Page 61 of Just Forever

Loneliness.

I’m lonely.

It takes me even longer to come to terms with the fact that this really is what this feeling is. That I’m not just alone. That it’s not that at all. That really, I’m… lonely.

Because that can’t be right. I don’t do that. I’ve been alone most of my life, for fuck’s sake!

I mean, you really haven’t.

I so have! My parents pretty much?—

Yeah, yeah, your parents washed their hands of you a long time ago. It’s all very sad and traumatic, yadda, yadda, yadda, and cue sad trombone music. Womp womp.

That’s a bit harsh.

What’s harsh is to always be all, ‘oh I’m so independent. I can do it all on my own because I don’t have anybody else in my life,’ all while conveniently forgetting that you’ve always had Ryker, Rach, and Sawyer. And Kelly, too, for the last few years.

I blink at the ceiling.

The mean me is right.

I’ve never actually been lonely. Hell, arguably, I have more family than a lot of other people.

I’ve never had that moment when I don’t know what to do with myself because I’ve had Rachel, Sawyer, and Kelly right by my side. And Ryker. Always Ryker. Stubbornly sticking by mewhile I did my level best not to acknowledge what an important part of my life he’s always been.

I think… the reason I’ve always been good at being alone is thatit’s always been voluntary. I’ve always had the option to stop being alone.

Until now.

And it’s not like there isn’t a solution. I could easily go out and make friends. Okay, so maybe not easily, but I do have Paige’s standing invite to that bar, so that’s technically a start.

A start that comes with complications.

I’ve always been out. At least for the part of my life when it has mattered. I came out to my mother a long time ago, and I’ve never looked back. It hasn’t always been sunshine and roses, but I’ve always had the luxury of telling everybody who didn’t like me to fuck off, and then I got to walk away.

But now there’s Ryker.

And I have to pretend.

And hide.

And I don’tknowhow to do that.

I’ve never had to before.

I blow out a breath and rub my palms over my face.

It sounds exhausting. Trying to get to know new people and then navigating what I can and what I definitely can’t say.

It’s just… It takes a lot of energy to hide who you are from the world. I never realized it quite as acutely as I do now, after two years of pretending. Pretending that Ryker is just my roommate and not the man I love.

It’s not even that I’m an especially big fan of PDA. It’s not as though most people go about their business and just randomly start groping each other in the middle of the street. It’s not like I would do that even if I could.

It’s that hiding makes me paranoid. It makes me suspect people somehow know all those things I’m not saying orshowing. That the people on the subway can read my thoughts when I’m sitting next to Ryker, which means I’m abnormally aware and abnormally careful.

It’s exhausting to be careful all the time.

Fucking hell! I sound so whiny and overly dramatic that it’d frankly be embarrassing if my brain weren’t so busy being whiny and overly dramatic.