Page 92 of Poems He Wrote

“No, he’s not, but we have you to thank for that, right?” Jensen’s voice slices into me like the sharpest sword.

“I am so sorry, Jensen. I really am. Please tell him that.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t change the things you did.” I hear some shuffle on his side of the line. “Here, Corey is looking for you.”

“Love…” My best friend’s whisper breaks my heart all over again. The flashes of me screaming at him on his birthday are making me cringe with disgust. I was so vile to him. “Ronan, baby… I am so sorry…”

“Oh, I’m the one who should be sorry!” An uncontrollable sob leaves my mouth. “Corey, what have I done to us? To you? To him?”

“Stop crying, Ronan, please. I deserved every word you said, it wasn’t my place to talk about it,” he chokes out, and by the tone of his voice I know he's crying too. I hear Jensen whispering softly in the background ‘everything’s gonna be okay’, ‘breathe, baby’...

“I lost him, Corey,” I croak, my heart bleeding with pain.

“Give him time. Give yourself time,” he says. “He is hurting, let him heal.”

“I love him!” I say, dropping the phone on the bed and laying next to it. “I lied to him!”

“You did what you thought would protect your own heart! Stop that right now, Rory,” Corey raises his voice at me. “You tried to protectyou. The only mistake you made was not telling him once you realized how serious things started getting.”

“And now I am seeing the consequences of my actions.”

“What did you expect, Ronan? That he’ll never find out? Because it seems like that to me,” Jensen yells. “What did you hope for? Was it easy walking around with two years of lying on your shoulders?”

“Babe, please…” Corey says to his boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop him, not at all. It even makes it worse.

“What?WHAT?” he yells. “He isMYbrother! I watched him fall apart for two years, looking all over for you! He wore that tattoo like a badge for the biggest fool around, yet every time I saw him look at it, he had a smile on his face. He was always longing for that moment with you, and you knew. You. Fucking. Knew.”

“I’m sorry!!!” I cry out, my lungs seizing on me. “I was afraid of Christine, Jensen! I was scared of her doing somethingtohim if she ever found out what I didwithhim.”

“No worries there, she did something to me,” he says, his voice flat, but colored in disgust.

“I am so sorry for everything.”

“I know you are. But, please, stop calling him and give him time. He is hurting.”

“They are both hurting, Jensen.” Corey interjects. “Ronan, I am here for you.”

And I know he is, I really know, but I can’t stand another minute with them on the line, trying to choke down the cries so desperate to leave my body.

“I have to go, I’m sorry,” I whisper before tapping the red button on my phone, ending the call.

I roll to my side, hugging one of the hoodies he left in my bedroom. His smell is getting fainter by the day, but the pain of not having him near me still stays strong.

I drift into sleep and back out of it, crying every time I realize I woke up and it wasn’t just a bad dream. It is a nightmare that I am living in. A nightmare that I made.

***

Days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into a month. It’s been fifteen days since I called him the last time. I look at his name on my screen, my hand itching to make the call.

I just want to hear his voice.

Every day, when I go home from work, I drive past his store and his apartment, in hopes of seeing him. Corey says he never leaves. He is locked up in there with our kitten, drowning in his feelings, and honestly, I’m not doing any better. The only difference is that I am not the boss at the shelter, and I have to be there every day, or I lose the roof over my head.

Maria is forcing me to have at least two meals a day, since those are the meals she can control, but how do I tell her that I can’t keep any of them down? I miss him way too much to function properly.

I even drove by his dad’s place, wanting to go in and apologize for everything I have done to his son. I doubt he knows, though. Noah likes to keep the bad stuff away from him, due to him already living through so much pain in his life.

I pack the last of my clothes into an obscenely oversized suitcase, zip the thing up and head for the door. In less than eighteen hours I’ll be with my dad. I finally took him up on his offer to go out there and meet the rest of my family. On my sad drive to the airport, I park my car in front of Noah’s building, turning my hazard lights on. I won’t be long.

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