June came around quickly again after that. Most days had fallen into a familiar pattern: the bus rides, the smiles, the secret hand holding from time to time, the odd kiss stolen during a moment of weakness when no one else was looking. The morning of my birthday seemed to come out of the blue even though, deep down, I think I’d been aware of some kind of important date looming.

“Is Alex picking you up this morning, Natalie?” My mother’s voice rang up the stairs. I was sat on the edge of my bed, curling my hair around my finger loosely as I stared at an old rock band badge that sat sadly on my carpet.

“I think so,” I called back, my lips barely moving.

There was a pause, a short pause where I could envision her smile and the way her eyes were no doubt lighting up. “Then hurry up. We don’t want to keep him waiting, do we? He’s always so–”

Knock, knock, knock!

“Prompt,” I mouthed silently.

He was on time, as usual.

For some reason that day, though, I wasn’t so sure that that filled me with much excitement. I knew what the reason was. I just didn’t want to say it out loud. I was scared that the nice background music that currently seemed to play throughout my everyday life was going to be replaced by the sort that had your heart trying to claw its way out of your chest.

I was nervous. Really nervous.

“Natalie, he’s here, honey.”

“Down in a minute, Mum.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly before I pushed up from the bed and allowed myself to glance in the mirror.

Seventeen years old. Seventeen. It had finally arrived.

I’d heard a lot of people talk about this age and how it was the most precious time of your life. Apparently, I was to soak up every single day, bathe in it, feel it, run wild with it. It was my final twelve months of freedom before adulthood got its ugly claws out and struck them across my skin with the first slash of reality. I had three hundred and sixty five days to live like a child while also having the respect of being an 'almost adult’.

Now was my time.

The pressure suddenly felt immense. How could you consciously live that way? How could anyone wake up each morning and shake their world up? What if we weren’t wild and reckless? What if we were happy with living in our own unique way without feeling the need to be like everyone else around us? What if we were happy just feeling anything at all?

“Natalie!”

“Yes, sorry, I’m… I’m…” contemplating life and how I’m going to live it, “on my way.”

Alex was standing at the bottom of the steps, staring up at me. His smile was as radiant as ever, and his black and red chequered shirt looked especially good against those ever enchanting eyes of his.

“New clothes?” I smirked as I made my way downstairs.

“Just for you.”

“I do feel honoured.”

“It’s not every day my best friend turns seventeen,” he said through a bedazzling smile before I was close enough for him to put his arm around my waist and whisper in my ear. “Happy birthday, Nat.”

My eyes were closed while he spoke and I hoped that he didn’t see or feel the way the hairs on every part of my skin rose to an almighty stand whenever he commanded their attention. I also hoped he missed the small groan of pain that I released whenever he called me his best friend.

“Thank you,” I breathed out quietly, forcing a smile when he pulled away to look at me. “You smell good, too. New aftershave?”

“Maybe.”

“Anyone would think it was your birthday.”

“I just want to make a special effort for my special girl. Is that so bad?”

“Special girl?” My brow rose of its own accord while I stared at him.

“Natexus all the way, baby,” he whispered smugly. And that was that. As always, Alex didn’t allow me time to blink, breathe or register anything before he’d mentally swept me off my feet again. He had a power over me that I couldn’t explain – not even to myself. I was at his mercy no matter how much of a fight I put up to push back weakly against it. I’d learned not to really put up much of a fight at all anymore.

“Natexus all the way,” I agreed through a grin.

“Have a good day, you two.” My mother approached us from behind, swinging her hips languidly before placing her hands on my shoulders. “Anything special planned before the big family dinner tonight?”

“N–”

“Of course.” Alex cut me off, reaching for my hand and squeezing it tight as he turned to face my mum. “She just doesn’t know about it yet.”

“Oh, God. Here he goes,” I grumbled, sounding far more annoyed than I felt. The truth was and always would be that as soon as he and I were skin against skin, I was home again.

“Alex, you are still coming to dinner tonight, aren’t you?” she asked, turning all her attention to him. Much the same way I did, both my parents came to life around him, and every single time, I wondered if he had any idea of the impact that he made on the world, or if he was just as clueless as he seemed to be.

His smile faltered for just a moment. Alex swallowed quickly and his mouth fell into a straight line. My mum probably didn’t notice it, but I both saw and felt it in the flinch of his muscles as his fingers squeezed mine tighter.

“Dinner at eight, I won’t be late.”

She laughed freely, clapping her hands together before waving us out of the door. “You’re a poet and you don’t know it.”

“You got me, Mrs. Vincent.” He smiled, leading me outside.

“You kids have fun.”

I stumbled out of the doorway, looking back over my shoulder to see the radiance pouring out from my mother’s face as she watched the two of us leave. As soon as we hit the pathway and the full force of the sun hit the exposed parts of my skin, I began to feel really dizzy and really hot.

“Alex, stop.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, spinning around and looking down at my feet, no doubt checking them to see if they had sunk into the ground – I was that unmoving.

I didn’t know how to answer. The feeling was so strange. My head was spinning, my stomach turning over and over with nerves. The heat was already unbearable and I was very aware of how dry my mouth felt, yet how cold my blood seemed to run through my veins.

“Nat?”

Then my legs began to shake a little. Next to go were my hands. A thousand thoughts pushed to the forefront of my mind, desperate to be released – flashing images of our time together, in the park, walking home, at school, those simple kisses, those incredible moments in his arms.

I couldn’t pick out one clear thought and hold onto it.

I couldn’t pick out one clear feeling.

“What are we doing?” I suddenly blurted out, taking myself by surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… what are we…” What are we, Alex? No messing around. Are we together? Are we just friends? Are we lovers who will eventually have more, or are we just two souls that find some kind of great, unfathomable comfort in being close to one another? Will you always be close? Will you always be here? Or is this just my time with you? Are you just my seventeenth birthday gift – my chance to experience the rough with the smooth? “I mean…” I paused again, swallowing away all the thoughts that were jumping over one another. “What are we doing today?”

He sighed, shaking his head as he pulled me closer and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “You just can’t let go, can you?”

“I’m trying,” I said weakly.

“Don’t be scared. Have I ever let you down before?”

“Not yet.”

“And I’m not going to start today.”

Walking out of the gate, we made our way down the road upon which I lived. Two people, arm in arm. One too afraid to admit she was falling in love. The other…

Just a boy named Alex.  

“Didn’t you tell him about your lack of hand to eye coordination?”

“I didn’t know I had to tell him, Dad. He’s been around me long enough. You’d think he’d see it, right?” I reached over the table to hand my father a plate of tortilla wraps.

“Hey.” Alex laughed as he sank into the chair beside me. “It’s bowling! I thought every teenager was good at bowling.”

“Not our Natalie,” Mum sang.

“Definitely not Natalie,” Dad agreed far too enthusiastically.

I huffed in feigned annoyance as I sat back down and shuffled until my chair was under the table.

In front of me was a feast of both Italian and Mexican food. Mixed up with plates of flaming chicken and peppers, were bowls of pasta, lasagne, garlic bread and spaghetti. It was a mixed buffet of my favourites, and it was with a small glance in Alex’s direction that I realised who had been responsible for picking out the menu of the banquet.

“Alright, alright. So I suck at bowling. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, even if I had have been good. I still wouldn’t have beaten Mr. Leg-swing and roll over here.” I thumbed in Alex’s direction, laughing at the memory of how seriously he'd taken himself while we were playing. “There’s competitive, and there’s competitive.”

“If you’re going to do something, you should do it right,” he chirped up, spooning a chunk of Mum’s homemade lasagne out of one of her finest bowls.

“And that’s a good attitude to have, son,” My dad said, pointing his spoon in Alex’s direction.

“Thanks, Mr. Vincent.”

“Tom. Please, call me Tom. Mr. Vincent was my grandfather. Horrible old man.”

“Okay, Tom.” Alex laughed before concentrating on his food again. “But it’s true. There’s no such thing as second place, only first loser.”

“Oh my.” I groaned, widening my eyes as I tried to bite back my smirk.

“I’ve been saying the same thing to Rosanne for years. Isn’t that right, Rosie?” My dad turned to Mum, his enthusiasm reminding me of a time when I used to see his eyes light up that same way every single day.

“Yes.” Mum sighed, turning to me and rolling her eyes. “Yes, it is, dear.”

“You see, my father was old fashio–”

The sudden bang at the door was so violent it felt like someone had pressed the pause button on the whole conversation. Each one of us froze in place. Mum’s eyes were wide, her mouth open in surprise. Dad’s frown was deep as he stared in the direction of the door. Alex… Alex was pale. His fork was halfway between his plate and his lips when he froze in place, but there was no confusion on his face, no wondering who the hell could be knocking on the door as though they were desperate to break in. He knew. I could tell that he knew.

I just didn’t know what that meant for the rest of us.

The second time the fist drove deep into the wood for another round of punches, that chilling, slightly familiar voice followed it.

“Alex!”

All eyes at the table turned to him.

“Son?” My dad asked, pushing his chair back as he began to stand.

Alex’s eyes were wild as they frantically searched all around. I wanted to move and ask him what was happening, but everything was playing out in both slow motion and fast forward, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how that was even possible.

“Sorry,” he eventually mumbled, and his fork dropped against the plate, leaving the sound of it to ring out and echo all around the room. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” Dad asked. “Who is that?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vincent. I mean, Tom. I’m sorry. I have to…”

“Hey, you’re not going anywhere right now. Who the hell is pounding a hole into my front door?” Dad began to march around the table. I’d never seen that look on his face before, but I was sure it held a lot more than just annoyance and confusion.

Alex jumped up, causing his chair to fall backwards and crash against the radiator. I winced at the sound, still too afraid to do much except watch as he ran after my father and reached out to grab the top of his arm.

“Please. Don’t do that. I know who it is and I don’t want you getting involved.”

“Alex, who is that?” Dad’s eyes fell to Alex’s hand on his arm and we could all see the small tremble of his muscles as we watched him try to hold onto his last shred of control.

“That’s my… my father.”

“Your father?”

His father. The voice rang out again, calling out for Alex’s attention, and it was only when I heard it louder and clearer that I began to understand exactly who he was. That was the man from outside the school gates – the man who had hurt him. Out there, right outside our front door, was the man who was going to hurt him again if we let him go.

“No!” I shouted, jumping up from my seat. “No, Dad. You can’t let him go out there.”

“Natalie,” Alex whispered. “Stop.”

“That’s the guy who was outside school, isn’t it?”

“It’s not what it seems. I have to go. I have to…”

“You’re not going anywhere with him, Alex. Are you crazy?”

His head snapped in my direction and his eyes were wild once again. The flaring of his nostrils, the ticking of his jaw, the way the hazel seemed to turn darker, almost menacing – I’d never seen him look that way before. It would have been so easy for me to back down, and part of me wanted to retreat more than ever, but I guess that’s the thing about being in love with someone and trying to deny it. There are moments you can, and there are moments you can’t. You can pretend you don’t love them when you’re walking side by side in the sunshine. You can pretend you don’t need them to be safe when you’re both locked up tight in a bubble, but the moment you see them in harm’s way, there’s no denying it anymore. You know. You just know. You know how you feel and you know what you want. You know you’d risk everything for them to be okay.

“Are you scared?” I asked him quietly, suddenly unaware of my parents’ presence.

“Terrified,” he whispered back.

“Of him hurting you?”

“No.”

My forehead creased in confusion, but before I could dig deeper, the moment was gone. The knocking at the door grew angrier, and my father, even more impatient.

“That’s it,” Dad growled.

“Mr. Vincent, do you trust me?” Alex asked in pure desperation. He was only young, just a kid still, but I knew he wasn’t using all his strength to keep Dad in place. He’d barely unleashed even a tenth of his power on any of us.

“Alex.” Dad shook his head.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes, of course we do. It’s the fool knocking at my door who concerns me more than anything. Your behaviour isn’t exactly reassuring me, either.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.” Alex dipped his head before sucking in a breath and looking back up. “Out there is my father. My dad. He’s the guy that brought me into this world and even though he sounds it, I promise you, he’s not a bad man. We have some things going on in our life right now that I just can’t talk about with anyone. I know you know what that's like. I know you all understand how families work. I shouldn’t have come here tonight and brought it to your doorstep. For that, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Dad said quietly, occasionally glancing over Alex’s shoulder to burn holes in the door.

“All you need to know is that he won’t hurt me.”

“Bullshit!” I cried out, taking a step forward.

Dad’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Mum gasped, and Alex… well, Alex stayed exactly where he was. He refused to look at or even acknowledge me as he stared into my father’s eyes.

“He won’t hurt me.” His voice trembled slightly and the panic in my own body set in. “Please, just accept my apologies for tonight and go back to dinner. It’s Nat’s birthday. I don’t want this night ruined because of him or me.”

Dad turned to look at me, unsure of what to do.

The banging began again, right alongside the shouting, and before any of us could put up yet another protest, Alex was walking backwards, somehow opening up the door behind him before slipping out into the unknown.

Then he was gone.

I’d heard people talk about out-of-body experiences before. I’d heard stories of the panic setting in and your brain telling you to do one thing while your body did the exact opposite. When the noise eventually stopped, and the sound of shoes slapping against the pathway began to fade away, all we were left with was silence again – that eerie silence that had taken over the house when Lizzy died. It was back.

We were all statues. Numb. Scared.

Time passed, and every part of me wanted to run after him and make sure he was okay, but my eyes were trained on Dad. Dad’s were on his shoes and Mum’s were most definitely on me. If heartbeats were loud enough, I was certain all of ours would sound like a stampede of fear running through the hall.

“Dad?” I eventually whispered.

“Leave it.”

“You… You let him go.”

He blinked furiously before he pushed his hands deep into his pockets and lifted his head to look me straight in the eye.

“Sometimes, Nat, letting go is the only thing any of us can do for anyone.”

It was then that I knew for certain: Alex wasn't just anyone and letting him go was no longer an option. It should never have been an option to begin with.