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And I think that maybe—just maybe, I’m not alone.
For the next two weeks I see nor hear nothing of Archer. He’s not in school, and he doesn’t spontaneously appear in my kitchen. Every night I stare at his name in my contacts, debating if I should just call him, but every night I tell myselfIf he wanted to, he wouldand flick my phone on silent. I go to sleep with the hope that I’ll wake to a message from him, but every morning is the same: deflation and disappointment, but also relief. Because a small part of me doesn’t want him to reach out. He’d only make me feel bad about what happened, and I don’t want that.
But despite everything, I don’t regret it. I don’t regret anything. Getting to know him, losing my virginity to him. Because although my fingers still ache and my scalp still screams and my throat still scrapes, the moments we shared were special. Just because someone does bad things doesn’t mean you can’t find goodness in them, and I believe I found them in Archer Toban.
Each day my mind remembers the good things about him, like when he stood up for me in the kebab house, when he walked me home from work, when he fucked me in the back of his car and how he looked at me like I was the sun in a night sky, how his voice caught when he told me about what his mum did to him and the press of his hand in mine as we faced her together. Every time my mind remembers those things, it tries to convince me they outweigh every awful thing he did, and I shut down the thoughts.
But as time goes on, I start to feel glad about what happened. It was my scapegoat. My one-way ticket. I would never have broken up with him if Chase hadn’t intervened; I would’ve kept finding a new excuse to abstain the inevitable.
Sometimes you have to let people do the things you’re afraid to do, and that’s okay.
For the past two weeks I’ve been in this insufferable stupor, my mind caught up on Archer, but one day I just wake and decide to paint my ceiling. I bin my stars—most don’t even work anymore—tear down my posters, and cover everything with tarp I find in the garage. I paint it orange, but with each stroke, a new idea pops up, and I make a quick bus journey to the nearest DIY centre because I literally can’t contain this energy, this sudden excitement.
Red and yellow and black. It takes me hours, practically all day in-between painting and waiting for layers to dry. I barely eat, and I shovel down a bowl of cereal because cooking will take too long, and then I’m painting again.
I’m no artist, but I love drawing. I love the concentration it brings, every thought and feeling honed into one singular stroke of a pencil. Everything else melts away.
When the sun sinks and shadows gather around my room, I wipe my hands on my joggers and step back to survey my masterpiece.
Okay, it’s definitelynota masterpiece because that tree looks like a hairy penis, but I’m proud of it.
Sunset sky with the towering silhouettes of trees, and behind it all, in the far distance, the rise of a mountain. And although it’s beautiful, my only thought is that I’m going to have to sleep on the sofa because the fumes will probably kill me.
But when I stare up at it the next night, the mountain seems so far away—and yet, if I reach out just enough, I can touch it. I fall asleep with the outline of the mountain printed on the insides of my lids, and it’s the first thing I see when I wake. A reminder that, however far away I seem from that climb, I still stand at the base of it, and that’s okay.
Each day I discover more things about myself. I don’t actually like blue anymore—and I ignore the quiet voice telling me it’s because of the blue of Archer’s eyes—but burgundy. I listen to the birds sing and I make it my life’s work to tell species apart. I try my hand at poetry, and even though I’m shit at it, I realise it can be anything—that’s the beauty of poetry; it bends to your will and lends itself to whatever you’re feeling. I invest in scented candles and watch videos on how to construct a bookshelf, and I paint the shelves black and adorn them with white lights and finally—finally—I unpack the boxes of the books Ihaveread.
A warmth settles in the pit of my stomach as I run my fingers over the cracked spines. I flip them open and sniff the pages, because that’s just what you’re supposed to do, and they smell like everything they made me feel when I read them. Like home.
I’m surprised how long it takes me to position them on my shelves. Even as I’m curled up in bed, I glare at them, unsatisfied, and I throw off the covers to right them. I decide to put the hardbacks on their own shelf because they look ugly next to my paperbacks—
Great Expectationsflops facedown, and I bite my lip.
If that isn’t a sign telling me to pick it up, then I don’t know what is. I weigh it in my hand, feeling the ridges on its spine. It’s clearly loved, but to me, unread, it’s just a vessel. A shell of potential. I glance lovingly at my favourite book, smiling like an idiot, and I remember how I felt exactly the same about it before I read it—and then, when I finished it, I’d look over at it and relive the part that broke me, and I’d feel everything, like a bone snapping over and over and over again.
And I hope this book breaks me too.
I light a gingerbread candle and curl up. I open to the first chapter and go still.
The first line is highlighted in orange.
Chasehas highlighted it.Andhe’s scribbled little inscriptions in the margins. His writing is too elaborate for me to decipher, but I wonder if I should be reading this book at all. It seems like an invasion of his privacy, seeing the words that resonate with him.
But he gave me this book. He wants me to read it. He knows I’ll see the highlighted phrases.
He’s given me this small piece of him, something he probably doesn’t show anyone else.
And suddenly, this book no longer feels like a story; it feels like a diary.
Chase’s diary.
I didn’t intend to read through most of the night, but I don’t even realise the hours pass by until it turns light outside and the birds chirp their morning song. I’ve read half a book, and I didn’t notice how much I missed this—living this dream, falling in love with fictional characters and never wanting to return to reality. I’ve been telling myselfjust one more chapterfor about five hours now, and I have school today, and my eyes burn—
Someone knocks on my door, and I jolt awake. Something thuds to the floor.
‘Frankie,’ my dad calls. ‘You’re going to miss the bus.’
I squint at the sunlight streaming in, the book propped open on the floor, and—
