close I could hear her breathing and feel her heat and smell her lovely scent…I was happier than I’d been in a very long time.

* * * * *

“Happy Birthday, Ren.” Della gave me a card with one of those tinsel rosettes stuck to the envelope.

We sat in a burger joint with red vinyl and grease-stained music posters. Tradition demanded our birthday meal took place in a diner, but I ensured it was different to the last one where she left me to eat with Tom.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t buying each other presents.” I put down my fry and wiped salt-dusted fingers on a serviette. “Now I just feel like crap because I didn’t get you anything.”

“Ah, well.” She shrugged. “I saw it the other day, and I had no choice. It had your name all over it.”

I frowned as I tore at the glue holding the envelope shut. Sliding my finger under the seam, I ripped the paper and pulled out a card with a picture of a forest wreathed in fog.

My heart thudded harder, knowing it belonged there over anywhere; my legs tensed to run to wherever this photo had been taken. “It’s beautiful.” I looked up, smiling. “Thank you.”

Della rolled her eyes. “Open it, you moron.” Wearing a black dress with her hair slicked in a high silky ponytail, she was pure elegance. She’d grown up, and the change in her from sixteen to seventeen hurt my chest whenever I stared too much.

I’d loathed her wardrobe choices lately; mainly because they were far more revealing than before. She was beautiful in whatever she wore, but the tight shorts and skirts, the tops that clung to her…it all drove me mad trying to stop myself from hunting down the men who stared at her in appreciation.

She deserved to be appreciated—just not by them.

Not by any man.

Including me.

Cracking open the card, another picture fell out, this one torn from a hunting and fishing catalogue. Picking it off the table, I flipped it over until I looked at a four-person tent with a small alcove for gear and two sleeping pods off the main living. The price had been blacked out with a picture of a scribbled balloon.

“What…” I looked up. “You bought me a tent?”

She scooted her chair closer. “Uh-huh. It’s the perfect size for when I finish school and we leave again. You won’t have to feel awkward sleeping with me squished so close, see?” She tapped the picture in my grip. “We would each have our own wing and our stuff would be safe in the middle. It’s brown like your hair, so it will disappear in the forest, and the fly screens are green. It’s perfect, don’t you think?” Her blue eyes danced with futures I hadn’t dared think about.

My life until now had been a monotony of riding to work, cows, riding home, and staying close but not too close with Della. I hadn’t dared think about what would happen when she’d finished school.

About what I wanted.

About what I needed.

The past few years had been a different chapter to our normal world—totally unrelated to who we truly were. An episode of treading water until we could go home, be happy, and figure out how we fit into each other’s lives after so much.

The concept that we could leave this place…run.

Just us.

Fuck, I wanted it more than I could stand.

Her voice dropped when I said nothing. “You weren’t planning on staying here…were you, Ren?”

I blinked, dragged into the conversation against my will. Unprepared to show her how desperate I was for something different…something better and bearable between us. “Well, no. I mean, I hadn’t thought—”

She dragged a fry through her tomato sauce. “We need to start thinking about it. This is my last year of high school. We can leave soon.”

Leave…

I cleared my throat as that promise did its best to wrap around my heart and free me from every restriction I’d put in place. “But what about your future? What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back to the forest. I’ve told you that.”

“There are no jobs out there, Della. No boys to make a family with. No future apart from—”

“Apart from with you,” she whispered.

I froze, studying her face and the naked desire there.

The restaurant disappeared. Silence descended, turning the world mute.

I stopped breathing.

She stopped breathing.

The only thing we survived on was the vicious, violent bond that we’d always shared but had somehow magnified from virtuous to blistering.

Her eyes filled with promises, pleas—things that filled the chambers of my heart with crucifying futures I could never have.

We stared for an eternity, drowning in each other, before I closed the card with a snap and shoved it back toward her. “I can’t accept this.”

She flinched. “Too late, it’s in our apartment. I didn’t bother bringing it with us as it’s bulky, but it’s already yours.”

“How did you buy—”

“With my salary from the florist. I still do the odd weekend. Enough to save up some spending money.”

I nodded.

I’d known that. Every time she came back from that place, she smelled utterly devine. Honeysuckle and rose petals drove me insane sitting beside her on the couch, pretending to watch TV when really I counted down the seconds for her to go to bed so I could be alone with my traitorous body.

This was too much.

My cast clunked on the table as I shifted uncomfortably, seeking something normal to say. “If you could have anything you wanted for your birthday, what would it be?”

Her eyes burned like blue coal. “Anything?”

I swallowed, cursing her. “Within reason.” Terror at what she’d ask for locked me to the spot. This was a stupid idea.

Her forehead frowned as if thinking of every gift she’d love but knew better than to ask for. Eventually, she murmured, “A tattoo.”

I coughed on a mouthful of Coke. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve wanted one for ages, but I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

Normally, I would agree with her. I’d had a panic attack when she’d come home one afternoon with her ears pierced, let alone her skin inked, but that was then and this was now. Della had once again unsettled me with talks of futures and forest freedoms. I needed to change the subject with something—anything to stop the electricity humming unpermitted between us.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Her eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“I said okay. Let’s go get a tattoo.”

“You’re—you’re serious?” Her head tilted to the side, her hair swishing down her back in one long rope.

“Deadly. If you want to permanently mark your skin and regret it later, who am I to stop you?”

“I’ll need a guardian who is over eighteen to sign the paperwork.” She stood, inching her way around the table to stand in front of me, her tight black dress showing off every sinful curve. “Is that going to be a problem?”

I shook my head. “No problem. You want a tattoo. You can have one.” Keeping my attention on her face, I stood. “Your decision.”

“Yes!” She threw her arms around me, wedging her breasts against my chest, deleting space I dreadfully needed to keep between us.

I swallowed my groan as I nuzzled her against my will, hugging her fierce, missing her hard.

She trembled in my arms, her breathing quick and shallow. Her leg slipped between mine, inappropriate and far too close. “I’ve missed hugging you, Ren. So much.” Her lips pressed against my t-shirt.

My body reacted, my heart smoked, and even though I had to fight every muscle, I pushed her away with a careless shrug as if she hadn’t just crippled me all over again. “A birthday hug before your birthday tattoo.”

She nodded sharply, liquid suspiciously bright in her gaze. “Right.”

It physically stung not to gather her close again, but I held out my arm, the only form of contact I could handle. “Come on. Let’s go get your seventeenth birthday present.”

She looped her arm through mine.

And we pretended things were perfectly normal.