Page 18 of House of Bass

“Neither would hers.” He made a face, saying the truth we all know.

I changed the subject and rambled on about my other classes as he smiled at me so affectionately. It was then I finally picked up on the fact that it was different from the ways he usually looked at me, purposeful.

“So is there a specific reason why we’re here? I mean don’t get me wrong I love being persuaded by strawberries but…” I trailed off, expectantly.

He sat upright and took my hand with his, and with only the trickle of the slow stream behind us, the chirp of birds and the faint blow of the wind to hear, he declared, “I love you, Saint.”

“I love you, too,” I said immediately, because we’ve said those words to one another a million times.

“No, I love you. I’m in love with you and you know that because you love me too.”

My heart had dropped and my body felt paralysed from what he had just said. He continued, “After mum died, it made me realise I can’t lose anyone else…”

I had stopped listening, my ears were ringing. He couldn’t love me, I had thought. I was not the type of person you loved, I wasn’t good enough for him. My father had told me that my entire life; I wasn’t good enough now but I could always be better. I wasn’t better yet.

I gently pried my hands from him and stood up. His face had fallen when he realised I wasn’t smiling along with him.

“You can’t love me, Richard.”

I rarely called him Richard. He hates it because that was his father’s name too and he doesn’t want to be likened to him anymore than he already was.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he cupped my face, “Don’t…don’t you love me too?”

Of course, I loved him. All I have ever known was loving him but we simply couldn't.

“No. You can’t love me because we are friends. Friends are supposed to stay just friends,” I said, and backed away from him slowly.

“We have never been just friends,” he shouted, dumbstruck. The sun had begun to set behind him as he stood there

“No,” I repeated, then I ran away from him without looking back.

The shadow of my own sadness consumed me so deeply that my selfishness blinded me into thinking I was doing the right thing at the time, but every time I look back on it I ached to have done things differently. There’s something in me that makes me want to ruin every good thing that I have. I was no good to people, I'd ruin them too.

That was all I could think about when he had been speaking, I saw how happy he finally was again, it had taken a long time for him to look like he once did. I really believed if he was forced to be with me in that way, my venom would’ve seeped through his veins and destroyed that.

The day after he asked me to be with him, that night I kissed Liam Neeley, a guy in his year that he despised, making sure there was an audience to witness it all. He was blonde with piercing blue eyes, and nothing like Arden. I took us into a room under the illusion that we did more than kiss, hoping it’d be the final nail in the coffin. Making Liam promise not to say a word to anyone, and he could spin whatever tale he wanted.

But when we came out, Arden was there, looking at me with such hatred, that the fear of losing him made me snap out of it. By then, it was already too late. He was gone.

I cried for a long time at how I let myself destroy things because I couldn’t see past myself. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about being sad; It creeps up on you, and for me there was no woefully damaging trauma in my life that led me there. I was just young and held myself to too much, even now I still do. I was scared to disappoint my father, who had expected too much from me before I could walk; scared to disappoint myself, which I did anyway. And I let myself shoulder all of that without realising the damage it had done until the effects had set in.

Like a parasite tearing through a garden, feeding off one flower at a time without you noticing, but by the time you picked up on it, all the petals had withered and died. Sadness chipped away at every part of my soul and left me with a body to carry around with nothing in it. That was me by the age of thirteen, maybe even now.

For the duration of time we spent together at school, we tried to avoid one another except in group settings. Eventually, our sadness turned into anger, leading to a period of strife where we fought so often that being in the same room was akin to lighting a match to a fuse, only ending in screams.

It was hard at first, relearning to exist on our own, but I did it. I knew him, and then I didn’t.

Then came him and MJ; that one threw us all for a loop. It had been so quick how one day they weren’t together and then they were. She had been so excited to tell me she was dating someone; I didn’t even know when they had the time to talk to one another in that way without any of us noticing. Not even Dan knew about it. But what I did know was that she knew about us, and how I felt about him. I had told her why I had been so angry that first day we met, because she had caught me taking a match to my thighs. She had been there with me through every panic attack and been my voice of reason when I let my unhappiness take over. She even comforted me the day Arden and I fell out. Then there they were, holding hands and clinging to one another. And I had to accept it. I had made my bed. There was no point, he deserved better than me anyway .

8

ST. ANNABEL

Sitting under the shade of a near leafless tree at St. James’s park, where I glare at every duck that walks by me, I text my other sister. I left home earlier and kept walking with no real destination in mind and found myself here. Today is Saturday, hence no classes but I should be practicing or worse, sitting with my father going through files but instead here I sit on a bench in ballet flats and a short skirt letting the cold breeze hit my skin like a punishment.

Smothering. That is the only word I can use to describe how I have been with Harley over the past week. Don’t know what difference it’ll make, she never wants to be around me and I can’t blame her. I know I can be a nightmare.

My phone ringing brings me out of my dejection and Stassie’s name shows up and I answer right away.