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“It’s a bra to make boys look, you know I’m the only man you can trust,” he says, pinning me to the wall. “Other boys will hurt you…”

You hurt me. And you hurt my mum.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. But that’s a pretty bra, for pretty girls… and you’re not… but you’ve got me, and I’ll always love you, won’t I? It’s special, what we’ve got, isn’t it sweetie?”

I gulp. I swallow the words down. I don’t want to say it. I know he’s going to make me. I hate him so much. His hand squeezes around my throat, releasing my tears, and the words he wants to hear are barely audible through the choke.

“I love you.”

It excites him. It always excites him.

I don’t wear dresses or skirts any more. But it doesn’t make any difference. His hand still finds my waistband.

I stare at Reddy, sitting peacefully on my pillow. I switch my brain off. It’s easier this way.

Eleven

Sawyer

I roll onto my back, vaguely aware of the pain still in my knee. It takes a few seconds, with my pillow rammed atop my face to really remember that last night happened. It all pangs through me again, but I’m so exhausted from it all. My whole world is shaken. Have I just ruined everything with Nik? Did I cheat on Dan?

And I can’t help yearning for him, longing for him. I want him so bad. I need to just get downstairs to him and for everything to be like it was before all of that.

I wonder if we can just pretend none of it happened. Just hide my shame and surely our mutual embarrassment. Okay, my embarrassment. I’m the one that tried it on when all he was doing was saving me from my own stupidity. He told me to get a slip mat. This all could’ve been avoided if I wasn’t so… me, ugh!

I scream into my pillow and lift my head to slam my face into it a few times. Before rolling onto my back and trying to test how much I can move my knee. Fuck, that hurts.

“What the fuck, Nik!” The words escape from my mouth out of sheer shock at him sitting on the chair at the end of my bed as I pull the duvet to cover my chest.

“Sorry. No waking you up, house rules… I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to get downstairs, so I brought breakfast…” And he offers a plate with a couple of croissants, stuffed with bacon and melted cheese.

“Thank you. That’s really sweet, I appreciate it” and I take a bite, it’s tasty, but cold. How long has he been sitting there for? He seems to anticipate my reaction

“I had an early start, I’ve been busy.”

I’m so thankful that things are okay between us. It was wrenching at my insides that things might be weird or distant, but if anything he’s almost chatty. It’s like last night never happened, and I am so thankful for that. As soon as I finish my food he produces his next gift.

“For inflammation.” And he hands me some ibuprofen, which reminds me to check my knee. He’s right, to be fair, it is pretty damn swollen. Then he hands me a cup of lukewarm tea to take the tablets with.

“I might have to injure myself more often” I flirtatiously joke to him. Just an eyebrow raise, it’s enough to know, we’re back to normal. We’re going to be just fine.

I try to stand and immediately squeak and drop back to the bed. I look at him, and if anything my lack of words or jokes communicates how much that hurt.

He starts off looping my arm around behind his neck, but the height difference makes it just ridiculously ineffective. Without a word he just brings his other hand round behind my knees and cradles me before taking me downstairs. I rest my head on his chest again, just breathing him in. I really could stay here forever.

Disappointingly, the journey comes to an end as he sets me down on the sofa. I still feel weightless, just with the relief that everything is as it should be. The truth is though last night proved one thing to me. After I cried my feelings out. I wasn’t ready last night. In my head I hadn’t even decided what I really wanted, I was acting on impulse and being stupid.

Now I know, though. I know that it’s Nik I want. Whether I can have Nik, well that’s a different question entirely. Between Dan, and Harry, and the house, and everything else. I have no idea what Nik’s life looks like outside of these walls. What I couldn’t do before, was know. And now I do. I know I want Nik, and if I want Nik, I can’t possibly want Dan, too. Not really.

The morning goes by fairly quickly, Nik is in the other rooms. He even skips his 11am snack. I’m sat here on the sofa unable to move, and I realise it’s the first time all week that I’ve been out of arm’s reach of him. It’s so incredibly tragic, I’m basically pining for a man on the other side of a wall. Be cool, Sawyer, don’t get all clingy now. Everything’s fine.

Lunchtime hits and he brings us both steak baguettes, they’re delicious. I tell him, he doesn’t say much, he just smiles slightly. Then I work up a little courage.

“Nik… can we have an amnesty on the rules… just for like ten minutes?”

An eyebrow raise.

“Specifically, I have like a couple of questions…”