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Part I
1
Sky
I miss him.
Completely, overwhelmingly, and illogically yearn for him.
Dylan Morgan crashed into my life and when he walked away, he tore into my heart and took a part with him. Picking up the fragments and pushing them back together is hard when there’s a crucial piece missing. And after months of ignoring the emptiness caused by someone who never existed, the hole remains.
With Dylan, I fought fate until love pushed out logic and I yielded to the truth buried deep inside. I gave in to the man who told me things I was afraid to hear because he spoke as if he’d listened to my heart.
In the days after he left, I tried to hold everything inside so nobody would know. The pain wrapped around my chest, leaving me aching and desperate to breathe. I couldn’t tell anybody because nobody knew. We never existed.
I wanted Dylan to be my man from the sea, who existed in the brightness the replaced the dark summer after Grant cheated. I allowed myself to believe Dylan could be more than the cliché, but he was worse.
Dylan never gave me an answer about Lily’s claims that he raped her, which screams guilt. Therefore, I have no option but to believe the man I met in Broadbeach doesn’t exist.
After a week, Tara dragged the truth from me and everything spilled out. The emotions exploded in front of my shocked friend, one who’d never seen me like this, even after I split with Grant.
But Grant wasn’t a part of me. We shared time but never each other. Not completely. As sixteen-year-olds, we met and trod the same road, side by side but never together. The idea of all-consuming passion didn’t fit my view of a stable, predictable life. Foolishly, I believed the kind of love I had with Grant was safer.
Now I’ve learnt there’s no safety in love.
I should leave Bristol and all the memories it holds but I can’t let go. My life changed completely this year with the loss of everything stable in my world; I can’t face moving away from the security of the place I grew up. Not yet. I’m on temporary contracts still; a permanent job doesn’t appeal to me. I convince myself this is because I need time to decide what I want to do, but deep down I know I’m holding back from moving on.
I remember a conversation I had with Dylan—how we’d help each other move toward a new future. In the past few months, I’ve fallen backwards and so has he. I’ve returned to safe and boring, and he’s returned to the life suffocating him. Dylan is on tour in the States with the band. I’m disappointed he didn’t stand up for what he wanted, but then neither did I.
* * *
Dylan
I slump downin my seat, jet lag kicking in as the alcohol wears off. A seven-hour flight from the US and back to England for Christmas. I’m permanently dazed; the tour grind, alcohol, and Blue Phoenix scene are a huge blur. I toyed with the idea of bunkering down in my LA place for Christmas but I’m drawn back here. And I know why.
On the flight home, Sky pushes into my thoughts again. The savage ache for her returns and wraps around my insides until it fucking hurts.
Sky let down her defences and I broke her mending heart. I walked away to save us more pain but didn’t realise how enmeshed we’d become.
I didn’t leave; I ripped us apart.
I left for LA two days after Sky spoke to Lily. The prospect of dealing with all the bullshit and lies surrounding the whole fucked up incident had me running away from the UK. I always fucking run and hide—take the coward’s way out. I told myself talking to Sky was a waste of time, because whatever I tell her she’d hate the man I really am.
Leaving things unanswered was a huge mistake. One I’ve returned to England to fix.
I return to a winter when I left an English summer, hard ground to match my hardened heart. I’m not sure I can face the country estate and the inevitable invasion by the rest of the Blue Phoenix guys so I’m heading for the London place. My model and pretend girlfriend, Cressida, moved on and Myf and her partner, Miles, stay in the apartment while working in London.
I haven’t seen Myf for months—my old school friend and the band’s first groupie. She even sang backing vocals for us early on, until she got a longed-for place at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and took a completely different direction. At least with Myf in the apartment I’ll have company. I don’t want to be around the rest of the guys, but I don’t want to be alone.
Can I fix this? What if I’m too late and Sky moved on?
I’m not sure I can face her, but if I’m in the same country, I have one less excuse to hide.
