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I could easily picture him, tense and worried, and it brought a lump to my throat. I hated the thought of him hurting. Things would be so much easier if we didn’t feel so strongly for one another. Was it better to end it now, before we’d even really started? It would save heartbreak down the line.
Me:
It’s clear they disapprove but I won’t make any decisions without you
I attempted to return to my coursework, losing myself in the library stacks, but my concentration was non-existent.
It was just under an hour before Cole sent me another text, and I had a total of two lines of notes in my notepad.
Cole:
OK I’m free now. Can we meet? I said I was feeling sick and they let me go
Me:
Meet at Jubilee Gardens
Cole:
Coming now
Leaving the LSU library, I headed for Jubilee Gardens, a green outdoor space close to the London Eye. It was warm for the time of year, and there were more tourists than usual. Still, it wasn’t anywhere near as busy as it was in the peak summer season, and I easily found a patch of grass to slump down on. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I sent Cole a text to let him know where I was and then attempted to lose myself in my surroundings.
It was a wasted attempt. I couldn’t help thinking about everything that had happened, and it led me to one conclusion that made me sick to my stomach. We’d been naive, hadn’t we? How could we expect to have a relationship where we had to keep everything hidden away from every single person in our lives, a relationship where our own parents would be disgusted with us if they ever found out?
“Hi.” Cole collapsed down next to me, his voice soft and hesitant. His face was so serious, and I knew we were both on the same page. A page neither of us wanted to be on, but sometimes life was fucking shit and fucked you over.
“Hi. We should talk.” It was the hardest sentence I’d ever had to say, and yet somehow I managed it without my voice cracking.
Cole gave a jerky nod, which hurt way more than I thought it would. He swallowed a couple of times, his gaze intent on the grass at his feet. “I know what you’re going to say. What needs to be said. Maybe this has gone as far as it should. Maybe we should end it before it goes anywhere.”
“Before it properly begins. Before our parents find out.” I was agreeing with his words, but inside I was fucking breaking apart.
“Yeah. Before we get in too deep. We know what our parents’ feelings are. Do we want to jeopardise family relations and their happiness?”
It wasn’t even a question because we both knew the answer.
“We did this once before. Maybe we shouldn’t have started things back up again,” I whispered.
Fuck. It hurt so much to do this. Both of us were hurting, not just me.
He glanced up at me, and I knew the look of devastation in his eyes would haunt me for a long time.
I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see his pain.
So he didn’t have to see mine.
Behind my eyelids, it burned.
27
The sixth balled-up piece of paper joined the others on my bedroom floor. This was fucking ridiculous. I was supposed to be composing a song I could share with the rest of the band at our next practice, because Tom wanted us to start gradually incorporating more of our own music to our social media. I had enough song lyrics written down that it should’ve been easy, but my muse had deserted me. Had left me high and dry since I’d come to that agreement with Cole. An agreement I regretted every single day, even though I told myself it was for the best.
Picking up the pen again, I closed my eyes, pushing everything else aside. Songs. Lyrics. The band.
Fucking focus, Huxley.
But all I could see behind my eyelids was him.
