The sound of a mobile phone ringing woke me from my blissful sleep. I moaned in protest, letting my arm drape down the side of the sofa as I tried to ignore the noise.

“Ugh.”

“Mmm.”

“Not yet.”

“Mmmm.”

“Fu–”

“Shh.”

“I should get that,” Alex’s voice croaked, drifting over me.

I was caught in that place between the dream world and reality – the place where everything was still perfect, only everything also felt a little too real.

The hand around my waist pulled me back until I was pressing up against his body even more than before. It was only when I cracked one eye open and allowed the harsh light to attack me as it filtered in through the dusty windows that the memories of where I was and who I was with came flooding back.

The smell of pine.

The smell of rain-soaked clothes.

The smell of the fresh blanket he’d covered us with before we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The smell of him, of Alex.

He was still with me.

The smile that broke free instantly made my cheeks hurt, but as my legs slid together and I pulled him closer, I soon realised that my face wasn’t the only thing that was tender.

We’d made love last night. Perfectly, too.

My stomach flipped as the memories of us together flashed through my mind and I couldn’t think of a time when I’d ever felt happier than I did right then.

It was almost dangerous to feel so high. I knew the only way was down after that.

The ringing stopped suddenly and silence filled the air once again until a few birds outside sang their morning songs and cut through it.

“Good morning,” I moaned sleepily, still turned away from him. I had no doubts that I would look my worst the morning after the night before, but I also found it very hard to care. It was like I was still drunk, and I had no shame in admitting I was. I was just drunk off him, nothing else.

Alex curled himself around me even more, planting a kiss on the tip of my shoulder. “Morning, Natalie Vincent.”

“Please. We're friends. Call me Nat.” I chuckled, closing my eyes only briefly to enjoy the feel of him. The vibrating and ringing of the phone pulled me out of my bubble for the second time in a matter of minutes.

“Dammit.” He sighed.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything will be fine.” His hand ran up and down the top of my arm, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was reassuring himself rather than me.

“Will be?” I asked nervously as I turned around in his grip and looked over my shoulder. In the morning sunlight, Alex looked beyond amazing.

“I should take the call.”

And just like that, he was gone. With a swift but careful lift of my legs, he was out of our embrace and I was left lying on my back, pulling the blanket up to my chest as I watched his naked body saunter across the summerhouse.

I looked away from him. I had to. My eyes found the ceiling as I tried not to panic and think about what was about to happen. Last night I’d been so sure that I could handle anything and everything so long as I got my one moment with him, but there, staring up at nothing at all, I realised that that was like a clean person saying they’d only need to take heroin just the once.

“Hello?” he answered with no enthusiasm at all.

I couldn't hear who was on the other end of the line, or even what they were saying, but I had my suspicions.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you,” he apologised. “Just out. I was out. No, I know that.”

Forcing myself to turn his way, I watched him, crouched down on the floor, burying his hand through the thickest parts of his unruly hair. “I can't talk right now. Calm down. I'll be home soon. We can talk about it then.”

Glancing over his shoulder, he flashed me a sad smile that I was sure was meant to reassure me. It didn’t. It only fed my sudden worry.

“No,” he whispered, facing forward again. “No, I wasn’t with... No. I was out with the guys. Like I said, we’ll talk about this later. I’ll be an hour at the most. Fine, thirty minutes.”

As soon as he’d ended the call, Alex dropped his chin to his chest and sucked in a breath to steady himself.

“You have to go,” I said, stating the obvious.

He nodded weakly.

“Is everything okay?”

“We need to leave. Paul or someone else could find us any minute.”

“Sure.” I gulped, swallowing the rest of my questions away and curling my fingers even tighter into the blanket that covered me.

Alex got to work speedily then. His hands moved fast as he scurried around the room and snatched up all his clothes. I opened my mouth to say something many times, but nothing came out. In the time it took for him to put his damp jeans and shirt back on, all I’d managed to do was swing my legs off the edge of the sofa and sit upright. My whole body ached. I was sore, but I didn’t want to let him see any of my pain. The truth was, I was already beginning to hurt inside way more than I was ever going to hurt on the outside. The outside pain was a nice reminder of how close he had been. The inside stuff was a horrible bout of anxiety that was warning me of where he was about to go.

“Our clothes are still damp, but it looks warm enough outside so we should be fine until we get home.”

“Sure.” I nodded, looking to the side where he’d placed my things.

“Do you need some privacy?”

“Privacy?” He'd seen me naked last night. How could he…

“To change.”

“I think I’m good,” I muttered, trying to hide the frown that had formed.

“I didn’t mean…”

“I said I’m fine, Alex.”

He sighed heavily and turned away anyway. As soon as he did, I dropped the blanket so it fell against my thighs, and started to dress myself. There was hardly any material to my clothes, so they felt almost dry. The difficulty came when I had to slide my underwear back on, and I could have cursed myself when I winced in pain as soon as I bent to slide them up my legs and over my knees.

Alex’s head snapped back around quickly. “You okay?”

“Yep.”

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?”

“No,” I pushed out through gritted teeth.

“You’re a terrible liar, Nat.”

“No worse than you are.”

“I never claimed to be any good.”

“Neither did I.”

I didn’t mean to sound so snarky, but I could feel myself shutting down already. If he was going to try to push me away, I guess the least I could do to thank him for last night was to make it easy for him to leave. Even if that display of gratitude came at my own expense.

Once I was eventually dressed, I stood up and folded the blanket as neatly as I could. It gave me an excuse to turn around and look down at the sofa one last time with a small smile on my face.

I’d never forget this place. I’d never forget what happened the previous night or how he made me feel. I’d never forget the comfort of the sofa or the way my body melted into it when he rocked inside me over and over again. I’d never forget the smell of the room or the sounds of our whispered words echoing off the walls as we got lost in the perfection of our desires. I’d never forget the pleasurable ache between my legs when I'd fallen asleep in his arms and I’d never forget how good it felt to have my lips stinging so much from all of his greedy kisses.

For just a short amount of time, I’d had it all, and I’d forever be grateful.

No matter what happened when the two of us walked out of that door.

“I’m ready,” I lied as I turned around to face him. “Let’s go.”

It was earlier than I thought when we left. The sun was still low and when we stepped outside, everything seemed peaceful. Holding onto my hand, Alex guided me out through the trees behind Paul’s house until we hit the streets, leaving everything from the night before behind us. Only a few cars whizzed by as we walked in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. The smile on my face was desperate to break free as memories of our perfect night together flashed through my mind, but my head was beating my heart with a wooden stick, desperate to keep us in the real world and remind us that things were about to change for the worse.

Squeezing Alex’s hand, I looked up at his face and waited for him to turn my way. The sadness in his eyes was clear to see, as was the tensing of his jaw and the two small frown lines that hadn’t been there until he’d taken that phone call.

“Do you regret what we did?” I dared myself to ask him.

“No,” he answered quietly.

“Then why do you look like you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life?”

Alex kept looking straight ahead, squinting into the sunlight as he bought himself some time to answer me. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sensing that. What I don’t understand is why it’s complicated.”

“Sometimes, we want what we can't have the most.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that I’m sad, Nat. I'm sad that it's over.”

“I’m here. You have me if you want me.”

“You don't understand. You can't...”

“What aren’t you telling me, dammit?”

“This is fucking impossible,” he muttered to himself.

It was my turn to frown then, and the act of walking and thinking at the same time became too much. Tugging on his hand, I stopped in my tracks and tried to get him to face me. His body responded, but he refused to look me in the eyes, instead keeping his focus up and over my head as he pretended to narrow in on something far more distracting in the distance.

“Look, I have no idea what’s going on in your head, Alex. All I know is that somewhere along the way, some things have changed and I’ve done something wrong. I’m guessing it’s to do with the night at your house, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. All I ever wanted to do was help you the way you have always helped me. I couldn’t have got through this last year without you.”

“Stop. Please stop,” he mouthed, but I had no intentions of stopping. I was taking the leap. All or nothing. He had to know I would wait for him to figure this out. He had to know I was all in.

“Part of me wishes I could. It would be easier for you. I can see that. Do you think I want to see this look on your face, right now, after last night?” I asked, lifting a hand to guide his chin down with a single finger. He closed his eyes to avoid me, but the pain was etched all over his face. It was seeping out of his pores, it was in his breaths and it was turning him pale. “Open your eyes.”

He did. Slowly.

“Alex?”

He swallowed more pain.

“You know, don't you?”

He shook his head.

“Yes, you do. You know that I love you,” I breathed. Then I waited. I waited for him to show me something other than the hurt and desperation that were glaring down on me, but as soon as the words left my mouth, his agony only seemed to grow.

Nodding as I watched him, I began to understand just exactly what it was I had to do. Emotional suicide. It was him or me, and I wasn’t prepared to let it be him because of my actions.

Tilting my head, I inhaled slowly and gave him a soft smile. Then I pulled both my hands away from him and pushed them into the back pockets of my jeans as I took a step back.

“I just needed you to know that. I needed you to hear that I'm certain of what I feel,” I started, not knowing where or how I was going to finish. “I also need you to know that last night was the best night of my life, and no matter what happens from here, no matter what you decide, I won’t ever be able to thank you enough for that or for everything you’ve ever done for me. I couldn’t have picked anyone better to love for the first time.”

Alex’s hands twitched by his sides, his body swaying forward as if he wanted to move closer, but couldn’t.

“I’m going to go now.” I sighed softly. “I’m going to give you the space you want, because I hate seeing that look on your face and knowing I’m the cause of it. I’ll always be here if you need me. I don’t care about anyone else, just you and me. I’ll always be waiting.” Forcing another smile to my face, I swallowed down the lump in my throat and whispered one final time. “Natexus all the way.”

Then I walked away, more certain than ever that I’d just stolen his pain and was now injecting it straight into my own heart.

As soon as I was out of his sight, I jogged home despite the aching in my limbs. I had this bubble in my chest I couldn’t get rid of – a ball of tension that was gurgling away in my body, desperate to break free. If I could have cried, I would have, but I was emotionally numb.

It was just after seven-thirty in the morning when I finally crept through the door with last night’s clothes on my back. I’d never done that before, and it was only when I carefully tried to click the front door shut without making a sound that I realised just how bad it was that I hadn’t called my parents to let them know I was safe.

I was just about to pray that they were still in bed when my father’s slipper-clad feet came shuffling down the hall. Closing my eyes, I braced myself for a lecture of some sort, but when I turned around, Dad was smiling – actually smiling – with a cup of coffee in one hand and his newspaper in the other, wearing his comfiest robe that he always reserved for the weekend.

“Good night, baby girl?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, thank you, Dad.”

Lifting his mug to his lips, he took a sip, never taking his eyes from me as he lowered it back down. “I’m glad to hear it.”

I smiled flatly, clinging on to my keys in both hands as I glanced up the stairs. “Mum still in bed?”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “She slept like a baby last night. First time she’s done that in a while.”

“She did?” I frowned in confusion.

“I know. I was as shocked as you were. When you hadn’t arrived home by midnight, she was getting a little twitchy, so I thought we were going to be in for one hell of a night. You know how she gets about you these days. Since Elizabeth left us, you’re the only china doll she has to keep safe.”

I tried not to groan in embarrassment, pushing one hand through my hair as I prepared myself to mumble a list full of feeble, pathetic excuses to him. “Dad, about that, I’m so sor–”

“But then as soon as we got the phone call that you were safe, she drifted off to sleep like a newborn after feeding time.” He smiled, cutting me off completely.

“Phone call?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“I didn’t…” I paused, scowling down at the floor for just a moment before I looked back up at him. “Phone call?”

“Do you still have sleep in your ears? The. Phone. Call.” He chuckled, taking a few steps towards me. There was no annoyance on his face, whatsoever. Only love and warmth and…

What fucking phone call? I wanted to shout out, but I didn’t. Instead, I looked up, raised both brows and smiled. “I’m glad I didn’t have her too worried.”

“Alex is a good kid to have called us, let us know you were together at Paul’s place and you were staying over. Said he didn’t want you wandering home alone at that time of night in the storm. That’s why I like him so much. That responsibility of his lets me know you’ll be safe with him no matter where you are. For a daddy with a little girl, you’ve no idea how good it feels to know you have someone like him in your life. I knew he'd come back to you.”

My mouth opened in surprise and my chest, once again, hurt like I had just been shot. I had no idea when he had called my parents, and now I had no idea if I would ever get the chance to thank him. I had been so lost in a cloud of Alex last night that I’d completely tuned out the rest of the world and the people in it who I supposedly loved. I hadn’t thought to phone my parents to let them know I was okay during the worst summer storm we’d seen since I was a small child… yet he had. Alex had done that for me. He’d done that for them.

I wanted to cry.

Smiling at my dad, I rushed over and threw my arms around his neck, almost knocking his hot drink right out of his hands. Dad laughed quietly, squeezing me back equally as tight.

“I’m sorry I worried you for a while there. It won’t happen again.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Thank Alex for me when you see him next.”

“I will,” I croaked against his shoulder, pushing my lips down on the fluffy fabric of his robe to try and compose myself. “I’m going to go and get some sleep, Dad. I love you.”

“Love you, too, baby.”

The stairs didn’t seem like much of a challenge at all as I threw myself up them, and I didn’t even bother to change before I climbed under my duvet and pulled out my notebook and pen from beneath my bed. The moment I sat up against a pillow and allowed myself to breathe, the silent tears began to pour out freely. Tears of loss, yet also tears of absolute, life-changing happiness at what we’d done together just a few hours ago.

Opening the book, I pulled in a shaky breath and placed the tip of my blue pen against the clean, white page.

My dearest Elizabeth,

I have news. Big sister, little sister news. I wanted, no, needed you to be the first to know.

It finally happened, Lizzy. Alex and I made love last night and it was... so beautiful.

Here’s the whole story. I just might need your help getting through the ending.

I’m not sure I understand what’s going on, but God, I wish you were here to help me...