Endless Bonds

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My initial shock takes too long to recover.

Cher is already gone.

Somewhere between her parting words and the last two seconds, I find myself stumbling back against my door

Trent, I'm leaving.

She left me... That's it.

I struggle with my next breath. The next few breaths. How did the situation get so out of hand?

All I remember is breaking the news of my upcoming dismissal from the football team to Jared and Oli yesterday, and everything after that was an alcohol induced blur until this afternoon, when Rose knocked on my door. I was hit with yet another thing – person – in my life that I'd lost.

But I didn't feel anything substantial.

All I felt was disappointment seeing that it was her.

Because she wasn't the girl I wanted to see. She wasn't the girl I love – the one who had been ignoring my calls and texts messages for days.

The one who just told me she's leaving me.

A flurry of emotions is rushing through me like a tidal wave and it wrecks everything standing still, including the last two pillars, causing my legs to buckle and drop to the ground. I fall down until my ass hits the carpeted ground. I feel unstable, unhinged and my mind stuck on an endless loop of Cher's words.

I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

I know I didn't handle our exchange properly. I don't resent her – I could never when I feel so ripped at the edges for her. I'd rather hurt myself than ever cause her pain. But I have. Today, I fucking have.

But I let her believe otherwise when I couldn't put a lid on my anger – the anger I mostly feel for myself because I got myself into this mess. The other smaller chunk of anger I felt is because Cher slipped, and allowed the one thing that would jeopardize my future into the hands of the one fucker who would never hesitate to jeopardize it.

My mind is still reeling, and I no longer know what to make of the situation. Tension rolls in my shoulders and I grit my teeth, feeling another push of helplessness drenching me.

Instead of telling her the truth about my feelings, ironically, I let the situation blow in our face until she was forced to hit me with parting shots – words that still made my heart ache.

I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

The feeling of wretchedness lingers when I ponder over the last moment. I loved you. The way I loved you then, doesn't even compare to how I love you now.

My throat works with emotions as I glance heavenward, forcing back the spark of tears. I have never loved a girl like I love you, Cher. I'm immersed in it – in you. I'm in love with you and I couldn't even tell you.

And now you've left.

I broke the heart of a guy who loved me to bits, who wanted to make me his wife. Looking now, I don't even know if breaking his heart was worth it. You just broke mine.

The fact that she brought her ex-fiancé into this cuts me to the quick and blinds me with madness. If I had something in my hands, it would be broken with the way my fists are clenched, itching for a fight.

Suddenly, there's a hollowness in my chest – an empty feeling – where her home resides.

There's no black or white, only grey, and I don't know where to head from here. How do I deal with this murkiness? How do I fight for us when I don't know what my future holds? How do I know that what she said isn't true?

That we're better off without each other. That we need to heal without one another.

How can I convince her that I love her, that I don't resent her, and that we can make it through when everything in front of me is uncertain? How can I convince her when I feel so raw from her blows?

I'm brooding on the ground, knuckles tucked against my mouth, barely suppressing my rage when the neighboring door opens.

Beat up white keds enter my line of vision, before Rose sinks down to the ground against the wall in front of me.

"Hey," she mutters.

I don't say anything, stuck on Cheryl Anderson.

"Levi and I heard the whole thing and... I just..." Her words fall short and she shrugs.

I lift my gaze towards her, and she drinks in my angry demeanor, laced with despair, and something stops her from leaving me alone. Because obviously, she's still here.

She shutters her blue gaze briefly. "I know you hate me, Trent. And that I deserve it."

I stare at her, not knowing where she's headed with this. I just dealt with one clusterfuck of a situation and now I'm dealing with my ex. Well, my ex-ex, I think bitterly. Rose has hurt me in the past and she knows it. But I don't hate her either.

A small part of me wonders if I'm doomed to constantly be hurt by the women I only want to ever show love.

Rose shuffles until her long legs are aligned next to mine, not touching. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ears and licks her lips before speaking. "I want to get this off my chest, because I may never get another opening."

I raise my knee and anchor a forearm against it, gesturing with the other free hand for her to continue.

"The thing is Trent, I never deserved you. Not all those months ago when I broke up with you and not when we were young teens." She lets out a baffled laugh. "Even at sixteen, I knew you were too good for me. You were the perfect, golden boy of Eastwood High and I was the complete opposite. You thrived in crowds, always there to help others and make them feel at ease. I was comfortable standing by the sidelines, just observing the world behind the protective barrier I'd erected."

Canting my head, I look at Rose, as if seeing her in another light as she paints a picture with her words. A picture I'd never seen before.

She clears her throat. "The beauty in you is that you always try to see the best in people. You always try to help others, even after they've let you down. You show loyalty to those you care about, even if they no longer care about you. No matter how many times you've been hurt, you still get up and try to fix things. You're a fixer – it's in your blood. You can't help it."

Words seem to have escaped me, because I go completely mute. But I know what she's saying, I'm soaking it all in.

Rose smiles and it's really sad. "You know those lucky people who win the lottery by pure chance?"

"No," I say, my voice thick and croaky. "I don't know anyone like that."

Her expression is wistful, and I'm hit with the full force of her warm gaze. "Me neither. But I felt like that when I was with you, like I'd hit the jackpot. You were my prize, but I felt like I'd cheated the odds and landed you. Trent, you, who were so vibrant, so kind, so funny and perfect in every sense of the word. I didn't deserve you, but I did everything in my power to keep you. Because you loved me. You saw something in me worth loving, when my insecurities never allowed me to love myself the way you did. Throughout our relationship, it always felt like you were trying to love me enough for the both of us."

My expression is broken. "Rose."

"I loved you, that was real. But not the way you loved me, because I was so focused on the part that kept telling me I wasn't deserving of you. And then, I did stupid shit to keep you when you never hinted at leaving me to begin with. I was horribly wrong for keeping Cher away from you. But I was scared that you'd leave me when you realized that there she was, loving you the way I should have. So I did what I did and ruined a lot of friendships."

At least she's acknowledging that what she did was wrong towards Cher and me. But back then, I'd had eyes for Rose. So I don't know if it would have made a difference if Cher had come to me with her love all those years ago, despite being told to stay away by Rose.

"I was supposed to go to Australia, but it just didn't work out. I stayed here, but I didn't have it in me to come back to you. You didn't deserve to be my marionette and I was tired of playing puppeteer. I had you wrapped around my fingers for years, constantly playing on your every emotion. It's a shitty feeling, knowing you can control someone who means that much to you."

"I did feel that way with you," I admit quietly, but my voice bounces in the hallway and the walls absorb my truth. "I felt like I was always giving it my all and you weren't reciprocating. I was at your beck-and-call and always catering to your whims."

But like she said, I was a fixer. I always tried to fix everything between us, even when our relationship had been dead for awhile, courtesy of all the breaks we'd taken throughout our turbulent three years.

"Yeah, and I let you be put in that position," she returned, gulping. "I'm sorry I was a crappy girlfriend, that I couldn't be what you needed."

I don't say anything, because what can I say?

"Trent, you love Cher," Rose remarks as if coming to an epiphany, but her tone implies that these are words that have tumbled in her head for years.

Correction: I'm in love with her.

"I knew, even then, that you've always loved her. You needed a push in the right direction. I think your friends would have given it to you, but I prevented it. I never wanted our bubble of bliss to burst."

But it did. And it happened in the worst way. I felt so drained, used up, and a shell of the guy I used to be when we were done.

Yet these last few months healed me. My friends. My family. My Cher.

I'm no longer bitter or vengeful towards Rose, because I've moved on with my life.

"Why'd you act the way you did when Cher was here?" It's evident that Rose felt regret to a certain extent, but she chose to adopt an ice-cold demeanor when people from our past were concerned.

Rose shrugs and evaluates her manicure. "Because I have pride and so does she. There's too much bad blood between us. Not just her, but the rest of the girls – Tara, Teagan and Natalie. I know a lot of it is my fault, but they also played a hand in our friendship being destroyed when they all sided with Cher over me all those years ago. Even before I'd told Cher to stay away, their loyalty had always been to her. Not me. It made me even more bitter. Like I said, I always felt like I was standing by the sidelines even when you guys took me in your circle."

I didn't entirely know the dynamics of the girls, or what went wrong back then, but it was not my place to ask. Natalie never told me shit, and continued to behave civilly with Rose, so I'd chalked it up as nothing.

"Sometimes I wish time was like a music box," Rose says. "I could wind back the dial and allow the tune to play one more time, so I could change a lot of my actions. But then I realize life has moved on and so have I. I wouldn't change anything then because I wouldn't be the me now. There's no point dwelling in the past when I'm happy now."

I nod. She's telling me that I can't change what just occurred, but I can chase my happiness right now in this moment. Mend what just broke between Cher and I. Because I'm a fixer. "Water under the bridge, Rose."

She gets up, dusting herself off. "I know. What I'm trying to say is, for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"You deserve Levi." I tell her truthfully, taking her offered hand to pull me up.

"I know that." A sweet smile twists her lips. "Because now I love myself enough to allow the possibility of someone returning it."

There's a meter of a distance between us, but we might as well be years away. It's true my heart was just smashed by Cher, but on the other hand, something unravels inside of me...I've never felt more like my old self – a teenage Trent – then right now, standing before Rose. Rose, too, falters, as I witness a younger version of her emerging with another smile, the one she's locked away. We feel like Trent and Rose from the beginning, when we were simply friends in high school, before we ever dated. And it's not a bad feeling, if I do say so.

"What are you plans today?" Rose tries to steer the conversation to lighter topics.

"Don't have anything planned. You?"

"Levi and I are going to visit his grandma and afterwards, maybe, I'll pass by Quentin's grave."

Definitely us from the beginning and it's a good, nostalgic feeling.

The rope binding us all was severed in the ways it mattered, but there was one last resilient piece that connected us – our memories of the past. Just the past.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

I inhale a deep breath and bestow upon Rose the words that should have been uttered a long time ago. "I don't hate you, Rosie."

She punches my shoulder playfully, lips rolled into her mouth. "Thanks, Trey."

With a final smile that I know will stay branded in my memories, Rose and I turn away from each other. I step into my place and close the door on one more chapter in my life.

* * *

Monday morning rolls around I'm awoken by a fuzzy sensation crawling up from my neck to my cheek. My body jerks, eyes fluttering open, and I realize that I'm lying on my cold bedroom floor, sheets tangled around my hips.

Then I feel the same sensation going from my cheek, all the way down to my neck.

I slap it away, knifing up into a sitting position. "What the fuck!"

It's Jared, towering over me, his disgusting sock playing footsie with my bare skin. "Wake up, bitch. It's afternoon."

"Get. Away. From. Me," I say through gritted teeth, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. "You're fucking nasty, man. Touching me with your sock. Couldn't you have just shaken me awake?"

He snickers. "Where's the fun in that?" And because he lives to annoy me, he uses his sock clad foot to graze my chest, all the way down to my abs, giving me a mock-seductive look. "You up for a quickie, baby?"

I shove him away and he barks a laugh. "Chillax, bro. I'm not kidding though; it's past twelve. Get up. You've been wallowing in self-pity long enough. Oli's coming over to spend the day."

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I take a brief second to acknowledge the throbbing in my head. I drank a whole bottle of whiskey last night to cope with my breakup. Now I'm hungover and just want to be left alone.

That's obviously not in the cards for me today.

Jared crouches down in front of me, worry marring his forehead. "Trent, Oliver and I are concerned for you." He puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. "You need to talk to us. And, if you don't want to talk, at least come have some breakfast."

I know my friends mean well. With a groan, I push off from the floor – I had a nightmare I was falling down and guess it was a reality seeing as I landed on my bedroom floor, buck ass naked– and head towards the bathroom.

* * *

Oliver and Jared seem to be walking on eggshells around me. They're careful with their words and their taut body lines buzz with the straining atmosphere.

Of course, they keep cracking jokes to lighten the mood, before I suck out all the lightness with my dark attitude.

"Yo, wifey. I like onions in my eggs with a dash of cheese. Pour me a glass of OJ while you're at it." Jared informs Oliver, who's cooking for us in Wyatt's pink frilly apron, looking like a domesticated housewife.

Oli waves a spatula at him. "Who do you think you are making demands; my master?"

"No – thank fuck. That would imply you're my slave." Then Jared starts laughing maniacally. "Oli baby, I know you got a kinky streak, but don't bring BSDM up this morning. I might throw up."

Oliver smacks Jared on the back of his head, before scratching his dark stubble and going back to frying our eggs.

For my sake, they are acting like this is an everyday morning, as if my girlfriend hasn't broken up with me. As if my heart wasn't bleeding all over the kitchen floor. It's cool though. I'll patch myself up. Like always.

While they bicker like a married couple, I'm nursing whiskey, heavy on the rocks. Jared's texting away on his phone, but his eyes keeps flickering up to meet mine.

"You need to eat," he says gruffly, before adding a shit-eating grin. "Oli baby, can you put waffles in the toaster for our son. He's looking hungry." Let me say that Jared coos this a baby voice.

Oli sighs loudly. "Stop calling me, Oli baby. I'm not Natalie."

The second those words leave his mouth, both Jared and him look at me alarmed, like I'll pummel them both at the mention of my sister. Normally, I'd make a comment. I don't really like hearing about Jared and my baby sister's ex-relationship.

But today? I'm cut open, bone-deep, like I got hit by a freight of train and my insides are splattered everywhere. A lovely visual. Therefore, no comment is said on my behalf.

Five minutes later, Oliver joins us on the island counter, adorned with all the breakfast he's cooked. He snatches my glass of whiskey and downs it. "You're done drinking for the day."

Jared pushes my plate of waffles – fuck, Oliver even put maple syrup, cherries, and whip cream on it. Their spoiling me is appreciated, but I can't voice it today.

When I pick up a cherry, everything hurts because all I can think about is her. I resist the urge to throw the plate against the wall and drown in my self-pity once more.

Oliver watches me carefully – same as Jared – as he pops a steaming forkful of omelette into his mouth. He chews thoughtfully, before speaking to me, "Trent, let's talk."

"I don't want to talk. What's their to say?" I gave them the shortened version of what happened anyway.

"So much," he mutters.

Jared takes a deep breath. "Trent, that report harboured serious information that shouldn't have been dealt with in such a blasé manner. But Cher knows she fucked up and she's genuinely sorry from what I understand. Mistakes make us human, Trent. You know this better than anyone. It's up to you if you chose to forgive and forget."

I know all of this. I know she's sorry. I've already forgiven her, but I wasn't clear enough. I don't know if she's forgiven me though, for the way I lashed out. How could I? I'm giving her space, and it's killing me.