Page 2 of Ignited In The Present (The Ties That Bind Us Book 2)

“Yo you ready, Rhys?” Gale calls from the doorway to my room. I slam my journal shut, spinning around in my chair. I face him, an uncertain smile flickers across his lips.

“Uh,” I look down at my journal in my lap, running my fingers over the leather cover as if it was his skin, a way to link us, to sate the craving in my heart.

“Dude, it’s okay to take your time. I know this is gonna be fucking hard but I’m here for you, you know?” He says bracing his hands on the top of the door frame making his t-shirt ride up revealing an inch of skin drawing my eyes to him as I watch his abs flex.

“Sure,” I murmur as an avalanche of inhospitable emotions slam into me working their way through the cracks in my defences. Guilt for looking at my friend. Guilt for not being enough to find K, for failing him. Unworthiness because I don’t know what the hell to do.

I swallow around the lump in my throat and rasp, “you been working out or something?”

Gale snorts, dropping his arms to his sides and leaning against my open door. “I’ve had to do something whilst your catatonic arse has been sat moping in this room,” savage rage rises inside me at his callous words. Out of anyone, he should understand my pain, the hell I’m going through and have been for the past five months.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” I growl. My vision wavers before it turns black and I fall into the void where I’m lost in my pain and the world beyond ceases to exist.

Gale’s been my confidant for years like I have been for him. I’ve cut myself open, ripped through barely healed wounds as my words bled from the pits of my soul. Cried until my tears ran dry and he has the audacity to say that—to me of all people. I want to jump up and punch him in the face to make him feel a sliver of the agony I do but what good would that do?

Pinching the bridge of my nose I exhale a long slow breath trying to release the sudden onslaught of anger and resentment welling inside me. My therapist’s voice rings in my ears, as my fingers press against my thumb one at a time until I feel the bite of my blunt nails, the repetitiveness like a calming balm.

“When your emotions become overwhelming you need to ground yourself. Take a deep breath and process what you’re feeling. One emotion at a time. They’re valid. Each and every one of them. You’re entitled to feel your emotions, Rhys. You don’t need to shove them in a box and write them off as quickly as you’re willing to dismiss yourself. Just take a breath and work through them one by one, like climbing the stairs, one step at a time.”

I thought she was batshit crazy the first time I saw her, but Gale begged me to find someone to help me, to support me because he was drowning and couldn’t take seeing me like that anymore.

I mean, who the fuck says you’re entitled to feel your emotions but now, after hours of appointments spent sitting on her too hard sofa I’m starting to see the worth in her words.

I take another deep breath and allow everything I’m feeling to slip through the barricade one at a time. Slowly I feel my heart rate steady and stabilise into a normal rhythm. The air flows easier through my nose and into my lungs—instead of burning and enraging the storm inside me, it becomes the cooling breeze that releases the vice surrounding my lungs.

“Hey, Rhys, you back with me?” Gale’s eyes are wide as mine flutter open, his worried gaze searing into me. His hands grasp my shoulders in a firm grip offering his strength. He must be at the end of his tether with me.

“Uh yeah,” I swallow down the overwhelming amount of saliva in my mouth, wiping the back of my hand over my lips for good measure.

“’Cause you just totally shut down there Rhys, it’s been nearly a month since your last episode.” I lean into him as he wraps his arms around me, stealing his body heat from his embrace. I bury my head in his neck, just needing the contact from another person to remind me I’m still human, still here. I’m still alive and not in hell.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I bite down on my lip trying to find an order to my thoughts but when I open my mouth to explain, nothing comes out.

He pulls back from me—a cold shiver trickles over my skin—Gale grabs my hoodie off my bed chucking it at my face. “It’s cool man, don’t worry. I know how hard this is for you.” I swallow at his heartfelt words, and I feel like shit for how I treat him. It’s so fucking hard, I don’t know how I’m still going. “Maybe we’ll find something when we go back to your house?”

“Yeah, maybe…” My words trail off as my heart and mind war with the possibilities and sickness rolls in my stomach. “So, umm,” I mutter. “What do you need my help with packing?”

“It’s done man, all of it. Well, other than your room. That’s the last of our stuff to go.” I stand up and pull on my hoodie casting my eyes over my boxed up room, avoiding thinking about our impending journey but more the destination. I don’t want to go back but I’ve been ordered home—if I can even call it that.

“Shit. I said I’d help pack it all up.”

“It’s all good, Rhys, honestly… got my work out in for today,” Gale squeezes my shoulder before walking out of my room, bin liners full of my bedding and washing in his hands.

I never expected to finish the year out like this, broken and drowning in pain. I’ve sat through my lectures and not heard a single word. If I pass the end of term exams, I’ll be amazed. Thoughts of going home have plagued my mind but the days slipped through my fingers like grains of sand and I was too weak to stop them passing.

With the rise of the sun marking each new day, I’ve felt myself slipping away even more, losing the fragile hope I’ve been clinging to. I go through the motions of what people expect of me. I get up, get dressed and attend lectures, but I’m not there, not really. I’m lost in my head trying to solve the unsolvable puzzle, the right pieces just out of reach.

Heaving a sigh, I grab the boxes I piled up next to my desk and make my way down the stairs to the removal van I hired to shift all of our shit before the Christmas holidays. Making my way through the open door I pass them off to Gale where he stands inside the van stacking and securing all the other boxes he already moved when I was spiralling.

“That everything?” He asks, wiping the perspiration beading on his brow with the bottom of his shirt. Again, my eyes drop to that strip of exposed skin.

“Nah, got a couple of boxes still up there,” I say, throwing my thumb over my shoulder gesturing to our apartment. “I’ll bring you them before doing a final sweep.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” he cracks an exhausted smile before turning back to the pile of boxes I dumped on the van bed.

Making my way back inside is like walking into a time warp of bright futures and shattered dreams. The reality we’d all hoped for had been ripped from our grasp, cold and unfeeling. It seems like only yesterday we’d all met at the student union and decided over numerous rounds of drinks that we’d get a place together—Gale, Thom, Dustan, Tyler and I.

Five boys filled with life and excitement for the future. One we would carve out together side by side, there to watch each other rise and pick each other up when things got hard. We were at uni not fighting a war, but our courses were a battlefield, and every day was like fighting in the trenches beside our brothers.

But reality is cruel; it took our dreams and our demons and threw them into a bubbling cauldron and weaved its dark magic. It made us shine and rise up for a time, luring us into a false sense of security and rightness. Only to rip it away with lies and betrayal.

Walking through each room it was as if I were looking into memories I no longer wished to hold onto, but they were locked in the depths of my mind torturing me. Laughing at the naive boy I’d been when I first walked in here.

“It’s like it was another life, eh?” Tyler’s quiet voice feathers over my skin like a cool breeze. Gone is his bright personality, his vivacious hopefulness, replaced by a cold detachment. None of us have remained untouched by the events of the summer.

“Yeah,” I sigh, turning to look my friend in the eye. Pain lingers in his grey depths, I wish I could take it away but nothing can change the past. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

“What have you got to be sorry for?” His quiet words crack with emotion.

“If I hadn’t suggested we all went to mine…” I scrub my hand over my face as words fail me yet again. “Maybe things would be different.”

“Rhys,” he steps closer to me, giving me a one armed hug. He wraps his hands around my shoulders turning me towards him again, pain lances through me and I see it etched into the lines on his face. “It’s not your fault,” I scoff, trying to pull away.

“I shouldn’t?—“

“No. Rhys. You didn’t know what he would do.”

“But To?—“

“Don’t give him any more power, Rhys. What he did was unforgivable. He’s sick,” he says, tapping his temple. “He’s not right in the head. Who in their right mind would drug someone just because they couldn’t sleep with them?” He shudders, dropping his hands to rub his arms.

“I’m just glad K was there,” the weight of my grief steals the strength of conviction from my words making them quieter than a whisper.

“He loved you,” my eyes snap up from where they’d been staring at my booted feet. His boots, a piece of him I can’t let go of. I refuse to let go of him… ever.

“He loves me!” I shout.

“Rhys,” Tyler says softly. “You know you have to accept he might…”

“Shut the fuck up,” the rage that had calmed in me simmers, heating my blood with a vengeance. “He’s alive… just… lost. I... I know it. He’ll come back to me.” I screw my eyes up tightly, refusing to let the burning itch at the back of them become more tears. They don’t solve anything, they only make me weaker. ‘You’re allowed to feel your emotions, Rhys.’ Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!

“Rhys.” I lift my eyes looking through my lashes and see the grimace on Tyler’s face, hopelessness shrouding him. “I wish I could change what’s happened, man.”

“I know.” I do, but fuck me it hurts, the vice around my lungs constricting. Pain. I deserve it all. All that time I could have loved Kayden how he deserved. All those moments I could have seen him, really seen him, and acknowledged what he meant to me. But what did I do? I ignored it. Ignored him and what he meant to me because I assumed I knew better.

“The van is all packed, I grabbed the boxes you left at the top of the stairs, Rhys,” Gale says, handling me with kid gloves like I’m a ticking time bomb.

“I’m good to hand the keys back to the landlady, if you two want to head off.”

“Thanks Tyler,” I say as I take one last look into the empty bedrooms seeing nothing but ghosts. I hear their footsteps behind me before they fade as they head down the stairs. The hairs on my arms stand on end as I’m left all alone, in this mausoleum of memories.

I go to what was Thom’s room and pull the hazard tape off the door before stepping in there. We packed it up and left it on the street when we got back after the summer. Tyler texted his mum to let her know it was there but after learning what he did she told us to leave it for the rubbish men. She disowned her son for what he did, said she wanted nothing to do with him if he was that type of person, he was no son of hers any longer. His room is empty, save for dust and cobwebs that cover his lies.

It makes me wonder now how many of his conquests were willing versus how many had been drugged beyond making a conscious decision and were subjected to his manipulation. He had a never ending stream of bodies in and out and we never questioned it because we thought he was a high flying fuck boy who had connections but now I’m left wondering if his ‘people’ were just dealers who revelled in his depravity and prayed on his victims as much as he did. Bile rises up my oesophagus as a film reel of girls and guys stumbling into his room assault me… should I have helped them? I guess regrets and despair are the only things I’ll ever have for thinking he was my friend.

Slamming the door on that dark chapter of my life I make my way to Dustan’s room, and even though no one has been in there since the summer it still smells of fresh lemon bleach and awkwardness. I’ve not seen him since we left for the supermarket when we were at mine during the summer. He said he’d been called back to school for coding work on his project and had to leave immediately and that was the last we heard of him.

I never questioned it at the time because the moment I realised K was gone, nothing else existed. But now, after having time to reflect on Dustan’s sudden departure, I realise things don’t add up, especially considering none of us have heard hide nor hair from him since that day and I just can’t work out why he’s gone radio silent.

When I called him and it just rang out til the number disconnected and all my texts before that went unanswered. The question is why? Why ignore me, Tyler and Gale? What did we do and where the fuck is he? None of us have seen him around uni either; it’s like he’s become a ghost.

Closing his door I move through mine, Gale’s and Tyler’s rooms onto the bathroom, kitchen and lounge making sure we’ve cleared everything out. All empty save for the furniture that was here when we came, no sign that we were here left behind. This place is like a graveyard of broken dreams where the scent of death hangs in the air, suffocating me.

Making my way back to the front door, feet heavily laden with all the emotional baggage I’ve accumulated over the last term I shut the front door and lock up. This is not a farewell, this is the end. An end to what could have been some of the best years of my life that are now tainted by a disastrous summer. One I survived, but barely. One where I lived more than I ever have, and one where I died a thousand deaths.

Throwing the keys at Tyler he snatches them out of the air without looking up from his phone. “You good?” He looks up, his broken gaze skipping over me as he takes a drag from his fag, a new habit he started after the summer that will forever haunt us.

“Yup,” he says, his words laced with smoke. “I guess the next time I see you both will be at graduation next June.” He tries to sound hopeful for the future we once thought would be our beginning, but now it’s a noose around our necks, dragging us down into a dark abyss.

“Yeah,” I huff, rubbing my hand across my nape as my skin prickles at the thought of that much time passing when I’m missing my heart and soul. “I guess it will be; what with my residency next year after finals, it’ll probably be the last time we see each other.”

“Yup.” He pops the p before taking another drag and the paper burns down to the filter. He flicks it across the payment before slipping into his car, the engine starts with a rumbling groan. The fuel pipe rattles as he gives it rev, sticking his hand out the open window he gives me a two fingered salute leaving me standing there in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

I kick away the Coke can that’s rolled up to my foot and stomp over to the van. Pulling open the door I fling myself inside before I can convince myself going home is the worst idea in the world.

Gale flinches as I slam the door shut. “Fuck.” He curses, shaking his head as he sticks the key in the ignition. “You ready for this?”

“Don’t think I ever will be… But I’m hoping we’ll find some answers as to what really happened.” Dread coils in my gut, festering like a soul sucking leech slowly draining me of everything. Every day I wake up and put one foot in front of the other like I’m running on autopilot. It’s hard, so fucking hard. I’m tired, not just exhausted but it’s a bone deep, a year’s worth of sleep wouldn’t cure it.

“I hope so for your sake, ‘cause it fucking hurts seeing you like this, Rhys.” I shrug because what else can I do. It hurts him? He should try being me, finding the love of your life only to have them disappear into thin air without so much as a goodbye. No warning, nothing. Just fucking gone, ripping you to pieces just when you thought things were finally going right.

Yeah, it hurts like a fucking dagger to the heart.