Page 62 of I Could Have Missed This
When I was younger, all I ever wanted was a boyfriend. I dreamed of what is would be like. There were some nights I couldn’t fall asleep without imagining someone sleeping next to me, cuddling into me until I fell asleep. Now that it’s finally happening, I can’t help but wonder how I got by without the real thing.
Teddy starts to get up, and I whine at how cold I feel now. I follow him and wrap my arms around his waist and nestle my chin into the hollow of his neck.
“Hi,” I whisper, planting a kiss on his cheek and letting out a sigh. This boy should have been in my life a lot sooner than now. I was so deep in my own depression that I hid myself from the world. As soon as I tried to get out of that hole, I met Teddy. It’s like a reward for trying my best.
AndI amtrying my best. That’s all a person can do.
“Hey, cutie,” he says and my tummy fills with a hundred tiny butterflies.
“Hi,” I giggle in his ear. “Why are you up?”
“I’m making us something to eat since we haven’t eaten all day,” he replies, and suddenly my belly rumbles, signalling that he is indeed correct.
“We could just order something?” I say, still holding onto my boyfriend’s body for dear life. I like saying that word. Boyfriend. It feels right and makes my head buzz in a way that makes me smile like an idiot.
“No,” he says, prolonging the word like a song. “I’m cooking something healthy for us. We can’t live off takeaways.” It’s then I realise that I have been doing that. I haven’t had a properly cooked meal in so long. That sometimes happens with my depression, I’ll start living off takeaways because I don’t have the energy to cook. I don’t want to beat myself up over it, but I should definitely start getting better at managing it.
I have to get over the fact that there is no cure for depression. Some days I will just have to lay in bed and feel sad. And that’s okay. It only gets bad when I don’t get back up again, and I start beating myself up over it.
It’s an illness. When you are sick, you lay in bed all day don’t you? Depression is the same. Again, sometimes you just have to ride it out. There’s going to be good days and bad days, but I won’t let the bad days win, not anymore.
Teddy makes a pasta out of the last remaining ingredients in the fridge. We eat slowly, talking throughout about the goodthings in our future that we plan on doing. We stand up to go wash the dishes, but he stops me. He raises my chin until I’m looking into his eyes.
Kissing him never gets old. His tongue tastes like heaven. The space between us is thin. I grab his chocolate hair and pull him closer as he grips the nape of my neck.
Then the ringtone of his phone starts going off and I curse into his mouth.
“It’s Elijah,” he says as he backs out of the kiss. My lips feel swollen, but I need the touch of his lips on mine. I can’t get enough of it.
“Hey, everything alright?” he asks, a little worry in his voice but not too much. I don’t hear much of the conversation.
“Okay, I’m utterly confused,” he begins as he hangs up the phone. “Elijah just phoned me, wondering where Kai is. They were supposed to meet at Piran’s Garden for their date, and he hasn’t turned up yet.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s just running late. Maybe we should head over and see,” I say as we start grabbing our things.
We’re almostat his flat and I’m hoping he’s just running a bit late. I’m looking forward to telling Kai about our date to the Eden Project. Teddy has an arm over me as we walk. We’re suddenly very touchy-feely with each other, almost as if when we let go, the other will disappear forever.
We said I love you to each other last night. I’m not over it. I know we were drunk, but I do love him. I can’t wait to tell Kai all about it.
As we walk into the apartment complex, I see a white car pull out. Through the windscreen, I see two figures look directly at me.
That’s when I notice it.
Their masks.
That same mask I’ve been seeing since Mum died. The passenger pretends to slit his throat with a knife, and I just stand there frozen.
That’s when I realise.
“Fuck!” I shout, sprinting up the stairs. An all encompassing dread fills my skull.
The door is left ajar, the window on the right of the door is smashed into a million diamond pieces. I open the door wider.
“Kai?” I shout with a little bit of a wobble in my voice. I notice the rusty number seven is sitting on the floor in front of the window. Someone had obviously thrown it at the window to break it. I turn on the living room light but it flickers on and off as it hangs from the ceiling. A cable must have come loose or something.
In the flicker of light, I see Kai sitting on the floor of the kitchen in silent tears, hugging a small canvas.
“Are you okay?” I ask, kneeling before him. He hugs the canvas tighter.
