Why had he waited so long?
And just how the hell was I supposed to do the same?
Look, I’m getting ahead of myself again, and there’s a reason I’m going to reveal exactly what happened that first Halloween.
It was the first stepping stone to Ren walking out, and I think I’d always known it. I’d known it, and even though it lurked like a shadow between us from that moment on, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
You see…I used Tom to hurt Ren.
Another terrible confession.
What seven deadly sins does that fit into?
I’m too brain-dead and emotionally exhausted to figure it out.
Adultery perhaps? Even though Ren and I had nothing to cheat on.
I was single. He was single. And I was ready to live a little, even if living meant existing in constant pain. Even if it meant seething in jealousy when Tina hit on him. Even if it meant, eventually, I’d have to smile away my heartache when Ren found someone else.
God, I never thought I’d be so tired writing this. I didn’t think memories had such a power to strangle and soothe at the same time. All I want to do is delete this and go to bed. To forget I ever started this tale and spend the last few days before my assignment is due writing something I can actually hand in.
But I also can’t end here.
I’m so close.
Just a few more chapters…and then, well, then I can rest, and perhaps the past won’t haunt me so much.
Are you ready?
Ready for more terrible Della?
I’m not, but let’s see if I can remember exactly what happened that night.
Some of it is a blur, and it’s not like you need to know it anyway.
The typical party stuff.
I arrived with Tina and Tom, dressed to my eyeballs in glitter and powder and two-hundred dollar Victorian gowns, wanting desperately to feel older and wiser and irresistible to someone, and realising that no matter how much cleavage I might have or how fluttery my eyelashes were or how I stared and licked my lips, Ren was immune to me.
If anything, he just got mad and made me feel even more of a fraud than I already was.
At least, Tom seemed to love my effort, and his hands never strayed from touching me, appeasing my jealousy over Tina’s constant whispering about how gorgeous Ren was and if he was available.
I tried to ignore her. I wanted to tell her he was a monk or someone who despised being touched. I threw myself into Tom’s attention and encouraged his hands to rest in the small of my back and linger on my waist.
I should’ve shivered at having him touch me in places that sent goosebumps leaping over my skin, but all I could think about was how Ren had snatched my wrist and held it so tight and unforgiving, leaving a circlet of his fingers for minutes after he’d let me go.
Tom was so tame compared to Ren, and that taboo, forbidden factor just wasn’t there, either.
Perhaps I’d become addicted to the fact that I couldn’t have Ren more than the actual reality that we weren’t actually compatible.
Ha!
Even now, that lie doesn’t work. I tried to convince myself that if Ren was my age and available, I wouldn’t truly want him. That I’d find him boorish with his rules and stuffy with his diligence.
But yep… it doesn’t work.
I didn’t want Ren because I couldn’t have him.
I wanted Ren because he was everything that made me appreciate, adore, and burn for. He was utterly perfect from his snappish temper to his doting devotion, and yep…I’m back on the crazy torment-myself-with-falling-all-over-again-for-the-boy-who-left-me train.
God, I’m crying.
Why am I crying?
This…ugh!
No!
I haven’t cried since the day he left. I didn’t let myself and now…now I can’t stop.
I…I can’t do this.
I need a break—
* * * * *
Sorry.
Jeez, I seem to be apologising to an assignment a lot.
I couldn’t finish yesterday. Not unless I wanted to drown my laptop in tears and have to buy another one. It seemed I had a weak day, made worse by a brain that refused to stop thinking about Ren, Ren, Ren.
You know? Some days, I literally do hate him. I hate his damn guts. Those days, I feel somewhat normal and can honestly say I don’t want him to come back. Leaving was probably the best thing he could’ve done for me.
Because I now have no choice but to get over this stupid infatuation and move on.
But other days that hate transforms back into love and, holy ouch, it fills up my heart until it bursts with need, infecting my entire body until I feel as if I have the flu.
Funny, huh?
The love flu.
Stupid man has made me eternally sick, and there is nothing I can do.
Right, enough feeling sorry for myself.
Today, I’m determined to tell you about Halloween.