thirty one

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“I want to melt

into you like wild honey.
you feel like summer sun.”

"Do you want me to make you some soup?" Alastair asked as we walked out of my room, into the lounge. I felt a little dizzy as I walked, but I was glad to just get out of my room. The walls were starting to suffocate me to insanity.

I glanced up at him, raising my brows.

"Do you know how to make it?"

"I don't." He replied with a small sheepish smile. "But I'm sure I can look it up."

I smiled back and shrugged, leaning a little against the kitchen counter. "Sure. Can I help?"

He pulled out a stool for me and I sat down without thinking twice, which was good since I was pretty sure my legs were about to give up on me any second now.

"You can sit down and watch." That was what he said, which wasn't something I'd categorize as help. But since I didn't know shit when it came to cooking, I decided that I'd just do what he said.

I softly pressed the tips of my sock-clad feet against the wooden floor, resting my elbows on the kitchen counter as I watched him opening different cabinets and looking around for ingredients.

"I'd help you with that," I said. "But I don't really know where Luce keeps half of the stuff."

I never had to know, not when Luce was the one who usually cooked. I barely even went inside the kitchen.

"I'll find the basic stuff." He sounded quite sure of himself, stuffing a hand in his pocket and taking out his phone, tossing it at me. It landed right between my elbows thankfully, and not on the floor. "And you do that."

"Do what?" I asked, picking up his phone.

"Find a recipe."

Not after almost half an hour, there was this mouthwatering smell wafting through the kitchen. Alastair hadn't given me much stuff to help with, except for choosing that one recipe, so there I was, leaning against the kitchen counter and my stomach grumbling in protest as I swung my feet to and fro.

"It smells good," I murmured, resting my forehead against the cool countertop. "You are surprisingly good at cooking something you haven't cooked before." Then I added after a slight pause, "Scratch that. No surprises there. You're good at everything."

"You haven't even tasted it yet."

But when I tasted it, I was right. The soup was really good. And that's saying something since I didn't necessarily enjoy soups, especially when I was sick. But this one was tastier than any soup I had ever eaten.

We both decided to watch a movie after we were done eating. It felt nice to do this, spend a normal day with him. The movie didn't really pique my interest as I leaned against him, my eyes on the screen. Alastair seemed invested though. I might've found some interest in it too if only I had cared to really watch it.

Instead, all I could do was think about those few harsh words, replaying in my head again and again. Those words I had spoken to him earlier when we were skating. He hadn't talked about it or even mentioned any of that since I woke up this morning. Almost as if it never happened.

But it did. And I knew he was trying to pretend it never happened. Either that or he was just too hurt by my words to even talk about it. None of those options made me feel any better.

There was this constant guilt in my stomach ever since I woke up, making me feel awful. I wished I could forget it. But what good would that have done? Would I rather forget about it and not apologize to him at all?

"I'm sorry." I blurted out all of a sudden, my voice coming out louder than the movie that was playing in front of us.

I tensed up just a little when I felt Alas's gaze on me, trailing away from the TV screen. Out of pure instinct, I pressed the side of my face against his arm, already thinking twice of what I was about to say.

"What...what I said that day, when we were skating, I didn't really mean any of that," I added.

He tilted his head ever so slightly before lazily dragging his arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

"The whole 'you don't trust me' part?" He asked.

Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I nodded. "You know I didn't mean that, right?"

He gave me a small smile in response before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss on the top of my head. "I know." He said, and I tried not paying attention to the slight uncertainty in his voice. That, however, doesn't mean that I didn't notice it.

I had meant that, I thought. I had meant it in the spur of the moment when I said I didn't trust him. But it wasn't that I was scared he might break my trust. It was the fear of holding onto that trust, enough to tear myself open, enough to give everything of myself. It terrified me to trust someone because I always opened up a little too much.

But how was I not supposed to trust him? How was I not supposed to trust him when he was the one who pulled me out of that lake? When he was the one who didn't sleep the whole night, looking after me just because he thought it was all his fault? 

How was I not supposed to trust him when he kept telling me, reminding me, that he loved me so much?

I'll tear myself open, I thought, just one more time. For him.

I pulled away from Alastair before fully facing him, and took hold of his hand that had been around my waist. He just passed me a questioning look.

"He was someone I liked." I blurted out for the second time during that moment.

He raised his brows slowly, looking confused. "He?"

"Noah." I was anxious. I could feel my stomach knotting itself, my head telling me that I was a fool. Not because I was finally trying to open up to Alastair, but because I was still holding onto this little broken piece of me, not letting myself move on.

But how did one move on so easily?

Alastair looked surprised. "Ophelia, you don't have to--"

"No." I shook my head, cutting him off. "I need you to know that I do trust you, Alas. What I said back there was just me trying to push you away. That wasn't...I really don't want that."

He blinked, his gaze slowly darting across my face.

"I know," He said. "But that doesn't mean you have to feel pressured into telling me something you don't want to talk about."

He was right. I knew he was.

"Please," I whispered, pleading. "Just...let me try."

This was a first and it scared me, but if it lessened the guilt inside me, I was willing to do it.

"Okay." He said, a little slower this time, his brows furrowed as he leaned back on the couch. He wasn't looking at me anymore, but I felt the tiny squeeze of his hand. "Go on."

So I gathered up the courage and finally told him things that I spent years running away from.

"He...He was in the same grade as me. One of the golden boys. You know, the ones who are just...perfect. And popular. And just amazing." I wasn't looking at him but down at my lap, my fingers nervously fidgeting within his hold.

"So you've got a type," He responded. I looked up at him and saw the smile lightening the tense atmosphere. "You fall for the wrong guys."

I blinked and looked back down at my lap.

"I don't," I whispered. "You're the right one."

I didn't even get a second to register what he was about to do when he straightened up from his leaning position, tugging onto my hand and practically pulling me on his lap. My heart nearly lurched out of my chest in surprise as I gripped the couch behind him, almost straddling him.

"Did you just call me a golden boy?" He asked me with a lazy grin tugging across his lips, his arm slowly snaking its way around my waist.

My eyes were wide and my lips parted in surprise. Placing my hands on his chest, I managed to shove him just a little.

"Alas," I hissed. I actually did. "You've got to give me some type of...warning before doing these things."

He smiled and leaned closer. "I think that would take away the element of surprise."

I could only frown in response. "You're...you're trying to divert my attention."

The look in his eyes turned warmer and softer.

"Is it working?"

"You can't do that," I whispered with the same frown, relaxing involuntarily as his fingers trailed up the sides of my waist through my sweater, slowly, softly. "I-I was trying, Alas."

He leaned even closer and I felt his lips brush against the side of my head, making me close my eyes.

"I know, baby." He whispered in my ear. "I just hate seeing you all tensed up."

I slouched against him, my forehead resting on his shoulder, my eyes still closed. "I'm not tense."

"I know." He wrapped both of his arms fully around my waist. "You can continue now."

I don't know how or why, but it felt a tad bit easier to talk about Noah now. I didn't feel as anxious as I felt a few seconds ago. Maybe Alastair knew that. He knew things about me that I didn't even know.

I am safe here, I told myself. In his arms, I was safe.

"I don't really know how it happened. It was...it happened so fast, which should've been a big clue for me." I murmured a little sadly. "But I'm stupid."

"You're not." I felt his head dip along the curve of my neck, his lips softly pressing there.

"I was stupid." I shook my head lightly. "We became good friends. Noah and I. Nora too, my...ex-best friend. I knew it was foolish of me to like him when I knew I wasn't the type of girl he could ever like back. But I still liked him. Because he was nice, not just with me, but with everyone. We used to spend a...lot of time together. Not at school, but outside. He used to sometimes show up at Mum's shop, and even Mum loved having him around."

I pressed a little closer and Alastair let me.

"Then he came to me one day during one of those theater shows we had in our school, and he told me that he liked me. He told me that he had liked me for a very long time. I thought it would be a random thing, one of those flings he had with almost every girl in our school. But we started spending even more time together then. Even at school." I stopped, before forcing myself to speak again. 

"We...we didn't move onto labels. I never cared, and he never asked me for it either. And then one day he told me that he wanted to take me out. I was surprised. Obviously. Because I liked him. I thought I loved him. And just thinking he felt the same way about me made me so happy. So I agreed on that little date."

"Where he took me should've been another clue for me. After all, I've read so many sad books like that." I whispered, a little glad that I didn't have to speak it any louder since Alastair was right there with me.

"He took me to a club. A really loud, fancy club. It surprised me because I was pretty sure he knew I hated clubs and parties. But he seemed unfazed. So I sucked it up. And we had fun. We talked, and he even asked me for a dance. But then...then a girl came up to him and I recognized her from my school. She used to have an on and off affair with him, with Noah. And apparently, Noah brought me there on that date because he thought he could make her jealous enough to come back to him."

I fell quiet. I think I even felt Alastair tensing a little against me.

I let out a small, bitter laugh, muffling it against his hoodie.

"He used me to get her back." I shrugged. "I didn't understand why back then. Because I thought I loved him, and when you love someone you just forget for a second that they could be wrong too. It hadn't occurred to me even once that he might be faking it. I asked him why he did it. I just...I just wanted to know why. He told me that it all happened because I was an easy target."

"He told me that he did like me. But just as a friend. And all those months he hung out with me, pretending that he actually really liked me, was to just get her back. That other girl." My voice fell down to a whisper and I felt Alastair tightening his arms around me. "It hurt because I should've seen that coming, but I didn't. He even...he even had the nerve to tell me that I couldn't really be serious about this. That I took things seriously way too easily."

You aren't really anyone's type, Lia, I remembered him saying. And then laughing. Come on, he had joked, why would anyone want to date a girl named Ophelia?

I took a slight pause before continuing again.

"It pained me. Because I loved him. I thought I loved him. But as time passed by, I realized I never really loved him. I just...loved the idea of him. And even if he did love me, it would have gone away anyway, that feeling. Love is the last thing you should hold on to. That's what I...that's what I told myself."

I stopped again because I could somehow still feel it. The ache I had felt after that one day, the pain he had left me with. It disgusted me that I could still feel it. It disgusted me because I still couldn't move on from it. And maybe Noah was right. Maybe this was why no one could ever love me. Because I felt too much, too fast.

"We stopped talking after that. He was still perfect, he still had everything. But we were never the same." I murmured, closing my eyes. "Disgust, that's how he continued looking at me whenever we crossed paths. I was the girl no one could ever...love."

I felt Alastair's lips against my ear, pulling me closer. "That's not true."

It was, I wanted to say. Back then it was so true.

"All that took a huge toll on me," I said instead, my voice lowering down to a whisper. "And then...yeah, Nora stopped being friends with me too. I mean, I never really blamed her for never being there for me, not when I never told her anything about what happened with Noah. But it still hurt me a little when I found out that Noah had started dating her. My best friend."

"What?" Alastair asked, his voice laced with disbelief, surprise, confusion, anger--so many emotions that it took me a while to reply back.

"Yeah. I was pushing away a lot of people at that time. So when she started choosing other people over me, making friends who were better than me, it shouldn't have surprised me." I continued. "But it did. Everything seemed to be crumbling around me."

I shifted a little when tears stung in my eyes. "I wasn't fixing anything. I was doing the exact opposite. I was...disgusted by myself."

Alastair seemed to tense a little more.

"Don't say that." He whispered in my hair.

I could just shake my head in response. Because it was true. I still sometimes felt like that. I still sometimes couldn't stop myself from feeling that disgust, all at myself.

"I tried talking to Mum and Dad, but they were...always so busy fighting with each other. They fought a lot those days. Everything Mum did seemed to irk Dad." I sniffled. "My sister and I were never really close so I didn't know how to talk to her either."

"I could have talked to Luce, but I didn't want to burden her. She would've told Mum anyway. And my parents, well, they were just too much into their own shit to give a fuck about me. When they did though, it was mostly to tell me how much thin I was getting, or that I wasn't eating enough." I continued.

I still vaguely remembered how I started thinking back then that I had some sort of an eating disorder. I had wanted to believe in that. At least that way I would've had a label to put onto all my useless, pathetic issues.

"Everyone started telling me that. They used to do that before too, but now it just started hurting my head even more; their comments about my eating habits. Everything started to feel like it was being aimed at me. I didn't care if I ate or not. I just stopped feeling hungry, or happy, or like I enjoyed doing anything." I blinked down at my hands, my head still resting against Alastair's shoulder.

"I'd spend loads of days in my bed. I cried a lot, all the time. I stopped seeing the good things. It was always either the bad things or nothing at all. Everything I tried to do seemed useless."

Then I breathed in a heavy sigh, pulling away from him so that we were face to face. Alastair looked at me with a small frown on his face, looking just as unhappy as I felt. Except that his unhappiness was more towards the angry side. Mine was mostly towards the sad side.

"I..." I trailed off, not sure how to say it. This part right here, this was one of the reasons I hated myself so much.

Gripping the corner of my left sweater sleeve, I pulled it up, all until it reached my elbow. And then I stared at the faded scars, running just below my elbow.

"I started cutting myself," I whispered.

Alastair blinked in surprise, his hands going still around my waist. And then he was gripping my wrist, not harshly, but enough to show me the surprise he felt at that moment.

"Ophelia." He whispered so softly, staring right at the spot where most of the cut marks were. They were faint, but still present to remind me of those times that I would give anything to forget.

I shrugged helplessly.

"Most people do that," I said. "I thought...it'd take away all of my messed up thoughts too."

He looked near horrified now, his grip tightening just a fraction around my wrist.

"Fuck." He spoke up, his eyes wide. "That's not...you don't just do things because others do them too."

"I am aware of that." I looked down, away from his eyes when I felt my face heating up. "It didn't fix things for me. It would just hurt more. I didn't...understand why people did this when it'll only make it hurt more."

"Because people are fucked up, Ophelia." His eyes were still wide. "They are fucking messed up."

"It diverted my head from things, though," I whispered, still not looking at him. I couldn't really look at him. Saying the truth out loud felt like a relief, but sometimes it made you feel small. Really small. "Not directly, but it helped."

"Don't say that."

"I mean it." I looked up at him then. "It helped. Whenever things got too much, whenever I felt like I could never belong anywhere, I used to cut. Because that told me that I deserved the pain. It was...it was a sort of punishment, and I was aware of how self-destructive that was, but I couldn't stop."

I breathed out a dry laugh, rubbing my face with my hands.

"I was so disgusted by myself," I said. "I don't think I've ever hated myself more than at that time."

I felt him pushing my hands away, cupping my face and making me look at him. He looked furious. "Don't say that."

"It is the truth." I shrugged, feeling a little empty.

"No, it bloody isn't." He clenched his jaw, his gaze boring into my own. "Those people made you think that way. They made you believe in lies. You don't deserve that."

"I know," I murmured, softly fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie between my fingers. "I know that now. I didn't...know it back then."

"You know what I think you deserve?"

I raised my brows questioningly, feeling a small smile curve on my lips.

"I want to say the whole world but I think we both know how fucking toxic

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