Page 88 of The Truth About Love

When he finally speaks, I almost wish he hadn’t with the hurricane of emotions his words awaken within me. “It doesn’t matter how much time passes between us, if you need me, I will always come for you.”

“I didn’t need you.”

It’s a lie and he knows it as well as I do.

Because the truth is, I’ve felt more at peace since he’s been here than I have in half a decade. Sure, his presence hasn’t magically stopped me cutting the bottoms of my feet or slipping pills into my mouth to help me sleep at night, but I can’t deny that life looks a little brighter now that he’s back in it. The darkness isn’t so dark. My hollowness isn’t so empty. It’s as if he’s poured caulk over the holes in my heart and slowly started to piece my shattered edges back together.

I may not have ever admitted it to myself before, but I did need him.

And he came.

“Why?” I whisper, looking down at my lap. “Why would you still want to help me after what I did to you? Why would you agree to move in with me when we haven’t been in touch for so long?”

I’m so confused. It’s like I’m submerged in cold water. Every answer he gives me only serves to pull me further beneath the waves. Every question I ask only perplexes me further. Nothing he says is making sense to me.

Auden stands and walks to me, holding out his hand to help me up.

“You may not have been in touch with me, but?” he pauses, closing his eyes and inhaling a breath, “I’ve always been in touch with you.”

I shake my head, blinking. “What does that even mean?”

“I’ve called your sister every month at least since the day you left.” My mouth falls open at his confession, but he doesn’t give me a chance to respond before carrying on. “At first, I told myself it was simply to make sure your injuries were healing okay, that you were recovering from the accident, but when a year had passed and I was still calling, I realised I couldn’t keep using that as an excuse anymore. I guess the simple truth of it is that I was an addict. You were my drug and I couldn’t go cold turkey just because you’d decided to take yourself away from me. So, I’d torture myself every few weeks by calling Winter, if only to hear your name said out loud by someone who wasn’t me. She’d give me some abridged version of whatever you were doing and I’d be happy just to imagine you sitting in class at college or eating pistachio ice cream until I needed a fix of you again. I guess it just became habit after a while. Those phone calls with Winter became so entrenched in my routine that it would have been impossible to stop them. I’d make her tell me if you were going through dark patches and the urge to come to you and take away your pain would wither me, but I never did. Not until she asked me to. Not until now.”

I suck in a lungful of air only to still feel breathless.

All this time he’s been using my sister to keep tabs on me. I chew at the corner of my fingernail as I consider how I should react to that. Though, honestly, I don’t even know what to think right now, much less what my response should be. The inside of my brain is a patchwork of undecipherable emotions.

I don’t even have the mental capacity to be pissed at Winter for going behind my back for so long.

My thoughts are occupied by the fact that everything he’s just said was in past tense.You were my drug.My brain’s only focus is how I wish he’d used “are” instead of “were”. Because he’s not the only one who had an addiction. I guess the difference is that my need for him never lessened at all.

“You’re wrong.”

Now it’s his turn to be confused. His eyes narrow, searching my face for meaning and coming up empty. But I take a few moments to breathe before I say what’s on my mind, the coming confession one that I thought I’d never have to make. No one knows this. Not even Winter.

“You said I didn’t keep in touch with you. You were wrong. I did.”

“What?”

“Your football games. I once made you a promise that I’d never miss one.” I stumble over the words as my throat constricts. “I didn’t break it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I watched you, Auden, at every game. I came to every single one. From the first game of the season in senior year to the last one you ever played in college, I was there. I still don’t understand football at all, or even enjoy watching it to be entirely honest, but I’d made you a promise and I wanted to keep it. God knows I owed you at least that.”

He leans into me as I’m talking, focusing on my lips as I talk.

“I actually thought you saw me once,” I continue, “when you played the Florida Knights and scored the winning touchdown at the eleventh minute of the last quarter”

He’d looked straight at me. I was in the stands, wearing his high school football jersey that he’d given me pretty early on in our relationship. It was the wrong colours for the Gators, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I had his name on my back. I was there for him, not the team. Only him.

It was just after he’d scored that touchdown. I’d watched with a smile on my face as he’d celebrated with his teammates and then with a broken heart as he blew some redheaded cheerleader a kiss across the field. Then his gaze had swung over the stands and caught mine.

That moment was one that seemed to never end though likely didn’t last more than a second or two. It was like the thousands of people around us disappeared, their figures blurring in my vision until I was unable to make out the shape of them at all. It was just Auden and I in that stadium, our eyes locked on one another for the first time since we’d broken up.

But then one of his teammates clapped him on the shoulder and the moment was broken. He didn’t look in my direction again.

“I did.” His voice is so quiet I can hardly hear it at all. “I thought all this time that I’d imagined you, but I didn’t. You were there. I saw you.”

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