Page 11 of Forever Not Yours

I was fine. I was in control.

Lying to myself like this was my usual way of coping with my penchant for doing things before thinking of the consequences. It was different at work, where risk taking was part of my job description. I was good at it. Calculating the pros and cons, the risk factors against the potential gain. Finance was a complicated puzzle,and I was a professional and skilled problem solver. I mathed the math, and my math always mathed up, whatever the situation. Life? A completely different equation.

Real life was where I messed up, and then I would go to Juliet, and she would sort it all out. It helped that she was my boss. Yes. You can laugh now. I had been shagging my boss from day one of my employment with the company that paid my overinflated wages. There was no policy against it, and Juliet wasn’t a bad boss. She was fair, and…she was lovely. She adored me almost as much as I adored her. She understood me in a way that nobody had before, and she got me. She tried, and she tried hard. Her voice rang through my frazzled brain, a calming mantra.Just talk it out, Bash. Say all the words.

I had no words, because whilst I had messed up in the past, this one was a whole new…

Shit. Double shit. Triple-fucking-shit on a stick.

I managed to get myself together and find clothes in my upturned bag. I even packed it, haphazardly throwing my belongings in there like I was running away. I wasn’t. Adulthood was weighing on my shoulders,but I did know how to behave. We had to check out and catch flights home, yet the truth was right there slapping me square in the face.

I’d cheated on my fiancée. With my best friend. I had to laugh out loud because that brutal, monstrous fact was simply ridiculous. This was a whole new low, and I wasn’t like this. I didn’t… I hadn’t… Fuck.

Fuck, I wished I was home but not in the pristine flat I shared with Juliet. I longed for my childhood bedroom, a cup of tea from my mum in the familiar stained teapot and a reassuring hug from my dad. Comfort in a space where I didn’t always fuck up. I’d taken Jake there. My parents loved him. Everyone loved Jake, even Juliet. She’d sometimes say she’d have married him if he wasn’t gay and she’d had to settle for good old Bash instead. One of her usual jokes. I always loved that about her. That she loved Jake as much as I did.

Crap.

I left my bags and skulked down to the breakfast room, having realised I had less than twenty minutes to eat before service ended. Then we had to get on the tram right outside the hotel to get to the airport.Normal things that normal people did, but I didn’t feel normal. Not anymore.

Being me was no joke, despite being the person who tried to joke about everything.

I was Bastien Dewaert. I was a good person. Somewhere deep down, I really was. I didn’t hurt people, not on purpose. I needed to apologise, explain and…

Fuck. Double and Triple fuck. Quad-fucking-tastic.

Jake was sitting between Will and Kieron, who both looked up and greeted me with shit-eating grins. Jake didn’t even blink, just took another sip of coffee as I walked off in search of my own caffeine and food.

Coffee and nutrition acquired, I placed my plate and cup on the table, sat down and tried to breathe.

“Head all right?” Oliver asked. “That is one hell of a shiner.”

“You look like shit, Bash,” Anil said, I think. I wasn’t looking, concentrating instead on cutting off a piece of bacon and sticking it in my mouth, followed by a forkful of egg. Protein was good. I knew far too well what I looked like.

“Jakey here hasn’t said a word. I think you might have finished him off.”

I blushed, and cringed, even though I had no idea what they were on about.

“Shouldn’t have had those last shots, mate.” Backslaps. Laughter. I wasn’t laughing.

I wanted to grab Jake and leave. I wanted him in a room, alone, so I could do the word thing. Spill all the truths and feelings and anxieties and bloody needs and wants and…and…

I was scared. I was so frightened of everything around me right now and knowing it was all my doing.

Fuck-up was my middle name, but this was on an epic scale, even for me. People who were getting married to people they loved did not do things like this. People who were normal and sane looked after themselves, and most of all, they looked after the people they cared for. They thought before they spoke, and they didn’t…

I couldn’t even think the thoughts. Couldn’t acknowledge it to myself. I never had. There was so much wrong with me already;I simply didn’t need to explain that part of myself as well. I’d never been very good at…well, anything really.

“Can’t wait for that conference in August then, Bash? You’ll need to come now. We’ll have a blast.”

That was Oliver again. August. I racked my brain—financial think tank in Berlin, and beer. Someone asked if Oktoberfest was on then, and I shrugged, no energy to explain it would still be summer and the clue was in the name. Anyway, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not me. Not ever again.

I swallowed a mouthful of eggs and drained my cup, tried to breathe as I stared at Jake.

“We have a flight to catch,” I said, hoping my voice would hold for the entire sentence. It did. Just barely.

He looked away.

“Yeah, need to get back to the missus, eh? Soon you’ll be a married man, and all this fun will be over.” Laughter. Lots of it.

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