Page 129 of Fervency Love

“What am I supposed to do? He won’t budge. He’ll have to calm down first…”

“But what about our trip?”

“Nothing. Better luck next time.”

“You really think I won’t be able to convince him?”

“You’re kidding? Didn’t you hear him?”

Ve’s right. There’s no chance he will let us go now. He’ll want to punish me for acting out. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I’m not going to ask.

When he’s finished with his cigarette, he walks right by me, says goodbye to Connor, and leaves. I drag Ve to the balcony. As soon as Dad gets in his car and drives off, I light my own cigarette.

“I wanted to go so bad.”

“I know, Abby. Me too. But we can’t do anything now.”

Connor sits on the bench and stretches out his arms, putting his elbows on the windowsill behind him. He faces the sun, eyes closed.

“I’m so stupid! If I was just a little more careful, we’d be riding a train by now.”

Ve pulls me in for a hug.

“I know a couple ways to make you feel better,” he says, licking my neck.

“Yes?”

“Oh, yeah. And I’ll try one out right away.”

Chapter 65

Abby

A couple weeks later, Dad stops ranting. He even paid for my driver’s license course. Ve and I started going at the same time. He started his course a couple days after me. If all goes well, we’ll pass our exams in December. I’m so happy! It’s one of my greatest dreams—to have a driver’s license. I’m sure I’ll love driving.

I’m just worried that I’m feeling so unnecessary more often lately. Connor got used to me being there. He’s hanging around with his friends more often, doing God knows what, while he knows I’m all alone at home. It’s beginning to get tiring. Then there’s the fact he’s always late. And he’s getting so sluggish. It’s making me mad. I feel I shouldn’t press the matter or even dream of him changing. It’s just the way it is. But it’s just so frustrating when he’s late! He doesn’t respect me! I feel he doesn’t care. As if he’d rather be anywhere else. It makes me uneasy, out of my comfort zone. I lose control, and that makes me scared. I don’t know what he’s doing, if he’s lying to me. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. I think I’ll go crazy with all these thoughts! Anyway, all attempts to talk to him and explain how I’m feeling end in arguments. He thinks I’m busting his balls.It’s making me feel the way I felt before I met him. Not worthy. Worthless. I can’t stand it. I can’t deal with it.

Vacation is over. It’s time to go back to school. A couple weeks in, it’s getting really hardcore. I’m slowly starting to feel the stress of having to take all the exams. The pressure is so strong and comes from everywhere—from the teachers and the parents. Even I add to it myself. The energy of my classmates does nothing to help. Everybody cares about the exams, so the atmosphere is pretty tense. The teachers came up with the idea of a trip to the mountains. To let us blow off some steam. We’ll hike through some forests, visit some historical monuments.

It sounded so good but then they just had to mention visiting historical sites! I hate them! I prefer spending time in nature. All the old, cold, damp, and stinky places like museums, monuments, and old buildings make my skin crawl. I always feel surrounded with dark, low energies, which then makes me lose lots of time to recover. There’s this other problem, too. I need to ask my parents for the money. I don’t know if they’ll pay. The driver’s license course wasn’t cheap.

Connor and I have our ups and downs. We have some difficult moments. His constant little lies are dousing my flame. I’m burning out. There are moments I have too little enthusiasm to fight for the both of us. I don’t want to live having to constantly battle for attention and truth. There’s not much strength left in me. Sometimes I think I’m slowly giving up. With each lie, delay, case of lack of interest, the same fire he lit inside me, the heat—it cools down, leaving nothing but ash.

This year the teachers decided to mix us up. Now it’s boy and girl at every desk. They must have thought that this way we’d stop talking and start focusing on the tasks at hand. So I’m sitting with Craig. We talk all the time. I like him. Craig is completely different from Ve. He’s nice, charming, polite, always listens to me with interest, and admires me for what I say and do. He’s a bit like my grandfather.

I’ve been going to school from Nikki’s bus stop for a while now. We meet halfway and chat about everything that happened over the weekends if we haven’t seen each other. Today she’s not there. She got ill but didn’t let me know until too late, so I get off where I normally do. The times when Ve used to ride the bus with me only to see me are long gone. I gave him everything, so he got bored. Or, at least, that’s how I explain it to myself.

“Abbs!” I hear someone calling.

I turn around and see Craig. He’s waving happily. I stop and let him join me.

“Hi there, gorgeous!” he says with a smile, and I feel my insides getting all warm and fuzzy. It’s so nice when someone’s happy to see me. “Pretty day, isn’t it?”

“It’s going to be warm. I thought it would be nice to spend the day doing nothing. I’m too afraid to wander the forest alone but… Want to skip classes today?” I ask without thinking. “There’s nothing important at school today. Maybe we could go somewhere together?”

My offer clearly puzzles him, but he doesn’t hesitate for too long.

“You know what? Why not?”

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