Page 19 of The Girl I Once Loved

‘If I’m a psycho then that officially makes you my little stalker.’

I swallow dryly, doing my best to ignore the memory but when I finally reach my room, it’s that same recollection that propels me not to walk in yet. Instead, I find myself turning my back to my own bedroom and staring at the closed door in front of it. All of me shakes as I grab the doorknob and swing the door open, only to findhisroom bare, completely empty of everything he once held dear.

I’m not sure why finding the room empty feels like another reason for me to hate him, but it does.

It's that blinding hatred that has me hurriedly stumbling back from the bedroom door’s threshold. With gritted teeth, I slide down the opposing wall, unable to pull my sight away from the empty room, now void of every memory that once transpired there.

It’s all gone. Every last moment vanished into thin air.

But then again, nothing real ever happened inside of those four walls.

It was all just a game to him. A game created by his boredom and callousness, with the sole intent of making a fool out of me, making sure I’d never recover from such cruelty.

I’m still seething at how I could have been so reckless and naïve with my own heart, when I hear a soft thud coming from the end of the hallway.

“Déjà vu,” my sister utters, wide-eyed and pale, with my suitcase at her side.

In my haste to come upstairs and get some much-needed distance from my mother, I totally forgot about my luggage and how I left it in Daisy’s car trunk. But it’s not the sight of my sister pulling the suitcase towards me that grabs my attention—it’s her soft spoken ‘déjà vu’ remark that unsettles me.

“What did you mean by that?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Daisy shrugs off. “I guess seeing you here in this hallway caught me by surprise. Must have brought up old memories. That’s all,” she lies with a sheepish smile.

“You’re lying. You know I can tell.” I frown. “What did you really mean by that? Tell me,” I insist.

When she finally reaches me, she slides down the wall and sits cross-legged beside me.

“Are you sure you really want to know?” she asks with concern, squeezing my knee.

I nod, fearing the worst.

“When you left, I would catch Noah sitting right there in that exact spot in the middle of the night,” she points to the wall opposite me, “just staring into your bedroom. It was like he wanted to go in but was too afraid to do so.” She sighs sadly. “Every night when I came home from being either at Derrick’s or from a night shift at work, here he’d be, just staring into the abyss. After a year or so of doing that, it probably got to be too much for him, and that’s when he began to clear the loft of Curt’s fishing supplies above the garage so he could move in there instead.”

I hug my knees to my chest, unsure of how I should feel about what my sister just confided to me.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” I hear myself asking.

“Would it have made things easier for you to know that he was hurting too?”

I shake my head. It would have probably only fucked with my head even more. But unlike Daisy, I don’t believe for one moment that Noah was hurting in any way. He was probably just pissed that his favorite plaything wasn’t around for him to torture anymore.

“He screwed up,” Daisy says after a long pause. “And though he might have felt guilt over it, I understand why you can’t forgive him for hurting you the way he did.”

“You forgave him,” I say, ashamed of my accusing tone.

“Not for hurting you. I never forgave him for that,” she affirms, wrapping her arm over my shoulder, to which I lean in and lay my head on hers. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand him. Sometimes people sabotage their own happiness because they believe themselves unworthy of it. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

I crane my head back just enough to look at her face and see the truth in her eyes.

Daisy has always been very private about her relationships, especially with Derrick. But you’d have to have been blind not to know they have had their ups and downs over the years, the downs most probably provoked by my sister’s stubbornness and hot temper. I am happy that she’s managed to get out of her own way and finally accept that she too deserves to be happy. I know that Derrick will do everything in his power to make it so.

“I owe you an apology, Sky,” she adds with a shy smile. “I shouldn’t have demanded that you get over all the pain you went through in this house just for my sake. Even though that shit went down when we were kids, it doesn't mean your feelings are any less valid. I guess I was just hoping that if you came home, it would be cathartic for you. Maybe finally get some closure and move on with your life.”

“You mean move on with my life with Gael?”

“You don’t need a guy to move on with your life and be happy,” she explains assuredly. “Sometimes the best person you should be focusing your love on is yourself. Give yourself some grace, sis. The rest of the pieces will fall into place.”

“That’s easier said than done,” I mumble, my eyes going straight to the source of all my pain—his empty room cruelly mimicking how empty I feel inside.

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