CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
I hadn’t really thought about it. Of course, my intention was to help her.
If she really was haunted by delusions and hallucinations, she needed help beyond what the cult could provide.
But facing her again, after years of hating her and trying to forget…
I hadn’t really figured out how to do such a thing.
“I guess…I’d try and find out why everything happened the way it did,” I whispered.
Nathaniel nodded. “And what happened? I know you mentioned an…exorcism?”
My throat dried up, making each swallow excruciatingly painful. “It’s a long story.”
“We still have…” Nathaniel lifted his wrist to read his watch. “…thirty minutes.”
I chuckled bitterly. “We’re not even friends.”
“We could be.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not a good friend,” I said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I’ve only ever had one friend and I…”
Nathaniel waited, patiently, his eyes never leaving mine.
“...I fucked up,” I finished.
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t think you are a bad friend, Augustus,” he said gently, “I just think you are scared of opening up.”
“I’m not.”
“Prove it,” he challenged.
I raised an eyebrow. “Prove it?”
“Prove you’re not scared.” He closed his laptop, swivelled in his chair to face me and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me about the exorcism.”
Prove it, prove it, prove it.
The Devil had challenged me in the cafe, and I failed. I could not fail again.
“Do you really want to know?” I asked.
Nathaniel nodded.
And so, I told him. I told him everything—the rope around my wrists, the linen cupboard, the mirrored room, the night I found Auden trapped in a circle of flames. I recounted it all as though the memories weren’t mine, as though I had merely watched it all unfold through a screen or on a page.
“And then what happened?” Nathaniel asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I passed out and when I woke up…my father told me my mother was gone.”
“Shit,” Nathaniel whispered, “I can’t believe you went through all that.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Nathaniel shook his head, the look in his eye a blend of sympathy and determination. “That’s not something you can just…forget.”
He was right. Over ten years had passed and yet I still carried the memory of that night as though it were yesterday. And it wasn’t just that night that haunted me. It was the years building up to it—the years of being told I wasn’t good. That I had the Devil inside of me.
“I want to help you,” Nathaniel went on. “Find her, that is. If Joe responds to the email with an address, let me come with you.”
“What?”
“Let me come with you,” he repeated.
“Why? This has…nothing to do with you and–”
“I know. But I can be there to support you. To be a…friend.”
“You’re not my friend.”
A flicker of hurt crossed his face. “I could be…if you let me.”
“I told you I–”
“–am not a good friend. I don’t care. I’m not letting you return to that monster alone.”
I averted my gaze, shifting in my chair so there was more space between us. The room suddenly felt too crowded. Too hot. I rationalised that Nathaniel didn’t really care about me. He just wanted to use the God’s Soldiers Church for his extra credit.
“What are you so afraid of?” Nathaniel pushed. “Why won’t you let us be friends when we clearly get along pretty well?”
“I don’t want to get hurt.”
Nathaniel frowned. “You think I will hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll…I’ll ruin it. It’ll be my fault. And I just…” I stood up abruptly, gathering my things. I didn’t want to talk about this. It was bad enough reliving one period of my life, I didn’t want to revisit another.
“Augustus.” Nathaniel’s fingers caught my wrist, his body towering over mine as he rose from his chair. “Sit. Please.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“I won’t force you to talk about it,” he said, “just don’t leave, okay?”
I raised my eyes to meet his, fear vanishing the moment a soft smile graced his features. I was safe. I didn’t need to run. I was okay.
With a nod, I sat down and ran a hand over my face, steadying my racing heart so that we could resume our assignment.
That was close, Augustus. You can’t let him in.
***
Not letting Nathaniel in proved to be a challenging task. He was not only unflinchingly curious, asking questions no one else would bother to ask, but he was warm, inviting, tempting me to spill all my secrets.
In my attempts to keep him at an arm's distance, he’d somehow shifted closer. Over the course of our study sessions, I learned a lot about him. Involuntarily, of course.
I learned that he spoke four languages: English, Korean, Japanese, and French. He was most fluent in English and Korean, but his favourite was Japanese because he loved reading manga and watching anime.
I learned that Halloween was his favourite holiday because he would take his brothers trick-or-treating and get a sugar high.
They all dressed up in matching costumes.
One year; the Adams Family, another year; shipwrecked sailors, his favourite year; fungi infected zombies from his favourite video game.
Speaking of video games, I learned that when he wasn’t studying or writing music, he was lounging on a beanbag, PlayStation controller in hand as he battled monsters and gunned down criminals.
His favourite game was The Last of Us, but he was also very passionate about Nathan Drake from Uncharted.
I was pretty sure he had a crush on him. He neither confirmed nor denied it.
I learned that friendship was important to him.
He had five friends from high school, three of whom studied medicine alongside him at Dawnridge.
They were his world. Makayla was a makeup artist and moved to London to further her career.
Her boyfriend Xander moved there with her to study gaming development.
Nathaniel texted them every day, sometimes playing with Xander online.
Jae-Hwa, Wes and Paige were the three he spent the most time with.
All studied medicine. All wanted to be surgeons.
He’d also made several friends from university, though he referred to them as ‘clubbing friends’ and not ‘crying in their arms friends’.
“What type do you want me to be?” I’d asked him teasingly in between classes.
“I thought we weren’t friends,” he said.
“Well, since you keep begging me–”
Nathaniel nudged me with a laugh, his dimples deepening the wider he smiled. I dedicated more time than I should have drawing out those dimples, the sight spreading warmth through my veins.
I learned that Nathaniel was stubborn, determined to retrieve answers I refused to give. But he was a masterful manipulator, softening me up so it was harder for my walls to stand tall.
“What happened?” Nathaniel asked one evening after a long four-hour study session to finalise our essay. He was asking about Ava, again, and for some reason, the gentle tone, the softness around his round, brown eyes, infiltrated my guarded walls.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It all just…crumbled so quickly. We were happy. Inseparable. And then…Eden….” I closed my laptop to save power since it was clear we wouldn’t be resuming any study with the allocated time we had left.
“Eden and Ava grew close and Ava liked her a lot. She wanted to spend every second of every day with her and I felt…replaced. I tried not to bring it up because I didn’t want to fight but when I did… Ava just accused me of being jealous.”
“Were you?” Nathaniel asked.
“Not in the way she thought,” I answered. “She thought I was just jealous because I liked her or because I wasn’t in a relationship. But that wasn’t true. I didn’t care about that. I cared that I was losing my best friend, and she didn’t even seem to notice.”
“Oh, you didn’t like her?”
“What? Of course not,” I said, shaking my head. “Ava liked girls and I…”
Nathaniel leaned forward. “Yes?”
“I don’t think I’m capable of liking anybody.” My mind flashed to Alexander and the day we shared at Framlingham castle. I shook the memory away instantly, not wanting to dwell on the way he’d looked at me when I had my lips locked with Elysse.
“What do you mean?” he asked, brow pinched with a mix of curiosity and confusion.
“I don’t know…” I mumbled.
Nathaniel waited, patient.
“There was a time…in high school…where I thought maybe…I was gay.” It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. The first time I audibly acknowledged it. The words tasted like poison on my tongue, as though I had fallen victim to an assassin’s attempt on my life.
Nathaniel straightened in his chair, but he didn’t interrupt me as I went on.
“I didn’t have a lot to go on, so I did a few ‘am I gay’ quizzes but I found the questions difficult to answer.”
“In what way?”
I shrugged. “They were questions about whether I was physically attracted to men or women…whether I wanted to kiss them and…you know…” I waved my hand in a vague, uncomfortable gesture. “But the truth is…I don’t feel physically attracted to either…so the test results were always inconclusive.”
“Ah, yeah, I’ve done a few of those quizzes,” Nathaniel mused. “Most really focus on physical attraction. Maybe you’re asexual.”
“A sexual what?”
There was a long pause as Nathaniel stared at me as if I’d grown two heads. “No,” he said slowly. “Asexual. A person who does not experience sexual attraction. It’s a sexual orientation, like being gay or straight.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “I’ve never heard of that. I thought I was just weird or broken.”
“You’re not weird or broken,” Nathaniel assured me. “There is a whole community of people just like you. But there’s a spectrum. Some might be completely sex repulsed, some might be okay with kissing, and others might be okay with having sex, it’s just not something that they need.”
“Wow,” I breathed out. “You sure know a lot about this stuff.”
Nathaniel chuckled. “See? I am smarter than you.”
I elbowed him in the side. His laughter only grew, my own lips tugging upwards in response. I hated how easy it was for Nathaniel to make me smile, but oh how I loved it at the same time. I had never felt so free.
“Out of curiosity, though,” Nathaniel said, “have you ever felt romantically attracted to someone? Like had a crush?”
Alexander’s dark green eyes flashed behind my eyelids. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I didn’t feel that way about Ava. I just missed our friendship. It felt like Eden had taken her away from me. And we fought about it and we just…never spoke again.”
“I’m sorry that you lost such a close friend.”
I shook my head, no longer wanting to dwell on Ava or Alexander or anything from my past. “What about you?” I asked, diverting the conversation. “You ever had a crush?”
“Oh, yeah, plenty,” Nathaniel chuckled.
“And have you…” I waved my hand and added, “…been in a relationship?”
Nathaniel’s amusement faded and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. I opened my mouth to tell him he didn’t have to answer when he said, “Yes. One.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We were in high school. All boys private school. He was captain of the cricket team, and I was school captain. In retrospect, we were nothing alike. He was smart, though. We could debate about anything and everything.” He drummed his fingers against the table as he spoke, the only indication of his nerves.
“But he…wasn’t out yet. As gay. He hadn’t told a soul.
Only me. And so, we were…a secret. For a while, I didn’t mind.
I wasn’t out either, so I respected it. But eventually I did come out.
To my parents. To my friends. But he just… couldn’t.”
I bit my lip, hands itching to reach out and hold Nathaniel’s restless ones. “Did he have…strict parents or something?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Nathaniel said. “I only met them once but…they didn’t seem religious or old fashioned or anything. But maybe they were homophobic, I don’t know. I think it was more…the sporting culture. I think he was afraid of being seen as weak or as a…predator, of some kind.”
“So what happened?” I pushed.
“He grew distant when I came out,” he answered, sorrow painting every line of his face, “he probably didn’t want to risk being accused of dating me. I was…bullied by some of his friends. And he did…nothing. He just watched.”
My jaw clenched. “That’s fucked, Nathaniel.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled bitterly, “but I don’t hate him. He was…a scared kid. I hope he has accepted himself now. And that he’s happy.”
“Do you still…?”
“Have feelings for him?” Nathaniel finished. “No. Not at all. I’ve moved on. Been trying to find someone new for a while.”
“And no luck?”
Nathaniel studied me for a long moment before shrugging, “We’ll see.” He clicked his tongue and leaned back in his seat. “What about you? I know you’re not physically attracted to anyone, but could you see yourself being romantically interested in anyone?”
I shook my head. It would be nice, I supposed, to have someone I could call my partner, someone to come with me to an art gallery, or museum, or to picnic with me in long grass by the water.
But no one could love me. I was hard to love.
My own mother had failed, what chance did I have with anyone else?
I’d be lucky to even maintain a friendship.
“Maybe one day,” Nathaniel hummed.
I nodded, gaze falling onto my lap.
“I’d still like to be friends, you know,” Nathaniel said.
At my silence, disappointment etched across his furrowed brows, lips pulling down in a heartbreaking frown.
I needed to adjust to being on my own. And that meant my walls had never been higher. But Nathaniel, somehow, always seemed to find a ladder tall enough to climb over.
“I’m not going to hurt you like Ava did,” he said.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.” He slowly rose to his feet, a look of determination sharpening his features. “I, Nathaniel Carrington, promise to never break your heart.”
I fought valiantly to suppress an eyeroll as he ever so dramatically crossed a hand over his chest. He looked like a knight swearing allegiance to his monarch the way he stood with his back straight, feet together, expression serious.
“And I, Augustus Saint, promise to never break your heart,” I played along, mimicking his stance with my own hand splayed across my chest.
I never kept that promise.