Page 56 of Unexpected Boyfriends

Eventually, I reclaim my social life, partying too hard and drinking too much. Anyone watching me would think I wasfine.It’s an illusion, but it’s a protective cloak I wrap around myself.

I don’t hook up with anyone though, it’s much too soon for that. It might always be too soon.

Chapter 22

Sandy Point, Sydney

AXEL

It’s well after midnight when I slip the key in the lock of the front door, and the lock clicks open. The lights in the house are all off, so it’s likely that my mother is fast asleep in her bedroom upstairs. Good. I really don’t feel like conversation right now, so I’m extra careful not to make any noise whatsoever.

It's been another too-late night in the middle of the working week.

As I come in the front door, I make sure to turn off the porch light. I hadn’t said I’d be home tonight but she’d left it on anyway. She’s doing everything possible to be the caring mother right now, but for some reason I'm suspicious. She never supported my relationship with Justin. Maybe she knows why I'm so sad right now and she wants me to get over it.

I don’t want to be in this house anymore. There’s nothing but emptiness and heartache for me here, and the memory of what could have been. But I have no choice. If he comes back at all, he would come here. So, I have to stay, for now at least. Right now, Idon’t know if he’ll come back or not. Maybe he’s already brushed me from his life and moved on. I haven’t heard a word from him since the day he left, so maybe it’s just that I'm hanging on, living in the past, unable to move forward. It’s kind of pathetic. At 22, I'm supposed to be the mature one, and here I am behaving like a love-sick teenager. I can't help it though.

I don’t know what’s going on or what I should do. The uncertainty, theunknowing, is killing me. I’ve tried everything to reach him; text, phone call, email, social media. For god’s sake, even snail mail. But he hasn’t answered anything I’ve sent. Disturbingly, for months he’s had no social media presence that I’ve been able to detect. But perhaps he just doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I wouldn’t be the first person to be totally blindsided when they were ghosted. Maybe I really was just a summer fling?

Is he okay? More than anything, I want to know that he’s okay. If he doesn’t want to be in my life, well, I’ll deal, but I need to know that he’s fine, that he’s happy. The thought nags at me constantly – what if he isn’t alright? What if he needs me?

I sink onto the sofa, burying my head in my hands. This is killing me. What if he’s out there somewhere, in trouble and waiting for me to help him? Is thereanyway to find him that I haven’t yet thought of?

“Fuck!” The worry and frustration is driving me mad, and swearing is easier than giving in to despair. In the back of my mind I know that it's probably over, that if he’s ghosting me, it means we’re done. Nothing more complicated than that. Just because I want answers doesn’t mean there are any, other than he's decided he doesn't want me for whatever reason. God! The thoughts just go round and round in my head. I have got to move on.

I get up and make my way through the dark house to my bedroom. I pause in the doorway. The room looks exactly as it did the night I made love to Justin.

The same navy coverlet on the bed in the middle of the room. Two matching fluffy pillows against the bedhead. My desk in a corner of the room is still the usual organized mess of artwork – completed drawings, discarded designs, a few computer-generated collages.

Framed photographs of us at the beach last summer still sit on top of my chest-of-drawers. My favourite still hangs on the wall.

It’s a photo of the two of us on the beach with our backs to the ocean. Justin was standing up against me, and I still remember the sensation of his sun-warmed back against my bare chest. His hair is windswept, and his eyes are narrowed from the glare. Justin has said something playful and his head is tilted and he has a faint smirk playing about his pouty lips. I’m smiling like crazy as if I've won the lottery or something, the smile lines splitting my face.

Some random person walking by had seen us and snapped the photo. And then offered to send it to us because they thought we looked like a sweet couple.

I sigh.

The room is the same, but it’s also different. This room where we loved and lay awake through all the dark hours, enjoying each other’s proximity and the sheer joy of being together flushed with excitement for the future, now seems empty and sad.

Just like me, I think.

I’m too young to feel like this.

Moonlight shines through the window, so bright tonight that Scorpius can’t be seen. The celestial light illuminates the gauze curtain with an ethereal glow. It runs along the carpet and up across the mattress. If Justin were here, he would consider the scene romantic.

But he’s not, and I want to hide in the darkness and lose myself. I’ll have to close the blinds if I’m to have any chance of that. I don’t want to lie in bed with my heart breaking in the moonlight, wondering if maybe Justin is somewhere also looking up at that same moon.

I cross to the window and pull down the roller blind and as the blind reaches the windowsill, a little sliver of paper glowing in the moonlight catches my eye. It’s lodged between the window and the sill, and only the tiniest part is poking through, which is why I haven’t noticed it until now.

Someone has tried to push it in from the outside.

Curious, I put a finger on it to hold it in place while I struggle with the other to unlock and slide the window up. It’s a note. And as I read it, I begin to tremble.

Axel

I’m in the backyard.

I need to see you one last time. Please.

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