Page 27 of Forever Not Yours

It felt like hours, and when he finally got himself together enough to look at me, I was so frazzled I didn’t know how to react.

Jake, my Jake, sat on the bed with tears running down his cheeks. Why the fuck was he crying?

I never got the answer to that question, because he reached out for my hands, dragged me back down onto the bed and opened his arms to me as I crawledinto them. Shook as he held me, the sobs tearing through him shattering the silence.

I let him cry, gently stroking his back.

This was on me. Everything was.

That hadn’t gone to plan. Well, my plan? I’d thought long and hard about what Juliet had said, tried to make sense of her weirdinsane outburst there, sat on my sofa yelling at me. Mostly she had been yelling at Bastien, the universe, life.

I knew what heartbreak looked like, and I hated that Juliet was going through all of it on her own. She didn’t have anyone to hold her when she needed it the most, not even me, because I had done this. Part of it. I had actually known what I was doing that night, even though I didn’t want to really admit that. A weird state of rage and heartbreak had turned me into someone that wasn’t me. And Juliet had been raging yesterday for almost an hour, making me late for my first client of the day.

She’d calmed in the end, not even apologising for the mess she left behind. Cushions on the floor. Her cup tipped over on the coffee table.

I deserved it. And she had needed that. I was sure it wasn’t the end of it, and the ranting texts I took on my phone for the rest of the day? Juliet was reeling through it all, and I didn’t blame her.

Nor did I blame Bastien, because what the hell had Juliet been on about? I’d been racking my brain most of the day, trying to figure out what had been going on there. Some of it I knew. Juliet’s oversharing wassomething I had dealt with before. I knew he struggled to orgasm, and he wasn’t coping well with that. I knew how desperate he’d been to make things better, and how he’d felt useless and worthless when he couldn’t.

I was slowly starting to see why, and my questions were never ending.

So were my tears, because however much I thought I’d been coping with all of this, I clearly wasn’t. Surprise.

No surprise, actually. I was sobbing, lying here in a heap of my own doing, trying to figure out how we’d both gone so wrong. How I’d read it all wrong. Almost made a massive mistake. I wasn’t ready for this. Neither was he.

I was too angry. Too hurt. Still too emotionally raw to do anything rationally. Nor was I ready to give him all this. Never in anger, Jake. Ever.

“I’m sorry,” I sniffled against his back, his fingers having found mine and tangled themselves up into a firm grip. God I’d needed that. Anything. A little bit of affection from the man I couldn’t stop loving. Despite everything, every harsh word, every little bit of rejection?

I felt so rejected, in spite of everything he’d let me do to him. And the fact that I’d started finding him in my bed. Him being right here in my arms. His slim fingers gripping my thick ones back. A small comfort. Something to hold on to.

“I have been trying to make sense of everything, Bastien. It’s driving me mad. Why the fuck did you not tell me? I mean, you knew. You knew I was into all of this, you must have done, and you didn’t once own up that you might be too? You knew I struggled with things sometimes, and you didn’t once tell me you knew how I felt? You know me. You fucking know me!”

I was angry. I couldn’t help it. And he said nothing. Not that I expected him to.

“I suppose I didn’t talk much about these things either,” I ranted on, “but it wasn’t like I woke up one day thinking, oh, I like fucking blokes! It doesn’t work like that, and you must have known that too. I knew I liked boys when I was a kid. It was never a surprise to me, and I just kept it like that. I didn’t hide it. I just chose to be discreet about it.”

“Fuck you.”

A sudden outburst. Yeah. Perhaps I deserved that. Not being quite truthful there, so I just kept talking. Or half shouting. I couldn’t control my emotions, nor my tone of voice it seemed.

“I didn’t tell anyone about it because those first hookups I had were bloody awful. I couldn’t tell you either because I didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want to admit how bad everything made me feel. It took me years to figure out what made me tick. What I liked. How I liked to fuck people.”

“Fuck people,” he mocked me, in a voice that sounded small. I didn’t blame him because I was still sobbing. My snotty nose against his back. I tried to wipe it with the sheet, but I didn’t want to let go of him. I somehow felt that if I did, I would lose him forever. Lose this small part of him where I got to hold him. Be close to him. Where he didn’t run off and find another girlfriend. Leaving me on the outside again, looking in at the life he was living with hardly any part of it. I’d lived like this for years, and I’d had enough.

“I hate not being part of your life. I hate when you’re off with other people and doing things and Ijust sit here on my own wondering if this is the time when I’ll lose you forever.”

“You’re not on your own. You fuck people.”

He was talking. I squeezed his fingers tighter.

“I don’t fuck people that matter. I fuck guys who need what I like to give, where I’m in total control, and I like when I don’t ever see them again. That’s what works for me.”

“Brutal,” he said quietly.

The relief that he was talking to me was immense. “True. But it’s the only thing that works when your heart belongs to someone else. It’s not easy to just switch off when you love someone. You know this.”

I think he nodded. At least he made a sound, acknowledging my small admission. He must have known. Juliet knew. She said she always had.

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