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“I love you, but my love is toxic. I’m no good, and no matter how many promises I make, no matter how many chances you give me, it’s not going to stop. I’m smart enough to know that. So…I’m sorry. Fuck. I amsosorry.”
Gabe bowed his head. “I am too.”
To Oliver’s surprise, that was it. Gabe turned and walked off, and against his very nature, against the fierce craving living in his bones, Oliver didn’t call him back. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe until he couldn’t hear the echo of Gabe’s shoes on the concrete.
And only then, in the silence of the early morning, was he certain it was over.
Twenty
Oliver glanced down at his phone and sighed. He was just finishing up the last bit of his research, but it was time to get Leo from his afternoon session. Clicking the save button, he shut his laptop and glanced around his flat. Keys on the table and a half-finished cup of tea perched on the counter, there wasn’t much he needed to do.
Standing up, he stretched his arms high above his head, his shirt riding up, and he drew his hand down his belly. They’d been in London now for almost a year. Leo had put up a huge fight initially, but by the time Ren left the hospital, Leo was committed to his recovery and Oliver was packing.
He withdrew from the university, he sold most of their possessions in a massive, too-cheap yard-sale, and he wrestled with the desire to see Gabe one last time. But in the week between Leo’s hospitalization and their flight back to the UK, he hadn’t heard from his ex.
Not that he expected to, but Oliver hadn’t anticipated how awful it would feel to lose him like that. It was like cutting off his own limb or carving out a kidney. He could live without it, but the pain was almost unbearable. Every time he left the house, he felt a twisting in his gut. He didn’t know what he’d do if he ran into Gabe, yet found himself creeping by his ex’s usual haunts.
Gabriel wasn’t anywhere to be found, though. Even when Oliver was brave enough to go by the café and the bookshop, they were devoid of the curly-haired man. It left him aching and sore, wanting, but maybe it was for the best.
When they first arrived in London, it had been tougher than he thought it would be. It no longer felt like home. In spite of never losing his own accent, he could hear them now on other people. He’d grown accustomed to the funny culture of the Californians, and he missed the heady, warm smells of the Pacific Ocean. He missed the easy smiles and casual conversation he could make with anyone he passed by.
The cold, English culture of not making eye contact and strict, polite matters left him feeling more alone than he had in so long.
Even knowing his mother was dead and buried, no longer able to hurt him, he was still afraid of the city. Afraid of what it could turn him into, and the damage it could inflict.
But Leo was getting better. He spent ninety days in an inpatient facility where he received medication for his withdrawals, and therapy for his addiction. Oliver visited as often as he was allowed and really, it was the light in Leo’s eyes returning that inspired him to go ahead with his own therapy.
His father arranged for it, a therapist who specialized in treatment of adults who were dealing with traumatic childhoods.It won’t matter now, he told himself.She’s dead, it won’t be a scandal,he repeated over and over, and she can’t hurt you anymore.
It hadn’t been easy. He was angry at first, and his instinct to shut himself off—to pretend it hadn’t hurt him—kicked in. But several weeks in and the anger turned into pain, which was something he could work through. It distracted him from missing Gabe, and it allowed him to work past the trauma it caused.
He’d never be cured, he realized. He would never be a person who hadn’t been tortured and abused, but he could stop letting it control his life. He could stop being afraid of people getting close to him.
When Leo was finally released, the siblings used the money from their mother’s flat sale to get their own in Hampstead. It was a nice place, small but cozy, close to shops and to the University campus. They started off slow, of course. Oliver only had one term of lectures left before his dissertation was due. Leo was only a year away from finishing his bachelors, and with the end goals in sight, they both suddenly felt like productive people.
Like they were finally able to move on with their lives.
Oliver got a job working for an online publication, had been doing well enough there for the past six months and, to his great surprise, started dating. It was the moment he realized he was moving on, that he was letting himself. He had entertained ideas of running back to the States, to find Gabriel and have a profound moment. The slow run across the beach. Sailing off into the sunset.
It was when Sam’s eyes met his and Oliver found himself saying yes to the invite out for a drink that he realized there would never be his cliché happy ending.
Six months later, he realized he could probably be happy with that.
Maybe not with Sam, maybe their relationship wasn’t forever, but Oliver needed that moment to let everything in his past go.
Pulling up to the curb, Oliver sent Leo a text and a moment later, his sibling breezed out of the building. He looked much better than he ever had, putting on several pounds making Oliver realize just how skinny and sickly he’d always looked. He was wearing a long black skirt and AC/DC t-shirt, his hair still clipped short, though the top was longer and falling elegantly over one eye. He had a smear of pink lipstick across his mouth, and his white teeth shone with a smile when he spotted Oliver waiting.
“Been here long?” Leo asked, climbing in and slamming the door.
Oliver shook his head as he turned into the impossibly slow London traffic. “Nah. Just pulled up. How did everything go?”
“Good,” Leo said. “I think they’re going to let me intern at the end of this term, which would be brilliant.” He leaned back in his seat, looking out at the low clouds. “Funny how people with issues like ours go into therapy, innit?”
Oliver snorted. “Who better to coach you through problems than someone who’s actually been there, eh?”
Leo smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t you wonder how many of them actually have their shit together, though? I certainly haven’t been well long enough to feel qualified to tell people how to manage their lives.”
Oliver shrugged, pulling behind a row of cars, and sighed at the long wait. “I guess. I just think it’s easier to sort out other people’s problems than your own. I mean think about it, you’ve got the outside perspective with the inside experience. I think you’re going to be brilliant.”
