A deep sigh left my lips as I clicked the door shut behind me, shutting the rest of the world out. I’d been through the ringer in the past couple of days, my head was all over the place, and all I needed now was some silence. I was looking forward to kicking back and processing the locking away of the past, before working out what I wanted to do next in the future. Leaving my mum’s in a hurry had been the best idea for me, I wasn’t achieving a single thing while I was there.
Maybe I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I wanted to find out.
“Hey.”
My heart leapt up into my throat as I heard the one voice I didn’t expect to hear again. It’d been so long that it was a little like my brain had turned him into a fantasy, rather than someone I spent the last few years living with.
As I span around slowly and I finally found him, everything twisted and turned inside of me. It was still Danny, everything about him was exactly the same, yet everything was different too. His light brown curls were begging me to run my fingers through them, but my body was fixed in place, unable to take that step. His warm brown eyes offered me comfort, but I wasn’t sure I could accept that. I had no idea about anything anymore, and that was utterly terrifying.
“What…what are you doing?” I stammered awkwardly as my bag slid to the floor with a thump. “Why are you home?” Jax were still on tour, I knew that for a fact, so none of this made any sense. Much as I wanted to talk to Danny, to sort things out, I wasn’t quite ready. I wanted to be fully adjusted first, but I wasn’t given that option.
Danny stepped closer, extending his arms in my direction. He was inviting me in, wanting desperately to hold me, and much as I’d love to fall back into his familiar embrace, I couldn’t help picturing those arms around another woman. The photographs all over the Internet loomed painfully to the forefront of my mind, causing my body to recoil in horror.
“I quit the band.” Danny’s eyes widened as his arms dropped to his side. “As soon as I realized they wouldn’t let me leave, I quit. It took a while because I needed to sort out the legal side of things, but now I’m out.”
“What the hell did you do that for?” I never wanted that! I didn’t want him to lose his dream. If I’d known for even a second that was his plan, I’d have put a stop to it. Maybe that was why he didn’t tell me.
“I couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking that about me, it made me sick. I knew I had to get back to you if I was ever going to salvage the best thing that’d ever happened to me.”
Oh God. I was instantly all tied up in knots, his words getting to me. Rationally I knew I needed to remain strong if I was going to get through this with any dignity intact, but my feelings didn’t know how to do the right thing. They acted of their own accord, causing my pulse rate to fly, my tummy to dance, and a lump of sheer love to form painfully in my throat.
“So, what are you saying?” I practically whispered, needing to know absolutely everything now. He’d already told me that none of it was real, but I couldn’t rule out the heart-breaking possibility that he’d fought his way home to confess, to beg for my forgiveness. “What actually happened?”
His gaze fell to the floor, and I felt the ground shake beneath me. Something monumental was about to happen here, and all of a sudden I didn’t want it at all. I’d already been through so much, was there any way that I could escape this just for now? I’d come back to it when I was more mentally prepared…
But then Danny started speaking, and my brain completely shut down. I became nothing but my ears, listening to the tale that would influence my entire future forever. “It was a bit of a crazy night, I’ll admit that.” I fell back against the cold wall, just to ensure I had enough support. “I’d had too much to drink, all the boys had. I guess we didn’t realize there were photographers around. Helen was persistent with me, more than I was used to. I mean, I’ve had female attention before, but never quite like her.”
I was swimming…no, not swimming…drowning. I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was battling against an invisible force with all my might, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. This was too much for me. I wanted him to stop, I needed him to stop talking, but at the same time he’d started now. I couldn’t delay the painful inevitability of me having to hear this. Maybe it was better for me to get this over and done with right now.
“I was trying to get rid of her without being rude—you know me, I don’t know how to be a dick.”
Weirdly a laugh bubbled from my lips at those words. He was right, he wasn’t able to be awful to anyone. But I still wasn’t convinced that was an excuse. “Right, so was she in your room?” I meant to ask that very calmly, I really wanted to be cool and collected, but the bitterness ran into the accusation, making it acutely obvious how hurt I felt.
“No, actually she ended up with Craig. I don’t know if she ever wanted me particularly, or if it was just any of us, but that was who she got. I don’t know why it was reported that she came from my room, maybe it was just an assumption because of the earlier…pictures.” He squirmed as he said those words, his cheeks tainting red. I actually felt my heart go out to him a little bit as I realized that this was incredibly hard for him to talk about. “I know it looks really bad, I get that.” He moved closer, slipping his hands into mine, and I was too weak now to resist. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t come back right away, but it wasn’t that simple.”
“I know.” I nodded slowly, emphatically. “You probably shouldn’t have come back at all. Not until the end of the tour. What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.” He cocked his head to one side and shot me a sweet smile. “But I don’t mind as long as I have you. All I want is for things between us to be okay again.”
Was I okay? Did I believe him? Actually, yes, I trusted every word out of his mouth. He’d never given me reason to distrust him before, any doubts I had came from inside of me. My past, my lack of self-worth, my fears of ending up alone again, that was all on me. But would it be that simple for us to get back to how we once were? Had too much happened now?
“And I guess I also want to know what happened with Joe?”
Fuck! My mind went blank, all questions flew away as my eyes snapped around to meet his. How the hell did Danny know I’d been to see Joe? I didn’t have the paparazzi following me, there were no online pictures of me, the only public thing I’d done recently was accept his friend request…
“I only ask because of all the stuff you have lying around.”
Oh my God, of course! Everything was all over the living room still, including my very open diary. I knew I was going to have to explain all of this away, especially now that Danny had been so honest with me, but I didn’t like doing it when I was already a bit exposed. It made me feel far too vulnerable. “Oh…I…” My tongue was all tied up, I didn’t know how to even start forming words, never mind full sentences.
“I guess I always guessed that there was more to your relationship with him, but I didn’t realize how much…”
I stormed past him, pushing him out the way as I walked. I had no idea how to feel, so for the moment I’d settled on anger. I felt like Danny reading my diary was a huge betrayal, and that was the only way he could’ve known anything. In all honesty, it was probably guilt transforming into temper. I was simply rolling with it because it was spurring me forwards. Standing in the hallway staring at Danny wasn’t getting me anywhere, whereas rage possibly could.
“I’m sorry,” I could hear Danny calling out from behind me. “I didn’t mean to look, I just came home and you weren’t here. I was heartbroken, thinking I’d lost you forever. Then I saw all the photos on the floor, and a diary. I didn’t delve in too deep, I only read the page the book was open on—”
My face had drained of blood, all of my organs were ice cold. In my hurry to leave, to see Joe once more, I’d left the diary out on the worst page possible…
4th July 2007
Joe is the love of my life, I will only ever love him. He’s utterly perfect for me, and I can’t see that ever changing. We’re going to get married, and have children. We’re going to make this last forevermore, no matter what.
I had to confess everything, it really was now or never. If I didn’t get this hideous, awkward conversation over with, then the time would never come around again. If me and Danny were ever going to have a chance at a future, we needed to do it with open eyes, honesty, a fresh start with a clean slate.
I slid my eyes shut for a second, and sucked in a deep and calming breath…well, it didn’t calm me down at all but the intention was there. Then I parted my lips, and I forced my voice to burst out. “I went to see Joe, that’s where I’ve just come back from.” My heart thundered so loudly I could barely hear anything else, but I could hear the silence ringing through the room.
Danny wasn’t saying anything, maybe because he had nothing to say.
I turned back to him slowly as a numbness crept through my veins. The heat from the anger was no more, the cold from the guilt had vanished, I’d been left an empty husk with a whole lot of explaining to do.
“I’m sorry, I know I should’ve told you. I guess I just freaked out because of what I thought you’d done.” No, I couldn’t leave it as just that. It wasn’t only because of the cheating rumours, my doubts had started creeping in the second I thought he was going to propose to me. “But I guess I always had a lot of unfinished business with Joe too.”
Danny moved into the same room as me, but only to sit on the sofa. He might’ve been physically nearer to me, but emotionally he might as well have been on the other side of the planet. His walls were high, protecting him, and it was up to me to try and tear them down.
“He was my first everything. My first friend, boyfriend…lover.” Urgh, I wanted to cringe, but still I needed to get this all out. “I assumed that we’d always be together, I loved him fiercely. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to see anyone but him.” Pain etched in Danny’s expression, and the temptation to stop was there, but I couldn’t now. Not if I finally wanted to be set free. “We made plans for the future, and I assumed that I was set.” I sat down too, my body unable to cope with the weight of everything going through my mind. “But then…” This didn’t really feel like my secret to tell, but I had to if he was ever going to understand. “His sister committed suicide, and it tore the whole family apart.”
“Oh my God…” Danny was clearly stunned, and I hadn’t even finished yet.
“Then we discovered that his dad and my mum were having an affair, which was probably the final straw.” Wow, saying it to someone else and seeing his stunned expression made me recognise how mad it was. “So our lives just fell apart.”
“Until now?” Danny stared up at me, question filling his gaze. I got the distinct impression that he was trying to figure out where he stood now. This was crazy, he probably arrived home thinking he was going to have to grovel to get me back, but not because of this. I wondered what his face looked like when he walked into this mess.
“I went to see him, to try and figure out what could’ve been.” I rubbed my cheeks awkwardly as I recalled the moment I actually walked out on him. The liberation of that hadn’t yet had the time to sink in. It still all felt like something that’d happened to someone else. “But honestly I think we were always too different, I was just too young to see that at the time.”
“So…he isn’t the ‘one that got away’?”
“No.” I smiled, happy to acknowledge that. “No, he’s the ‘one who was never meant to be.’ If all that other stuff hadn’t happened, then maybe we could still be friends, but there’s no chance of that now. Too much water under the bridge, you know? I’m glad that I went to see him though, just so I can know that for sure.”
“Right, okay.”
A pregnant pause filled the air, me and Danny sat there in a thick, tense room. Unspoken questions were floating between us, all the things that neither of us knew how to say, but the main thing I thought that both of us wanted to know was what would happen now. This was the biggest roadblock that me and Danny had ever had to face, and I wasn’t sure if it was too huge for us to overcome. I didn’t want to lose him, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye completely, but was that because of love, or because I’d already seen off so many other people today?
“I guess…” Danny’s voice had a wobble to it, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. Was I about to have my choice taken away from me already? “There’s something I want to ask you. I mean, I didn’t want to do it like this…I had a whole thing prepared, with flowers, music, balloons…”
Balloons? Something about this felt huge, my ears pricked up, and I found myself leaning in a little closer.
“But, I don’t know. Maybe I should ask you now?”
“Ask me what?”
He slumped to the floor and grabbed my hands in his, staring deep into my eyes. I felt like I knew exactly what this moment was, but my brain hadn’t totally caught up yet. It was stuck in ‘freak out’ mode, just waiting…waiting…
“Will you marry me?”
Oh.
My.
God.