“I just wish you didn’t miss out on everything,” she adds sadly.
“I’m fine, Rain. I have everything I need.”
“And what else do you have? Books?”
Books are the only think that give me a healthy, enjoyable emotion that is both necessary and something I’m able to face.
It’s through novels that I can live a thousand lives, a thousand loves, a thousand betrayals and broken hearts without having to break my own or someone else’s. My books are my refuge, my hiding place, my grounding anchor. I never feel alone with them and I feel like I’ve got a life too.
I nod in acknowledgement. Sometimes it’s harder for people that love me to accept my condition than it is for me. I’m used to it and live with it.
I’m fine.
I have to be.
Rain tells me about Liam, how they live together with the guys and how happy he makes her. I smile at her and slowly, with a few difficulties and dreamy eyes and a voice heavy with emotion, she tells me about her life now. But the conversation is interrupted suddenly. Rain sits up straight on her stool and starts drumming her fingers around her glass as she tries to avoid eye contact with me.
I turn slowly and realize that Aaron is walking into the pub with Liam and someone else, someone that I’m not ready to face.
He’s in shape and I can see how sculpted he is under his fitted T-shirt. He’s got long, blond rebellious hair. He raises his glance to meet mine and I’m back in time five years, back to that afternoon in my bedroom before my whole world came to a standstill and my life took quite a different turn.
Bewitching, seductive, sensual and tormented.
Dangerous.
He comes towards us, keeping his distance within the group, and I can’t see anyone but him in this pub full of people and the light that he emits and that is hitting me full on, sending my heart into fibrillations.
And I know I shouldn’t feel this way.
My hands start shaking as I try to hide how I’m feeling. I bring one to my chest to make sure it goes back to beating normally. I sure wouldn’t want to go into shock here, in front of everyone.
In front ofhim.
I stand up straight and try to concentrate on my pulse. I grab my wrist to check it, but I’m not able to keep count.
I get up suddenly and tell Rain I need to use the washroom. She makes to go with me but I’ve already distanced myself.
Once I’ve got the door closed behind me, I rinse my face repeatedly, trying to get back my control. I look at myself in the mirror and realize there’s not really much to fear.
My face is pale, almost skeletal. My eyes almost bulge due to my excessive thinness and are marked by heavy purple lines that bear witness to my physical appearance.
My shoulders jut out from the fitted tank top I wear over a pair of jeans that are too big for me and that fall low on my hips, leaving my midriff uncovered. On my feet I have a pair of gym shoes that don’t exactly show me off—all one meter and fifty-two centimeters and forty-eight kilograms of me.
What have I got to worry about?
Nothing could happen to my stupid heart.
Nothing.
