Those dreams woke me hard and hurting and more tormented than I’d been in my entire life.
I only wanted to remember her as my Della, yet my mind kept plying me with fantasies that she could be my future, too. A future I’d never contemplated until the day she’d kissed me. The day she’d tangled herself up with my dreams and my heart—my stupid, stupid heart—shed its capacity at only seeing her as a child and saw her as so much more instead.
“Fuck!”
The trees were the only ones who heard my distress, who witnessed my disgrace as I fisted myself and worked out the disgusting desire from my body. I felt sick to my stomach as I came, not because I masturbated, but because my mind fixated on Della and that was a line I should never fucking cross.
Even though I struggled with two memories of baby Della and sexual Della, I knew in my soul there was only one journey I could take.
It was as if Della had an invisible hold on me.
There hadn’t been any rope or knot binding me to her as I packed my bag and left the apartment that awful night, but there was now.
An invisible lasso that tightened every time I tried stepping farther away, yanking me back, keeping me firmly stuck.
Was this limbo or purgatory?
Was it punishment for leaving her so callously when she needed me the most?
Those questions kept me company on my long treks through the forest until I’d memorised every trail and recognised every tree.
More questions came at night. Questions I had no right to ask.
Was she with someone?
Was she happy with someone?
Had she forgotten about me when I could never, ever forget about her?
But it was the questions that sprang on me, heavy with guilt, festering with shame that meant I would never be able to move forward.
Not like this.
Not without checking on her.
Not without convincing myself that she didn’t need me anymore.
I would rather be crushed knowing she’d deleted me from her world, than forever wonder if she was okay.
I couldn’t handle the unknown, the never ending need to see her, the almost manic desperation to clear the air between us and somehow find closure to this entire convoluted mess.
I’d lost weight.
I’d forgotten how to breathe.
My bones were glass and my chest a forge.
True love was a vicious monster, feeding on my reserves, breaking me beneath its resolve to either kill me if I didn’t obey or destroy me if I did.
I was glad the forest didn’t have mirrors because heartbreak had not been kind to me.
But just because I’d made a mistake by leaving, and it’d taken me three months of mentally punishing myself for all the misguided, impure thoughts I’d been having, I could finally admit what I couldn’t before.
Away from the city, free from society’s judgment, I had no choice but to be honest with myself.
I wished I could stop it.
I begged for it not to be true.
But…the reality was, I was in love with Della.
Not just platonic, parental, brotherly, friendship love but bone-crunching, heart-pounding, air-stealing, delicious fucking love that broke me down until I no longer knew who I was.
All I knew was I couldn’t keep doing this.
I couldn’t keep living without her.
I needed her in my life in any capacity that she’d let me.
Even if it meant I’d have to walk her down the aisle as she married some undeserving prick, I would do it.
I would take whatever she gave.
I didn’t make a conscious decision to pack up my tent that morning or turn toward the city instead of away. I didn’t mean to leave my campsite or haul my possessions onto my back.
I wanted Della, but I still didn’t know how to deal with that even as I struck off on different paths, passed unfamiliar trees, and weaved my way from wilderness to city.
The closer I got, the more my worry escalated.
Was she even there?
Was she still at our apartment, or had she moved?
Had she sought out Cassie’s help and returned to Cherry River?
My boots travelled faster as scarier questions chased me.
What if she’d been hurt? What if she’d been taken or sold or abused while I’d been having a personal crisis? What if I’d put myself first, and she’d suffered because of it?
I would die.
By my hand or heartbreak’s if that was the case.
How could I say I loved her when I’d done the exact same thing to her as my mother had done to me?
My mother had sold me because I was worth more to her as dollars than I was as her son. And I’d walked away from Della because I chose propriety and martyrdom instead of burying my own pain and focusing on giving her everything I had left to give.
I’d been so fucking selfish.
And I stopped walking.
I ran.