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Tears stung, surprising me. Flashes of the worst day of my life filled my mind. I’d felt as if I was being flayed alive, burned alive, butchered into screaming still-alive pieces. I’d wanted to die. Yet I hadn’t been given that salvation.
My voice was cool as I said, “Not yet. There are a few things to come before that day.”
“Can you tell us now...please? I can’t handle the suspense,” Margot whispered.
“Soon. First, let me tell you what I stupidly did after I found that condom.”
I sighed heavily, wishing I could reach through time and slap my sixteen-year-old self. “So many hurts coursed through me and the only medicine I could swallow was anger. Self-preserving anger that set in motion my first mistake.
“I couldn’t stay on The Fluke after I’d found evidence of Aslan trying to move on from me. Instead, I cycled to Zara’s house. She welcomed me in as she always did. We were best friends growing up and in many of the same classes. She wanted to be a teacher and her older brother, Joel, wanted to shape surfboards for a living and travel the world on the surfing championship circuit.
“She never knew how I felt about Aslan, but she knew I’d had a crush on Joel and I used that to my advantage. I’m not proud of what I did. Like I said, I let hurt control my actions. But as I had dinner that night with Zara and her family, I rubbed my toes against Joel’s bare ankle under the table and willingly went with him when he snuck outside later that night, waiting for me around the back of the house.”
I flinched. “The one boy I wanted to kiss me was the only boy to refuse me, so...I made do with second best. I told Joel I’d made a mistake when I said I didn’t want to be with him when we camped together in Daintree. I asked if he was still single. I asked if he still wanted me. And I felt sick because he was a nice boy and deserved a nice girl who didn’t harbour feelings for another. He grinned and admitted he still had a huge crush on me, that he still wanted me, and wanted to make it official before I could change my mind again.
“He kissed me by the rubbish bins before proudly taking my hand and pulling me back inside. Unlike Aslan who did his utmost to hide how he felt about me from my parents, Joel wrapped his arms around me, revealed the extent of how much he liked me, and announced to his family that we were officially dating.
“Zara was ecstatic. She’d wanted me to be with her brother ever since that camping trip. She believed I’d become her sister one day. And Joel? Well, he was the best consolation prize I could’ve asked for. I still feel guilty for what I did to him. Still feel bad that while he was falling in love with me, I’d already fallen for someone else.
“I went home that night with two emotions. One of despair that Aslan might’ve lied to me about sleeping with someone and one of righteous rage that he might’ve been with someone, but now, so was I. Joel was my boyfriend, and it was only a matter of time before we slept together.”
“Oh no...so Aslan wasn’t your first, after all? Please tell me he was your second and your last,” Margot whispered sadly.
I swallowed another mouthful of chilled vodka, wincing. There wasn’t an easy answer to that question, so I continued with the story. “The first time I invited Joel around to my house for dinner, Aslan looked like he’d die at the table. The second time, Joel came to watch a movie, and we snuggled on the couch. Poor Aslan only lasted a few minutes before marching out the door and vanishing into the garden. The third time, my mum sat me down and had ‘the talk’. She’d already given me the main details, but this was different. This was her offering to take me to the doctor to go on the pill. It was her setting new rules for her rapidly growing daughter. I wasn’t forbidden from having Joel around. In fact, Dad rather liked him and only had one strict rule that whenever Joel was in my bedroom, my door remained firmly open.”
I blinked at the two reporters, not enjoying how this part of my life made me sound. “You have to understand, I didn’t willingly do this to hurt Aslan. Of course, he was absolutely traumatised, and I wish I could go back and change things, but I truly did enjoy Joel’s company. He was like a male version of Zara, and I loved her very much. So even though my relationship with Joel started off with lies on my part, I truly did grow to care for him.”
“As much as you cared for Aslan?” Margot asked, her eyes sad and lips downturned.
I laughed quietly. “I could love any number of men or women. I could marry another. I could make a life with another. But there will never, not in a thousand years, ever be someone who will come close to the way I care for Aslan. Aslan is my other half. My mirroring piece. Life gave me my soulmate when I was just twelve, not caring that we weren’t ready.”
I gave Margot a smile right from my experience and my heart. “The only way I can describe it is: Aslan is Aslan. And everyone else...isn’t.”
“I can’t lie and say that doesn’t make me happy.” Margot sniffed. “I’m so mad at you for being with someone else, but...you were young and hurt—”
“I was young and stupid. I should’ve just talked to him. But alas, that is what stupidity does to a person...it hides the clearest, most logical path. Instead of telling Aslan how hurt I was finding the condom and how much I wanted to believe he ached for me and only me, I didn’t have the strength. What if he told me he’d been sleeping with half the town? What if he told me, to my face with no room for doubt, that he truly wasn’t in love with me?
“I wouldn’t have survived it. The depth of love I had for him terrified me. It still does. A single emotion has the power to twist my stomach, crack my bones, and rip out my heart. I honestly believed I’d die from how much I loved him, and I think he felt the same. That was why we clung to the shore a little longer. Why we played those stupid games. Because...the moment we let our love wash us away, we’d drown. Everything would change. Everything would come crashing down, and...we weren’t ready.”
I rubbed my chest and finished my drink. The alcohol didn’t soothe my inner turmoil and I placed the goblet back on the tray before balling my hands. “I dated Joel for fourteen months. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday with him and inched ever closer to eighteen. I lost my virginity in his bed when his parents were away, all while Zara was in her room getting hot and heavy with Hadleigh. I waited for the lance of pain as he entered me, but the sharp sting from my body was nothing compared to the wrenching wound in my heart.”
“That must’ve been so hard.” Margot sighed. “To lose your innocence to someone who wasn’t the boy you truly loved.”
I spun my ring. Spinning, spinning, always spinning. “At the time, I thought it was the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. But it soon turned out to be one of the easiest.”
Margot sucked in a breath. Dylan waved his hand for me to keep going, impatience in his gaze.
I looked away. “I was thankful Joel didn’t know I choked on tears instead of lust. I closed my eyes and gave him my body, all while Aslan kept my heart firmly trapped in his aptly named lion paws. But then...”
I trailed off and looked up, once again surprised to find two reporters and not the burning black stare of my beloved.
The way Aslan would just look at me.
God.
It killed me every time.
I looked back now and could pinpoint what was different about him to every other boy.
